USA Travel Questions
Nov 26, 2015, 1:42 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 1
USA Travel Questions
Hello,
I’ve been reading this forum for the last several hours and have got a lot of great information from it.
I had a couple questions of my own.
I apologize for the length of this post. But, I like to be thorough to get the proper answers. If you take the time to read it, then I thank you very much!
I am a Canadian citizen and met my girlfriend online, who is a US citizen and lives in the US. She was here previously in the last couple years and I went there for the first time in May. I was there for a little over three months. I was planning to go back there in the next month for 11 weeks, which would bring my total stay in the USA to around 176 days in a 12 month period.
I was also planning to go back there next summer for another few month trip.
My questions:
1: Would this bring up any problems for me with going there on several trips for multiple months at a time? I would never be going over the 182 rule that I believe is in place for Canadians visiting the USA. But, I wasn’t sure if multiple long trips to visit my girlfriend would bring up any issues.
2: I know a big part of entering the United States is showing an intention to return to your home country. I am currently unemployed and live with my parents. So, to show any ties to Canada, I would have the following.
-Active cell phone bill.
-Bank accounts, credit cards and Tax Free Savings Account investment portfolio.
-A scheduled medical procedure for when I return to Canada.
-A medication prescription that lasts until my date to return to Canada.
-Return flight to Canada.
-Travel medical insurance that expires for when my return flight to Canada is.
-Sufficient money to support myself while in the United States (At least ten thousand dollars.)
-Currently enrolled in school. But, with this, I don’t have very much money invested in it. It isn’t a college or university. It is just an adult education centre to obtain some credits I was missing. So, I’m not sure how much merit it would have for me, and I’ve only been actively enrolled for less than two months.
Would this be sufficient?
3: We are engaged now. Does it matter if I say I am going to visit my fiancé or should I stick with girlfriend? I’ve read conflicting information on this with some people saying that fiancé demonstrates that I may attempt to marry her while there but that by not saying fiancé, if they find out we’re engaged (such as by seeing reference to this on my laptop, for example), that it is far worse because then they think you intentionally tried to mislead them.
4: We were planning to file for a K-1 Visa for me sometime in the near future. Would it help to do this prior to going there to show that we’re attempting to navigate the system properly and legally? I’ve read conflicting information this as well.
If anyone could answer all or any of these questions it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance and thank you for the wealth of information provided within this site.
I’ve been reading this forum for the last several hours and have got a lot of great information from it.
I had a couple questions of my own.
I apologize for the length of this post. But, I like to be thorough to get the proper answers. If you take the time to read it, then I thank you very much!
I am a Canadian citizen and met my girlfriend online, who is a US citizen and lives in the US. She was here previously in the last couple years and I went there for the first time in May. I was there for a little over three months. I was planning to go back there in the next month for 11 weeks, which would bring my total stay in the USA to around 176 days in a 12 month period.
I was also planning to go back there next summer for another few month trip.
My questions:
1: Would this bring up any problems for me with going there on several trips for multiple months at a time? I would never be going over the 182 rule that I believe is in place for Canadians visiting the USA. But, I wasn’t sure if multiple long trips to visit my girlfriend would bring up any issues.
2: I know a big part of entering the United States is showing an intention to return to your home country. I am currently unemployed and live with my parents. So, to show any ties to Canada, I would have the following.
-Active cell phone bill.
-Bank accounts, credit cards and Tax Free Savings Account investment portfolio.
-A scheduled medical procedure for when I return to Canada.
-A medication prescription that lasts until my date to return to Canada.
-Return flight to Canada.
-Travel medical insurance that expires for when my return flight to Canada is.
-Sufficient money to support myself while in the United States (At least ten thousand dollars.)
-Currently enrolled in school. But, with this, I don’t have very much money invested in it. It isn’t a college or university. It is just an adult education centre to obtain some credits I was missing. So, I’m not sure how much merit it would have for me, and I’ve only been actively enrolled for less than two months.
Would this be sufficient?
3: We are engaged now. Does it matter if I say I am going to visit my fiancé or should I stick with girlfriend? I’ve read conflicting information on this with some people saying that fiancé demonstrates that I may attempt to marry her while there but that by not saying fiancé, if they find out we’re engaged (such as by seeing reference to this on my laptop, for example), that it is far worse because then they think you intentionally tried to mislead them.
4: We were planning to file for a K-1 Visa for me sometime in the near future. Would it help to do this prior to going there to show that we’re attempting to navigate the system properly and legally? I’ve read conflicting information this as well.
If anyone could answer all or any of these questions it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance and thank you for the wealth of information provided within this site.
Nov 29, 2015, 11:20 am
#3
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 117
1) Welcome to Flyertalk!
2) You mention Sufficient money to support myself while in the United States (At least ten thousand dollars.) It might be counterproductive to bring that much as cash or traveler's cheques; it would perhaps be better to have a week or two's worth of cash and the rest in a bank account that you can access by using an ATM card to withdraw additional cash while in the US. You could bring a recent bank statement showing the 8,000 or 9,000 balance to demonstrate that you can support yourself during your trip. I say this because having more than USD$ 10,000 in cash will require you to fill out some declaration forms for the US (and perhaps for the Canadians as well), and having nearly that much will look like you are deliberately avoiding the declaration limit. Sadly, many different levels of law enforcement in the US might be tempted to seize that much cash and then make you prove that it is not the proceeds of some criminal act to get it back.
2) You mention Sufficient money to support myself while in the United States (At least ten thousand dollars.) It might be counterproductive to bring that much as cash or traveler's cheques; it would perhaps be better to have a week or two's worth of cash and the rest in a bank account that you can access by using an ATM card to withdraw additional cash while in the US. You could bring a recent bank statement showing the 8,000 or 9,000 balance to demonstrate that you can support yourself during your trip. I say this because having more than USD$ 10,000 in cash will require you to fill out some declaration forms for the US (and perhaps for the Canadians as well), and having nearly that much will look like you are deliberately avoiding the declaration limit. Sadly, many different levels of law enforcement in the US might be tempted to seize that much cash and then make you prove that it is not the proceeds of some criminal act to get it back.
Dec 5, 2015, 6:44 pm
#4
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: USA
Programs: SA Air, Air Canada, KLM, BA,Lufthansa, United, AA, Hawaiian, Air New Zealnd, Qantas, Virgin Atlantic
Posts: 777
My first thought on the money question is, you are unemployed, would that bring up a question of where the money is coming from?
Dec 5, 2015, 7:07 pm
#5
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
TheFlyingSloth,
You have a high likelihood of being in a pickle of a situation sooner or later, unless and until you get a K-1 visa. But if you get the K-1 visa and don't act upon it soon thereafter, you may end up in a pickle of a situation again.
Most of the items you mentioned do not provide strong evidence of an intent to return to Canada, with the possible exception of the scheduled medical procedure and/or the class credits (if being used toward a degree completion program).
Long and repeatedly long trips to visit a significant other who may become a fiancee/spouse soon enough has significant odds of resulting in questions or even self-removal back to Canada prior to being granted entry to the US.
Personally, I think it's long overdue for the US and Canada to enter into some kind of Schengen-like agreement for migration purposes.
You have a high likelihood of being in a pickle of a situation sooner or later, unless and until you get a K-1 visa. But if you get the K-1 visa and don't act upon it soon thereafter, you may end up in a pickle of a situation again.
Most of the items you mentioned do not provide strong evidence of an intent to return to Canada, with the possible exception of the scheduled medical procedure and/or the class credits (if being used toward a degree completion program).
Long and repeatedly long trips to visit a significant other who may become a fiancee/spouse soon enough has significant odds of resulting in questions or even self-removal back to Canada prior to being granted entry to the US.
Personally, I think it's long overdue for the US and Canada to enter into some kind of Schengen-like agreement for migration purposes.
Dec 7, 2015, 2:49 am
#6
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: PNW
Programs: BAEC Silver, DL GM, AA Plat, NEXUS
Posts: 467
From Canada's perspective, such agreement wouldn't be in its favour because demographically speaking it only has a tenth of US population, therefore opening the border means opening the doors to 350M US folks and beyond (crossing the Mexico-US border will mean having a foot and half on canadian soil).
Dec 7, 2015, 10:43 am
#7
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: WAS
Programs: enjoyed being warm spit for a few years on CO/UA but now nothing :(
Posts: 2,505
A caveat regarding GU Wonder's comment about a K1: a K1 is not a magic pass that will make your travels easier by allowing you to go back and forth. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
A K1 is only valid for one visit within 180 days of approval (sometimes less with medical limitations) for a maximum stay of 90 days.
While it is certainly possible to enter the US with a pending K1, and it happens with some regularity especially for holders of a B1/2 or from a VWP country, keep in mind that trying to do so vastly increases the probability of being refused entry because the K1 is a de facto declaration of intention to immigrate (even if not definitive) because exceedingly rare is the K1 visa holder that does not petition to adjust status to remain in country after the marriage (more rare than Dan Savage's unicorns).
If you do the K1 and try to visit while it is pending be sure to depart from a pre-clearance station so that if denied at least the inconvenience is lessened.
