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April 10, 2014

A wide variety of visitors and business travelers to the United States are often stunned to learn that the end date of the period of lawful admission granted upon arrival at a Port of Entry is not the same as the end date of the validity period shown on the face of the visa that was presented for admission. In short a visa is a machine-readable secure stamp issued into the passport at a US embassy or Consulate outside the United States, only valid for entry into the US from abroad. An I-94 is a paper or electronic record of lawful admission created for the traveler by an Inspections Officer of US Customs & Border Protection, which determines what temporary visa status the traveler holds once inside the US, and how long the traveler is allowed to remain in the US. Learn more about what the differences are between a visa and an I-94.

This blog post offers some examples of the many different situations in which the visa (entry document) and the I-94 (status document) do not have the same end date, and explaining why.

Admission as a Visitor with a B1-B2 Visa

A visitor visa may be issued to a national of any country not authorized to participate in the Visa Waiver Program. Although the visa is valid typically for either ten years or five years, the visitor will be admitted for a period of authorized stay that is no more than 6 months, and may be less. The I-94 reflects the purpose for which the visitor was admitted- Even if a traveler has a valid B1-B2 visa, he or she still has the burden of proving upon each admission that there is a specific lawful, temporary, and finite purpose for that visit, and a permanent residence abroad to which the traveler will return. Even past compliance with the terms of visitor visa status during previous stays is no guarantee that you will be readmitted as a visitor on the next trip.

Reciprocity Schedules

Certain countries have limits on the validity of some visa types for Americans, so in return the US correspondingly limits the validity of similar visas for nationals of those countries, even where the validity of the underlying approved work visa petition by a US employer may be longer. For instance, nationals of most countries are eligible to receive H-1B work visas valid for the full three-year validity of the underlying petition, but nationals of China and certain other countries are not: the reciprocity schedule limits nationals of China to an H-1B visa stamp valid for a maximum of one year and multiple entries, or an O-1 visa valid for only three months and one entry. Even O-1 “aliens of extraordinary ability” can be unpleasantly surprised by reciprocity issues- the history of this visa as originally conceived for performing artists often impacts business O-1 travelers from China, Brazil and others.

Passport Expiration

In most cases, a person traveling on a work visa will be admitted for the validity period of the underlying approved petition, or for the standard two-year period on an E visa, but CBP Inspections Officers have some discretion, and may choose to admit the traveler only until the date of passport expiration. Once a new passport has been obtained, the traveler must present both the expired passport containing the valid visa stamp, and the new passport: this leads to admission with the entry “VIOPP” stamped in the valid passport (meaning “visa in other passport”).

Certain Visa Types:

For some types of work visas that are not or need not be based on an underlying petition approved by USCIS, standard admission periods are set by regulation. Holders of E-1 Treaty Trader visas, E-2 Treaty Investor visas, and E-3 Australian treaty professionals are admitted for two years from date of admission. H-1B1 treaty nationals of Chile and Singapore are admitted for a maximum of 18 months. Valid maintenance of status issues may arise for E-3 and H-1B1 workers have a still-valid I -94 admission record, but the approved Labor Condition Application has expired. Another common problem arises with dependents of an E worker who enter the US and do not travel frequently with the principal visa holder, where the dependents have I-94s valid for two years from the date of their original entry, but forget to travel or apply to extend status, and fall out of status because they mistakenly believe their stay is automatically extended whenever the principal worker travels.

F &J Admission for D/S: Students, scholars, and other classes of exchange visitors are not admitted until a specific date, but for duration of status, annotated as “D/S”. For these travelers, their status documents once admitted to the United States include both the I-94 admission record, and the most current Form I-20 issued by the school or a Form DS-2019 issued by the exchange program sponsor.

These are some of the many instances in which the end date of an authorized period of admission will be different from the ending validity date on the face of the visa stamp, but this is not an exhaustive list. If you want to know more about your specific situation, consult with an attorney, and show the documents about which you have questions.

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