At POE: Manually look up my record -- GC optimal stripe damaged?

I

implicit

New Member
Hi,

when entering the US by plane yesterday, I handed the officer my passport, green card, and customs form. This time, something happened that has never happend before: The officer asked my date of birth, and entered it into his computer (he probably asked because the year is printed on the logo on my green card, so it is very hard to read). Then he sighed, I assume because there were too many green cards with that birthdate. He then started typing in my last name, and then said "ah here we go", and then read out my first name based on the match he found on his screen, had me confirm it with "yes!", and then proceeded to take fingerprints and pictures.

If I remember correctly in the past, they always had my record on the screen right away, I assume by scanning my green card. The officer didn't say anything about my green card not being scannable any more. I did notice a few scratches in the big reflective stripe on the back.

When checking in with the airline, they still scanned my green card just fine, although I think they always scan the stuff at the bottom on the front, rather than the stripe on the back.

I should have asked the officer, if my card was unreadable, or whether e.g. his scanner didn't work that day, but unfortunately I didn't. I hope I won't have to do the I-90 replacement procedure, so I guess all I can do is wait and see what happens the next time I enter the US.

Here are my questions for you:
1. Has anyone else ever noticed that their GC was manually pulled up at the POE rather than automatically by scanning the green card? Any reasons/explanations given?

2. Does anyone else have scratches on thier magnetic strip of the green card? Does it still work for scanning? The scratches on my card are def. not very deep, it just happened through normal frequent handling of the card.


Thanks.
 
It doesn't matter if the card has a scratch or not! The Officers are required to validate the card and the information in it, in many different ways just to make sure that you & the card have a good match.

Sometimes the Officer would swipe the card and see the information on the screen and match that with the passenger manifest. Most of the times, the Offier would just enter the data into the manifest and match your name with it and swipe the card after that to make sure that you actually travelled in the plane and that you are the one who should be holding it.

I have experienced in the past with this situation at least two times. My first name has been shorted to an initial in my GC so I would have hard time in getting the name matching successfully the first time. But, I didn't have issues with that though.

Good luck
howdy_howdy
//
 
I see.

I didn't realize that he would try to do such a match e.g. against the passenger manifest. So when he asked me for that info, it could well have been for the manifest lookup.

I guess if the card was defective and needed to be replaced, he would have told me, so I'm not going to worry.

Thanks.
 
They dont have enough time to match with passenger manifest unless there is an issue.
May when you are sent to secondary inspection.
 
When I had a GC, my card was not scannable a few times (based on my observation rather than officer telling me anything). The officer entered the data manually. This is not a big issue, and does not require immediate card replacement. It is USCIS's problem - not yours, and if they want to - they will ask you to order a replacement.

I also do not recall any questioning due to scanning issue.
 
I believe they only need your full name and date of birth to find a match in the database.

When I was in process of getting a GC replacement by filing I-90, I got a stamp in my passport (processed for I-551 or something like that). I traveled to Canada with just my passport, and on the way back, the officer would only scan my passport and would not even open the page where the temporary stamp was. Of course, I informed her of my situation, but she probably did not need to look at the stamp or manually enter the A number unless there was no hit. Scanning my passport took exactly the same time as scanning my wife's GC.
 
König said:
When I was in process of getting a GC replacement by filing I-90, I got a stamp in my passport (processed for I-551 or something like that). I traveled to Canada with just my passport, and on the way back, the officer would only scan my passport and would not even open the page where the temporary stamp was. Of course, I informed her of my situation, but she probably did not need to look at the stamp or manually enter the A number unless there was no hit. Scanning my passport took exactly the same time as scanning my wife's GC.
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Your must be from a country whose citizens don't require a visa or green card to visit Canada. Otherwise they would have stopped to look at your I-551 stamp.
 
Jackolantern said:
Your must be from a country whose citizens don't require a visa or green card to visit Canada. Otherwise they would have stopped to look at your I-551 stamp.
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You misunderstood my post. The US CBP agent did not look at my I-551 stamp upon returning to the USA. Therefore, I concluded that they can look-up my A# record just by name and birthday.

The Canadian border agent actually looked at my I-551 stamp. She asked my wife and my parents if they all have GC, and then said: "Have a good time in Canada" without even looking at their documents :eek: We are originally from the country that does not have visa waiver agreement with Canada.
 
König said:
You misunderstood my post. The US CBP agent did not look at my I-551 stamp upon returning to the USA. Therefore, I concluded that they can look-up my A# record just by name and birthday.
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Interesting. But given that you have a machine-readable passport that was scanned by the officer (assuming you meant machine scan when you wrote "scan", not a visual scan) it is more likely that your passport number is what was used to locate your US immigration records. Only one person in the world has a passport from your country with that passport number, so that can easily be used as a unique identifier to locate your records, unlike name and DOB which may produce multiple matches.

If you had renewed your passport (and the renewed one has a different number) after GC approval without USCIS knowing about it, scanning the passport may have failed to find anything in their database, resulting in them having to look for the I-551 stamp or use other information to find your records.
 
Jackolantern said:
If you had renewed your passport (and the renewed one has a different number) after GC approval without USCIS knowing about it, scanning the passport may have failed to find anything in their database, resulting in them having to look for the I-551 stamp or use other information to find your records.
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Actually, my passport was indeed new. I renewed it in my birth country, so the CBP could link my A# and my passport number when I entered the US with my new passport? Or maybe the USCIS could enter the passport number when they put a I-551 stamp in it? If none of the above happened, then it means they really link my name and birthday with the A#.
 
König said:
Actually, my passport was indeed new. I renewed it in my birth country, so the CBP could link my A# and my passport number when I entered the US with my new passport?
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Yes, they probably did link the new passport to your A# when you entered the US back then.
Or maybe the USCIS could enter the passport number when they put a I-551 stamp in it?
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It's probably when you applied for the green card that they associated the passport number with your A#. Because you had to submit copies of the passport pages when applying (if you got your green card via adjustment of status) or you had to submit the passport itself if you applied for the GC via a consulate. However, if your passport number changes when you renew it (like what happens with my country), they wouldn't know about the new passport number until you used the new one to enter the US.
 
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