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 THE ABC'S OF IMMIGRATION - VISA REVALIDATION
In light of the recent changes announced to the visa revalidation process, this week we will focus on the issue.
Obtaining entry to the US involves two separate steps. First, the applicant must receive permission from the State Department in the form of a visa. Second, the applicant must, at the border, be admitted by an INS inspector and given an I-94, used to track entries and determine one’s authorized stay in the US. The expiration dates for the visa and the I-94 do not have to be the same, and indeed, they refer to two different things. Because the visa gives a person permission to apply for entry to the US, that application must be made before the expiration date of the visa. The I-94 expiration date indicates the date through which the person can legally remain in the US. As long as a person is in possession of a valid, unexpired I-94, they are lawfully present in the US even if the visa with which they applied for entry has expired.
Visa revalidation is a legal fiction. The concept is that a person seeking reentry under specific circumstances with an expired visa will be deemed to have a visa valid through the date on which reentry is sought. The concept has been particularly helpful because so long as the applicant for a new visa had an unexpired I-94, even if they did not receive the new visa at the consulate, they could reenter the US with that I-94. This was the case even if the old visa may have expired so long as they had not been outside the US for more than 30 days and had only gone to contiguous territories.
The new rule announced this week, that will go into effect on April 1, 2002, significantly changes the previous system. Nationals of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria will no longer be eligible for visa revalidation. Therefore, they must have an unexpired visa if they seek to reenter the US. Moreover, because nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria, along with those 21 other countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Dijbouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen) are subject to a 20 day waiting period when applying for a visa, relying on visa revalidation is in most cases, no longer as attractive of an option.
However, those nationals from the list of 26 countries, and everyone else who is not subject to the new bar on visa revalidation, can in some cases still use visa revalidation. For example, if the person is going to Canada or Mexico purely for business or pleasure, and is not seeking a new visa, they can use visa revalidation to reenter the US.
The most significant change to revalidation procedures, and the one that will effect the most people, is that anyone who applies for a visa in Canada or Mexico and is, for whatever reason denied, cannot use the visa revalidation procedure the reenter the US.
The new procedures effectively limit visa revalidation to situations in which the person is going to Canada or Mexico for less than 30 days and will not be seeking a new visa. Moreover, because visa revalidation will no longer be available to those who have had their application for a visa denied, only those who are certain they will be granted the new visa should make an application.
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