how do they know when you leave the country?

M

mrconfused

Registered Users (C)
I understand that when you enter the USA your documents are checked and the officer always asks me how long have i been gone.

However, i dont see how they know when you leave and thus cant be certain how long you are out of the country? Nobody ever asks for the green card on leaving? The reason for my post is that i travelled back from the UK last week and the person siting beside me had been out of the USA for almost a year. Infact he was only travelling back to file taxes and was then returning to Europe. He had a full green card (for 6 years) and said he just tells thenm he has been gone 2 weeks on re-entry?

How do INS know this or do they just go from what you say? the guy i travelled with with 100% sure he wouldnt have any problems and didnt seem to either.

Thanks
 
Hopefully someone else can answer you better, but from what I know, to leave the country they don't really require you to show anything but the passport and plane tickets. I know that because I have some friends that had been here illegally, and they didn't show the i-94 when they were leaving, therefore when they returned, immigration never knew when my friends actually left.
 
Before you board the airplane - the airline has to forward your information to the DHS [and they dont do it by pigeon carrier] this is 21st century.
 
I had this same question and I asked an immigration officer, I went with a friend of mine that was filling as a USC for his wife, and his wife (at this time already had the green card) was doing a Masters overseas.

So we asked "How can you prove or check that my wife was out of the country for more than a year? They usually don't check or stamp the passport when leaving the country"

Here answer (and enough for me to keep quite) was - "Mr. [his last name], trust me, we know, would you like me to check when was the last time your wife left?" My friend (a smart ass that he his) "Yes!"

Without even looking back at us or anything, she punched a key on her computer and said "January 20th, she took a flight out to Pennsylvania, same day she did a connection to London, would you like me to check other dates?" - That was enough for him and said "Thank you."

She later explained that airlines do report to DHS.
 
gnr5 said:
I had this same question and I asked an immigration officer, I went with a friend of mine that was filling as a USC for his wife, and his wife (at this time already had the green card) was doing a Masters overseas.

So we asked "How can you prove or check that my wife was out of the country for more than a year? They usually don't check or stamp the passport when leaving the country"

Here answer (and enough for me to keep quite) was - "Mr. [his last name], trust me, we know, would you like me to check when was the last time your wife left?" My friend (a smart ass that he his) "Yes!"

Without even looking back at us or anything, she punched a key on her computer and said "January 20th, she took a flight out to Pennsylvania, same day she did a connection to London, would you like me to check other dates?" - That was enough for him and said "Thank you."

She later explained that airlines do report to DHS.
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lol. make this a sticky for those who think they can "trick or fool" the system ;)
 
The person sitting beside you on the plane may get himself a free ticket back to his country one day, along with a permanent bar on re-entry to the US for committing immigration fraud.

I suppose along with assuming CBP doesn't have access to history of passenger data, he also doesn't trust the postal service to deliver tax documents.
 
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So does this mean that people who overstay their visas are also known by Border Security or USCIS? I read on other fora that such people often have no problem re-entering the US, though somebody once told me that he got into trouble for just staying a couple of days extra. Maybe they've upgraded the system in the last couple of years.
 
The person may not get caught the first, second or third time he does this, but one day it'll surely catch up with him.
 
For non-immigrant visas they would know when you leave US
Incase of GC holders there use to be no stamp on exit from US , so what ppl use to do after getting GC was to go back home and live there all the five years and then come back and get US passort, sounds rediculous, but trust me alot of ppl have done this and they are US citizen now. I don't know whats the latest situation.
 
xerostomic said:
Incase of GC holders there use to be no stamp on exit from US
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To this day I am amazed at the mythic qualities of an exit stamp. For the purposes of tracking, it is useless since it is data not in the physical custody of DHS.

sounds rediculous, but trust me alot of ppl have done this and they are US citizen now. I don't know whats the latest situation.
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Things have gotten a little better over the years. Massive databases make this kind of data aggregation a snap. If I was those people, I'd not sleep safely at night. One day some kid fresh out of college is going to a data mining project for DHS aggregating all this old data about people who lied on their N400.

The results probably won't be pretty, but there's not a lot of sympathy among immigrants or citizens for people who lie.
 
I am not showing sympathy to any one, I am pointing towards flaws in their system when they are creating problems for those who try to do things legally, but at the same time they knowingly let other to enjoy benifits by doing illegal things. It won't take them hours to enter the data of GC holder, but they don't do it deliberately and the consequeses I have mentioned. I am not telling you very old stories, ppl have done it untill a year ago. I don't know if they have improved their system in an year.
There are situations when their green cards should be cancelled for living out side of US (they don't even come to file tax papers), instead they get naturalized upon return to US.
 
xerostomic said:
There are situations when their green cards should be cancelled for living out side of US (they don't even come to file tax papers), instead they get naturalized upon return to US.
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Not so often these days, especially if they tell the truth about their travel exploits during the interview. Of course, if they lie and are naturalized, they are leaving the door open to being stripped of their US citizenship and deported later.
 
xerostomic, I agree with you the government needs to do more to enforce immigration laws and do so equally to all applicants. That said, I wouldn't characterize the case you mentioned (where someone breaks continuous residency and hides the fact) as the government "knowingly" awarding them with US citizenship when they are ineligible. The USCIS can't investigate every single fact in an application ... imagine a system with even longer wait times and higher fees than it currently is.

Imagine, for instance, if the IRS were to audit every tax filer so that all of us who report their taxes honestly don't pay the taxes for those who cheat. It would probably cost the taxpayers more than the occasional cheater costs. Similarly, if we investigate all details of every applicant for an immigrant petition, it might make the lives of "honest" immigrants more difficult just to root out the dishonest ones.

So why doesn't everyone cheat on their taxes? Because of random audits and because the IRS can ask you to back pay taxes you owed for 10 years, plus interest and penalties (and imprisonment, garnishing wages, all the good stuff ... don't mess with the IRS). Similarly, the threat of randomly being closer investigated by USCIS and having permanent residency or citizenship later revoked due to fraud should deter any rational minded, serious applicant for immigration from trying to commit fraud. Of course, there are always the ones who will try. But, if they want to live in a life of uncertainty of their and their family's future, that's their own choice.
 
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