anyone face this

B

bhoonbhu

Registered Users (C)
:confused: Hello all.....wanted to share my wife's experience while travelling from bombay to detroit.

She has her passport stamped with I-551 (still waiting for the actual card). At bombay the immigration officer would not let her pass through, questioning the validity of the stamp. Luckily she had the "welcome letter" and only after he saw that did he let her clear immigration.

don't know if he was just trying to create trouble or what .

my question is I have to travel in may and I didn't get any welcome letter; is there any other proof one can carry??


our case was transferred to local office so I don't have a letter mentioning the 485 approval

any thoughts/suggestions gurus.....
 
show him AP if you have one. Otherwise tell the immigration officer to call his supervisor who should know better (go to airport early so that you will have enough time to fight them without missing your flight). If you are on legally correct grounds, then you will win in the end.
 
If an officer does let you thru, can you back up and go to another line?
Or "not let one thru" means he will also place you in custody and will
physically escort you to a return flight?
 
AmericanWannabe said:
If an officer does let you thru, can you back up and go to another line? Or "not let one thru" means he will also place you in custody and will physically escort you to a return flight?
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Return flight to where? She was returning from India to the US.

Help me out here, folks, since I've never been to India. Since when does Indian immigration give a darn about wether the US will let you in? The airline has a stake in it, since if you're denied entry they have to pay to fly you back. But the Indian government?
 
TheRealCanadian said:
Return flight to where? She was returning from India to the US.

Help me out here, folks, since I've never been to India. Since when does Indian immigration give a darn about wether the US will let you in? The airline has a stake in it, since if you're denied entry they have to pay to fly you back. But the Indian government?
Click to expand...

Sorry. I did not read it carefully. I thought she was held up at US immigration (but would my question still be worth answering if it were US immigration?)

As to whether Indian immigration cares about whether US immigration let a passenger in, I heard that often two countries have agreement in cooperation. So your departure country immigration is obligated to
help arrival country immigration. Or immigration and airliner have mutual agreement too.
 
AmericanWannabe said:
I heard that often two countries have agreement in cooperation. So your departure country immigration is obligated to
help arrival country immigration. Or immigration and airliner have mutual agreement too.
Click to expand...

That would be very surprising to me. I've never encountered this travelling from Canada to the US (but then again their relationship is so close that I clear US immigration while still on Canadian soil). Never ran into it in the United Kingdom or the Netherlands, either.

Anyone else got some feedback on this?
 
TheRealCanadian said:
That would be very surprising to me. I've never encountered this travelling from Canada to the US (but then again their relationship is so close that I clear US immigration while still on Canadian soil). Never ran into it in the United Kingdom or the Netherlands, either.

Anyone else got some feedback on this?
Click to expand...

Canada is always an exception. US immigration moved its operation to Canada. As for other countries, I was checked at French airports
before I came back to US. but I did not know the inspecter was a french immigration officer ot juts airline staff. Perhaps people treat them as same
in this situation. But the results are the same. If they do not trust your
passport stamp, they won't let you pass.
 
I travel regularly from Brussels to the USA. Whilst traveling with my AP, I have always been scrutinized at the check-in in Brussels - managers have always been involved and demonstrated knowledge on this matter.

Next week will be the first time I board from Brussels to the USA with my I551 stamp... we shall see :)
 
Galto2000 said:
I have always been scrutinized at the check-in in Brussels - managers have always been involved and demonstrated knowledge on this matter.
Click to expand...

Just so we're clear, those are airline employees, right?
 
In India it's a little different.....one is "inspected" while exiting the country by "immigration staff". The problem is most of these people have li'l or no knowledge of the I-551 stamp (on the flip side even if they do; they'll try to con people out of money).

one would think that if the airline lets you check in, immigration shouldn't have a problem....but I don't know.

my question still remains what to do if they give you a hard time?? can one go the local US consulate and ask for some sort of "letter"??
 
bhoonbhu said:
:
my question is I have to travel in may and I didn't get any welcome letter; is there any other proof one can carry??
Click to expand...

Do you have a copy of I-485 approval noice? If so, you can show that copy too.
 
bhoonbhu said:
my question still remains what to do if they give you a hard time?? can one go the local US consulate and ask for some sort of "letter"??
Click to expand...

I hope so. That's the only option (seeking help at consulate) I can think of in that kind of situation.
 
US requires that airlines personnel check visa and travel documents of passengers travelling into US. If they let someone fly into US without valid documents, the airline gets fined $10,000 per violation.
 
TheRealCanadian said:
but then again their relationship is so close that I clear US immigration while still on Canadian soil
Click to expand...

As a Canadian now resident in the US, I often wondered about why the US has it's immigration on Canadian soil... I think it has less to do with the closeness of the relationship and more to do with logistics. Canadian airports serve all sorts of American cities -- it's simply less expensive to have US immigration in a few Canadian airports than all the US airports they serve (some of which are not 'international').
 
bhoonbhu said:
In India it's a little different.....one is "inspected" while exiting the country by "immigration staff". The problem is most of these people have li'l or no knowledge of the I-551 stamp (on the flip side even if they do; they'll try to con people out of money).

one would think that if the airline lets you check in, immigration shouldn't have a problem....but I don't know.

my question still remains what to do if they give you a hard time?? can one go the local US consulate and ask for some sort of "letter"??
Click to expand...


I agree that in India it is little different...immigration officials check for the validity of the visa...
it is hard to believe that immigration officials don't know about us immigration policy...one can learn in couple of days considering the daily traffic between India and US...most probably he might be trying his luck for some money...

-rajum
 
Looks like there is a lot of confusion here! When you leave india, the official is only checking for a valid visa on the request of the airline, you can't expect him to know about US immigration laws as he is making only a cursory check, so it would be better to explain the situation to him. Also these guys see hundreds of different visa types every day so don't exect them to learn all the types in a couple of days. Again at this point it is very difficult for him to accept a bribe as its done openly with monitoring, so don't try to do something like that!

rajum said:
I agree that in India it is little different...immigration officials check for the validity of the visa...
it is hard to believe that immigration officials don't know about us immigration policy...one can learn in couple of days considering the daily traffic between India and US...most probably he might be trying his luck for some money...

-rajum
Click to expand...
 
Here's my experience in India while travelling back to US

Immigration Official looks at I-551 stamp (that time i didn't had plastic card) and asks "is this a valid visa? where is your green card??"

I answered him politely "Yes, its a temporary GC card valid for 1 year which has A# which is same as that you find in Plastic Card. If you still want to know any other photo ID, look at my driver's licence". He understood and let me go.

I think if you confidently explain them in detail it works 90% of time.
 
hipka said:
Again at this point it is very difficult for him to accept a bribe as its done openly with monitoring, so don't try to do something like that!
Click to expand...
Can't help but roll on the floor laughing ...
 
1. Immigration officers in India get paid well enough. They do not accept bribes as a rule and do not need to. ( it is a society in transition folks, get over this notion that one can bribe one's way through everywhere in India)
2. Much of this is a hold over from the old days when one needed emigration clearance to leave India. The sole role of the immigration officer for departing Indian Citizensin India today is to make sure that the departing Indian citizen is not wanted by the law/ is not a terrrism watch list. or non Indian citizens they have to make sure that they have not overstayed their visa etc.,
3. The airline has the duty to chek your visa at departure. Until a few years ago the state run Ailine Air India handled the majority of international flights departing from most Indian airports and therefore the lines were blurred.
4. Most airports in India are run by the govt. through the Airport authority of India which is a aging, mindless beuracracy and inists on this procedure. If you have departed from Cochin which is a private airport you would have noticed that these 'immigration' offcials do not have a ubiquitous presence.
5. these are Indian immigration officials. Most of them are educated and knowledgeabel regaridng requiremnts for entry INTO India. they obviously cannot know the entry requirements to every country in the world. On this board we are all immigrants to the US and hence we know the requirments. Would a USCIS officer know the entry requrements to India??
6. Things are not `different' in India. It is eficeient and most things are monitored and work as well as any other `western' ( now is that a synonym for developed- I disagree) nation.
 
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