Just one copy of AP to travel Help!

M

mvusa

Registered Users (C)
Hello Everyone. I need to travel to my country to visit my grandmother who is very sick. I only have one original copy of AP. I called my lawyer and he tells me he has no other copy that they just sent ONE original. He also said that I might experience problems upon re-entering but after a little arguing they'll let me in????? because they have been asking for two copies?

Have anyone experience this before? How many copies are there supposed to be? This is my third renewal of AP, and only one original paper.

Please advise! Urgent.

Regards,
 
Ap

mvusa,
You only need one copy to travel. I travelled on AP last year, I just gave him one original & they stamp it. But When I board on Plane in Bombay, Officer over there asked me to surrender one original, but I argued with him & did gave him a photocopy.
Two month after my daughter came, they took one original form her....
 
You need TWO for first time entry

If you had already validated your AP, all you need is just ONE copy. If you are about to validate a newly approved AP, you need to have TWO. One will be retained by the Agent who will validate it at PoE, the other will be stamped and given to you.

Normally, you get THREE. I had FOUR APs and two of them were approved at the Service Center level and two of them were approved at the District Office.

Service Center always sent me 2 copies of AP, whereas District Office sent me 3 copies of AP -- 1 for me, 1 for the agent at PoE, and 1 for the Airline.
 
I have a question about AP. Do you always have to go through secondary inspection at PoE or does it depend on the aiport, immigration officer etc.?
 
Always have to go through inspection

gopherhound said:
I have a question about AP. Do you always have to go through secondary inspection at PoE or does it depend on the aiport, immigration officer etc.?
Click to expand...

goperhound,

You will have to go through secondary inspection at every PoE.

regards,

saras76
 
Not neccesarily true ..

poongunranar said:
If you had already validated your AP, all you need is just ONE copy. If you are about to validate a newly approved AP, you need to have TWO. One will be retained by the Agent who will validate it at PoE, the other will be stamped and given to you.

Normally, you get THREE. I had FOUR APs and two of them were approved at the Service Center level and two of them were approved at the District Office.

Service Center always sent me 2 copies of AP, whereas District Office sent me 3 copies of AP -- 1 for me, 1 for the agent at PoE, and 1 for the Airline.
Click to expand...

poong,

I am not sure of what the law is on this but my wife has travelled twice on her AP and she travelled with just one copy. No one asked to keep it. In fact my lawyer told us to never surrender any AP to anyone. The AP is stamped by the officer at the PoE and returned to the applicant. That has been our experience.

regards,

saras76
 
One copy

I had 3 APs for me and for my wife. I made copies. I carried one original and one copy with me. At POE we went thru 2ndry inpection. Inspector stamped our originals and returned them to us. He kept the copies for himself.
I hope none of us will need to use APs anymore soon.
 
Thank You everyone for your kind answers.
But I'm still puzzled. Why some of us receive just one copy (one original paper, nothing more) and others 2 and three?
OK just to make myself understand : I have only one original. I travel with that alone, that's it, correct?
Thanks again,
God Bless.
 
SARAS76 -- A Clarification

saras76 said:
goperhound,

You will have to go through secondary inspection at every PoE.

regards,

saras76
Click to expand...

Buddy, just to clarify that you WILL have to go through secondary inspection only for the very first time of validating the AP document. From there onwards, you don't need to go through PoE every time you enter. In my case, I had traveled close to 3 dozen times with 3 different APs. I was referred to Secondary Inspection only thrice, precisely to validate the doc. That's all.
 
Gone thro secondary inspection everytime except at Chicago OHare

poongunranar said:
Buddy, just to clarify that you WILL have to go through secondary inspection only for the very first time of validating the AP document. From there onwards, you don't need to go through PoE every time you enter. In my case, I had traveled close to 3 dozen times with 3 different APs. I was referred to Secondary Inspection only thrice, precisely to validate the doc. That's all.
Click to expand...
That is not my experience.
I have been through secondary inspection everytime I travelled on my current AP in DFW,LAX,JFK,EWR airports wasting more than 1 hour sometimes missing connecting flights. Twice I was lucky to arrive at Chicago OHare airport which seems to be the only exception where the drama of secondary inspection is not there.
Have always been wondering what is the purpose of secondary inspection when some of my trips are just 10 days apart.
 
saras76

saras76 said:
poong,

I am not sure of what the law is on this but my wife has travelled twice on her AP and she travelled with just one copy. No one asked to keep it. In fact my lawyer told us to never surrender any AP to anyone. The AP is stamped by the officer at the PoE and returned to the applicant. That has been our experience.

regards,

saras76
Click to expand...

Law (INA 211, 212, 223) doesn't explicitly state how many copies are to be provided. However, field regulations do. Please see below: Also, please note that when you have a MULTIPLE ENTRY advance parole and if you haven't validated the copy yet, they will definitely demand the other copy that they want to retain for themselves. Let me give you my personal experience. Having been in this forum for more than 3 years now, I was intimidated with this kind of confusion as early as 2003 too, regarding Advance Parole. So for the first time when I validated my first AP, I said, I am going to give them all the copies. Let them determine what they want to give me back. Now, the second and third time I validated my other new advance paroles, I wanted to test the theory of this forum. So, I specifically gave only 1 COPY -- i.e, my copy to see if the officer demands another copy to retain for their records. Sure enough he was like, "Sir, do you have another copy too?" And there we go, I was like, "Oops, sorry, here we go!" and handed over the other copy for their retention. So, I humbly believe that you need to have at least 2 copies the first time you validate it.

Below you will find the regulations that talk about "multiple" copies. Since, you were interested in the law, this is what you have regarding "multiple copies." There isn't anything in the law regarding "multiple copies" and hence this must be treated as faute de mieux.

USCIS Chapter 54.2 Revised 06-28-2005 said:
(2) Production and Delivery. If advance parole is approved, Form I-512 is issued. (For paroles approved at ports of entry, Form I-512 is not issued.) In preparing the Form I-512, pay particular attention to the following:



• The Remarks block of Form I-512 shall show the basis for parole.



• For I-512's issued by district offices, the alien's photograph must be affixed to the original and file copies of Form I-512. For single entry documents, the second "alien" copy shall be destroyed. For multiple entry I-512's, pictures must be affixed to both "alien" copies of the I-512, as one will be kept by the first port of entry and the second "alien" copy will be retained by the alien for future travel. If a multiple entry document is requested, an additional picture is required (in addition to the two pictures specified on I-131 instructions).



• Forms I-512 shall be impressed with the DHS masceration die so that the stamp is partly on the alien's photograph. (If an office has not yet received a DHS masceration die stamp, the INS masceration die stamp should be used.)
Click to expand...
http://uscis.gov/lpbin/lpext.dll/in...-frame.htm#afm-95-redacted-chapter-32-54-46-2
 
All my 3 dozen visits were in ONE port of entry

Dallas03096 said:
That is not my experience.
I have been through secondary inspection everytime I travelled on my current AP in DFW,LAX,JFK,EWR airports wasting more than 1 hour sometimes missing connecting flights. Twice I was lucky to arrive at Chicago OHare airport which seems to be the only exception where the drama of secondary inspection is not there.
Have always been wondering what is the purpose of secondary inspection when some of my trips are just 10 days apart.
Click to expand...

And my port of entry was YYC -- Calgary, AB, Canada.
 
poong

poong,

What you are saying makes sense. My wife travelled twice but on two different APs. One had expired already. So both times she had to go through PoE. Maybe if the went through the same PoE with a validated AP then she may not have to go through inspection.

As for surrendering the AP. The officer at both PoEs (New York and Atlanta) did not ask for any copy. They stamped her original, gave it back and did not ask for a copy for themselves.

regards,

saras76
 
mvusa

mvusa said:
Thank You everyone for your kind answers.
But I'm still puzzled. Why some of us receive just one copy (one original paper, nothing more) and others 2 and three?
OK just to make myself understand : I have only one original. I travel with that alone, that's it, correct?
Thanks again,
God Bless.
Click to expand...

mvusa,

It is strange that you have just one copy. Anyway, make a few copies of the original and take them with you. DO NOT SURRENDER your only original. If they ask for it (I don't think they will) then just give them the copy.

Do not worry to much here.

regards,

saras76
 
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