Question about one way and round trip tickets

[vandeluca]

Question: Today my spouse took a trip out of the US to visit his dad who has cancer-probably will be gone +/- one week. Anyway, I was the one who booked the ticket and booked a one way ticket as we needed to wait and see how the father procedure went before booking the return (otherwise you face the change penalty and change fee). Also, I did not like the prices on the Return leg on the outbound airline..so I am hoping a cheaper fare comes up in the next day or 2..on an alternate airline.

Anyway, my husband has his GC from his Canadian citizenship, but he was travelling to his country of birth(also a citizen there). Because it was a one way, the person at the counter/airline rep used his Jamaican passport instead of the Canadian, because he had a one way ticket. I should add that she said he cannot travel as a PR on a one way ticket-that was the issue and therefore had to prove why he can travel one way.

I think this is a mistake b/c to me she still should have registered his trip via CDN passport while he showed the Jcan proof as having an ability/validity for a one way ticket.

I don't know if the person did not know what to do or what...but now I am wondering how that will affect him on return next week b/c of how this woman put this on the system. (BTW..we have never had it done this way before..PRIOR to GC , any trip we made to the US he would travel on his CDN passport and even when leaving when they would ask about the one way he would just show (not for regsitering ) that he also held JA citizenship, but they put his CDN passport on record. The Jcan passport has no visa, etc so I am annoyed this happened.

Again, should I not even analyze this??? I just don't need an airline agent making problems for us for no reason.

 

[König]

The airline check-in agent was very careful because Canadians entering Jamaica with one-way ticket can theoretically be sent back at airline's expense, so he should enter Jamaica on Jamaican passport. It has nothing to do with his US PR status on Canadian passport. Anyway, it should not be an issue for him re-entering the USA with Canadian passport + GC.

 

[Jackolantern]

Returning to the US with a one-way ticket is not a problem as far as the GC is concerned. A GC holder should enter the US with a one-way ticket, or on the return leg of a return ticket. The potential problem is with entering the US with a return ticket that has the return stage ending outside the US.

 

[vandeluca]

Actually me spouting my mouth off..she was a supervisor..lol..

BUT..The reason I had mentioned this is because I cannot tell you over say 15 years of travelling as a visitor (for him) to the US we ALWAYS had RT tickets BACK to Jamaica,since we originated there...And IF they bothered to question the one way (which was maybe 1-2 times over 15 years) I showed my visa for JA in my US passport and he just showed is JA passport. In fact the one time way back he checked in using the JA passport to return back to JA and the agent would not let him check in that way (telling him he needed a GC to have gotten here to begin with) and made him use CA passport since that is how he arrived/visited at the time..But they never made him actually check in with the JA passport-maybe just ID/proof.

ANyway..thanks alot...It was just past experience/overanalysis that made me start to think..lol..

And finally, which brings me to another thought..I am so surprised how many workers in the airline industry/at the service counter in the US don't realize that one can legally have have multi-national passport/citizenships..Not talking small airports but large one on East coast..

Anyway..thank you! Won't worry.

 

[Jackolantern]

In fact the one time way back he checked in using the JA passport to return back to JA and the agent would not let him check in that way (telling him he needed a GC to have gotten here to begin with) and made him use CA passport since that is how he arrived/visited at the time..

Now that is stupid. So what if somebody is here illegally? They're LEAVING the US! It's not the airline's responsibility to stop illegal aliens from leaving the country. If somebody is here illegally, the US government is glad to see them leave.

 

[pmpforgc]

GC holder Entered and went out of us

Returning to the US with a one-way ticket is not a problem as far as the GC is concerned. A GC holder should enter the US with a one-way ticket, or on the return leg of a return ticket. The potential problem is with entering the US with a return ticket that has the return stage ending outside the US.

Jack

I am just wanted some more info on last line here.

I know one gc holder who entered US (after over 2.5 yrs of absense with valid REP) with return ticket to go back to home country. and went back in three days to home country.

I was surprised this LPR didnot face any issue though entered US with retun ticket. can you suggest why?

 

[sanjoseaug20]

I know one gc holder who entered US (after over 2.5 yrs of absense with valid REP) with return ticket to go back to home country. and went back in three days to home country.

I was surprised this LPR did not face any issue though entered US with retun ticket. can you suggest why?

They usually profile people for questioning either based on look and feel in terms of how they answer the questions, or based on computer flags. The basic requirement for entry is passport and visa (immigrant, non-immigrant), and if that is satisfied and there are no other reasons to investigate further, they will just waive them through.

Also, what you are expecting will happen if CBP had infinite resources to scrutinize everyone entering. They don't. So it is a kind of sampling. And even if they did infinite resources, this will imply everyone with over a 6 month trip getting interrogated, and I guess the bigger problems then will be civil rights groups shouting hoarse about the mis-treatment.

 

[pmpforgc]

I think the should stop all those

They usually profile people for questioning either based on look and feel in terms of how they answer the questions, or based on computer flags. The basic requirement for entry is passport and visa (immigrant, non-immigrant), and if that is satisfied and there are no other reasons to investigate further, they will just waive them through.

Also, what you are expecting will happen if CBP had infinite resources to scrutinize everyone entering. They don't. So it is a kind of sampling. And even if they did infinite resources, this will imply everyone with over a 6 month trip getting interrogated, and I guess the bigger problems then will be civil rights groups shouting hoarse about the mis-treatment.

Only occessional and selective consequences for breaking the law and allowing people to go without any consequence for not following rules is really dangerous for long run. rules are meant to follow. If you only catch people occessionally , people start to take most of the rules lightly. That is what has happened with US immigration system and also at cbp. No one should care what ACLU will think when implementing legal system.

does cbp take actions if some one annonomouly inform about past breing of law. or they will still sleep and ignore the information about law breaking

 

[Jackolantern]

I know one gc holder who entered US (after over 2.5 yrs of absense with valid REP) with return ticket to go back to home country. and went back in three days to home country.

I was surprised this LPR didnot face any issue though entered US with retun ticket. can you suggest why?

That's probably because they had a reentry permit. With a valid reentry permit in hand, they'll rarely hassle you at the port of entry if you don't also have an extensive history of being outside the US before the reentry permit. So the officer saw the reentry permit and didn't care to ask about the ticket.