How would the Immigration Officer know the duration of your absence??

I

iseras

New Member
Hi everyone, I have a question.

I have a green card and have been away from the US for almost 2 years for educational reasons. I am a national of a country that has the visa waiver program. Whenever I enter the waiver country, I don't have any entry stamp because they don't stamp the passport. I also have no exit stamps from the US because the US doesn't have exit stamps. The only stamp i have are entry stamps INTO the US. So i'm wondering: if i return to the US, how will they know that i've been away for almost 2 years? There is no evidence on the passport whatsoever that shows when I left or when I entered another country, or any record of my departure from the US. So if i say i've been away for 1 month, how could they possibly know that I actually didn't? Obviously this is illegal and it's lying and I'm not saying i'm going to do that and in fact will probably give the green card up, but I'm just curious if that's doable without getting caught.
 
canada

Triple Citizen said:
Flight manifests.
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Flight manifest does not seem to be a fool proof way as anyone can exit the US by land border and fly out from Canada. Canada does not stamp the passport when you enter by land border. Though I am not sure if they stamp your passport when you board a flight from Canada.
 
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PHSESAaug said:
Flight manifest does not seem to be a fool proof way as anyone can exit the US by land border and fly out from Canada. Canada does not stamp the passport when you enter by land border. Though I am not sure if they stamp your passport when you board a flight from Canada.
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You have never heard that Canadian authotiry shared info with Americans ?
 
GotPR? said:
You have never heard that Canadian authotiry shared info with Americans ?
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For what? to determine how long a US PR has stayed outside the US. I would think they have far more important concerns like catching a suspected terrorist. Furthermore, I don't think Canadians whose flights don't enter the US would appreciate their flight manifests being shared with the US authorities.
 
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I know from personal experience that US authorities know which international flight a GC holder boarded out of Pearson airport.

PHSESAaug said:
Furthermore, I don't think Canadians whose flights don't enter the US would appreciate their flight manifests being shared with the US authorities.
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Triple Citizen said:
I know from personal experience that US authorities know which international flight a GC holder boarded out of Pearson airport.
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Interesting ... this flight never landed in the US?

Ghori, Based on this experience do you think Canadian flight manifests are readily available for a US border inspector or is it something that is requested on a case by case basis.

My point is this is not something that is handed over to them every day for every flight but will certainly be made available by Canadian authorities on request. There is a big difference between the two.
 
It was a Toronto-Frankfurt flight.
I believe they are shared routinely and without fail. Remember, both countries have the same problem. Green and Maple Card holders who think they are smarter than the authorities :)

PHSESAaug said:
Interesting ... this flight never landed in the US?

My point is this is not something that is handed over to them every day for every flight but will certainly be made available by Canadian authorities on request. There is a big difference between the two.
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PHSESAaug said:
My point is this is not something that is handed over to them every day for every flight but will certainly be made available by Canadian authorities on request. There is a big difference between the two.
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The information is shared regularly for every flight. But it is not necessarily sorted and correlated to every individual. However, if they suspect something, they can send you to the secondary inspection room where they can spend hours to query the data from all sorts of angles and interrogate you and find out if a certain Joe Public listed on a given flight is really you. Or when you apply for citizenship, they have even more time to study the data from different sources.
 
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PHSESAaug said:
My point is this is not something that is handed over to them every day for every flight but will certainly be made available by Canadian authorities on request. There is a big difference between the two.
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Any flight that crosses over US territory (or might) will have manifest data provided, without fail. Land crossing data is shared, without fail.

Other data is probably shared as well.
 
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