Short overseas travel with I-551

S

slytech

New Member
Ok, so i have I-551. Expires on 4/24/03. They told me i should have my plastic by then. I reside in US.

I'm a citizen of Ukraine, and listed as such on I-551.

Can i travel short term (15-25 days) without anything extra other then my Driver License and I-551? i'd like to travel to Belarus and maybe Russia to visit some friends and relatives.
 
That should not be a problem. The I-551 stamp on your passport is as good as the plastic green card.
 
Originally posted by slytech
hmm...

i dont have a passport, just a I-551 white paper card.
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat - no passport.
For one I was told to avoid travel until the plastic arrives, just to be safe.

But the real problem here is not having passport.
GC is good to return to US, but if you need to travel from US to some country that requires visa, where they supposed to put it, if you don't have passport?

Couple of lawyers I asked so far had no clue (imagine that :) )
The form I-131 allows to apply for reentry permit for LPR. It's my understanding reentry permit is only needed if the LPR leaves US for 6 mo, year or longer. But it mentioned somewhere in description that the same reentry permit can be used if the individual can not obtain the valid passport from their origin country.

Can anyone confirm if that is true?
 
I saw similar approvals

I saw quite a few people under refugee category during my wait on the day of stamping. All of them get similar cards. Based on which, if I am right, you will get a travel document which looks like an american passport in which you can have the visa stampings.

An immigration lawyer will be of help. Or other option is Department of State.
 
yes, you are talking about refugee travel document. But the case here is when you are not refugee
 
That's interesting!!!

gsweb,

That's interesting to know. If you are not a refugee, you should get your passport from your consulate here in the US. As I know, Indian consulate will issue a temporary passport rightaway and a regular one in normal process(about couple of months).

Also, I am curious to know, if you don't want to travel anywhere outside the US; is it ok not to renew your passport? B'coz my son's passport is due next year.

Is passport just a travel document or more than that?

Is it not a mandatory document at the time of citizenship?

My another question to you is a friend of mine lost her passport and worried about stamping when her I-485 approves. Is it ok if she doesn't get her passport by that time?
 
well, I did quite a lot of reading past few days on the subject and came up with few clues.

Am_Wannabe, you don't have to be refugee to be stateless, lot of people still face this situation, trust me. For one, if you recall the breakup of USSR, you will understand why some of us can't obtain nothing from embassies. Canada for example will ussue a travel document not only for refugees but stateless also, while USA only for refugees.

To travel you need either passport or travel document where the embassies stamp their entry Visas. Looks like for GC holder with no home passport the solution is I-131 reentry permit. It's also called white passport by some and unlike AP does look like passport. The embassies usually would stamp their visa there, but still need to check with them first. The problem is NSC takes 12 months now to process reentry permit according to their processing times. It sure sucks.

The other thing I learned is about so-called 'world citizen passport' that can be obtained easily and used for travel. And even lot of countries recognized those passports, it's still appears kinda fishy, cause the acceptance is by 'de-facto" (case per case). I read one woman for her WC passport confiscated as illegal in South Africa. Anyone can shed more light on WC passports issue?

I'll post more info when I find
 
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