Got flagged for visiting 3 months
 

I really need some help here, people. So I have an American girlfriend, both me and her flying back and forth to visit each other (I live in Greece, Europe). Now in October I went to visit her for 86 days so I got flagged and detained for approximately 45 minutes at MSP airport. Long story short, they questioned me, I told them I am a medical student in Greece and instead of studying here, I want to study where my girlfriend lives in order to spend some time together. I finally got let through after talking to a second officer and a few more questions. I then came back to Greece to take my exams and then my girlfriend visited me, so there was a good 3 months before I went back to MSP to visit her. Long story short again, I got detained again and this time they also went through my wallet, hand luggage and checked bag. The officer came back and said he appreciates that I am honest (he probably saw my books in the checked bag and saw I was telling the truth). I told him I am just following the law but if he thinks there's something I am doing wrong, he should tell me so I can fix it next time. He said that I am basically coming too often and that it seems like I am living in the US. This is not true. I am staying out of the US for at least the amount of time I was there. I usually stay between 1 and 2 months and the only time I went there for a long time was that one time I got flagged because I had a lot of time until my next exams. The officers at MSP in gerneral are nice besides their intimidating tone that I am guessing they have to have. He said he would suggest to get a B1/B2 visa instead of my ESTA, because next time I might not get admitted on the ESTA. I have now filed the application for a B1/B2 and I will have my interview at the US embassy here in Greece soon. My last visit was only for 7 weeks and I am planning on going back in November for 3 weeks only, because I will start my medical residency in Europe afterwards. It will have been about 5 months since I left at the end of May, so I am just hoping I will not get detained again, cause it is super annoying and I never did anything wrong. Do you guys think i am gonna be detained each and every time from now on just because I visited for 86 days once which was still within the 90-day max stay? I don't see what causes the problem really but I would really like to go through border protection like I used to in the past. You know.. Hello, I am here to visit my girlfriend, here's my fingerprint, here's my face for you to take a picture, have a nice rest of the day, goodbye sir!

Paragraphs please.

:confused:

Bring to your interview and carry with you when traveling the documentation that you are starting your residency in Greece and you will probably be ok. They want to make sure you are a visitor and not an immigrant. Evidence that you are starting residency in another country goes a long way to proving that.

Staying almost the 90 day maximum is a red flag that one is trying to use the visa waiver program to live in the United States which is not a proper or lawful use of the visa waiver program. The officers are trained to pull people aside who use almost the maximum, leave for a short time and then come back for another long visit to make sure they are not unlawfully using the visa waiver program. You shouldn't feel singled out for doing anything wrong; it sounds like you have done everything right (followed the rules by leaving on time; being honest when you came back; applying for a visa when advised).

Yes, you will probably be pulled aside ("detained") each time you travel here for a while due to your travel history and girlfriend here.

I agree in full with the above. The ability to present documentation of having an upcoming medical residency program in Europe will help, even in the event of having a visa.

I was thinking to just cut back on visiting for a while (it will have been 5 months since I left), following their suggestion of doing the B1/B2 and staying for 3 weeks only would be enough.

I want to do my residency in Germany, so I don't even know yet when it will start, because it can take a while until there is a free spot. Our plans are for us to move to Germany though, she will come live there with me, so there is no intention of illegally immigrating to the US. I don't understand why one would do that anyway. I am a law abiding European citizen and I was treated like a criminal because I stayed for almost 3 months once, when I have never done anything unlawful in my life. I mean, if I wanted to immigrate, I would do it the legal way and not base my immigration on lies.

The cbp officer made it sound like if I do the B1/B2 I will be ok, but I am still worried. I am even considering to just go through preclearance in Dublin next time, so that I am just being left alone when I arrive after so many hours of travelling.

Pre-clearance won't make any difference. The same standards are applied by CBP. But, if you are excluded, you are simply denied boarding. In a way, it is easier for CBP to do that. In addition, if you are detained at CBP at pre-clearance, you will likely miss your flight, whereas a couple of hours at MSP is annoying but can be built into your travel plans.

Rather than adjusting plans, why not see how things work with the new visa?

Applying for the B1/2 visa may have been a mistake as it it quite possible that it will be denied,(invalidating your ESTA). A large percentage of VWP eligible applicants are denied. You were given bad advice by CBP.

Well yeah, I guess I will just wait for my B1/B2 and see how it goes. At the time of the interview I can also ask what's going on exactly and if I need to follow certain steps. The fact that I will have followed what the CBP suggested in MSP and that I stayed out of the US for 5 months should hopefully be enough. Again, the officers were nice, they just questioned me a lot and suggested a visa instead of an esta. I just thought getting it over with in Dublin would be better so that I can enjoy my flight instead of worrying the whole time.

My ESTA is only valid until August. The CBP officer said I should do the B1/B2 and I also called the embassy and they said it's not a problem to have both the ESTA and the B1/B2 at the same time, so I am not worried about that. If anything, it shows I am following the law and turning in all the required paperwork.

CBP is paranoid about non-US, foreign medical graduates and their entering the U.S. and then attempting to change status once in the U.S. while seeking entry into the US healthcare industry. If you have too much stuff with you and official docs about your professional pursuits/certifications, all while having a potential American spouse in the horizon, they may make more of an issue of it than if you were without those. Until you can demonstrate ties to a non-US employer and have your own more permanent non-US domicile, you may be in a pickle of situation even with a visa, whether or not using CBP PreClearance. The only difference with the CBP PreClearance will be that you won't end up being locked up for hours or days at a CBP facility and then sent packing back to home on a long-haul flight out of there.

I was in a very similar situation when I was a student and visited my girlfriend (now my wife) twice a year for summer break and the break at the end of the winter semester.

I got lots of questions on how I was able to support myself and on the status of our relationship "When are you finally getting married.".

Luckily, although I stayed almost three months over the summers, I was never detained or sent to a secondary interrogation, maybe because all my visits aligned directly with the breaks and I always returned before the beginning of the new semester.

There is also a special process for clearing up obstacles that lead to secondary inspections. This might be an alternative to a visa: http://www.dhs.gov/dhs-trip

BTW, we now both live in Germany and getting the German residence permit for my wife was a breeze, took her maybe ten minutes to get her initial one.

Oh ok. I get it now. The thing is though, if you want to work legally in the US there is a way to do so following the law. I can't won't be able to work in the US as a doctor before passing the USMLE tests which would be another 2-3 years of studying. In 4 years I would be done with my residency in Germany or Greece so there's definitely no point in trying to lose so many years. I am native in Greek and German since I was born and raised in Germany, so there is no point at all for me to work in the US. Worst case I will just explain it to the CBP officer once I arrive. Again, it's not like they yelled at me or anything. They believed me. They asked all sorts of questions like if we are having plans on getting married. I just told them the truth, that we might consider it in the future, but for now I just wanna be done with univerity which is my first priority before we plan our future. They asked if I was planning to work in the US in the future and again, I just told the truth, that I want to do my residency in either Germany or Greece and that we are going to move there.

There really was no big problem at all and the secondary questioning never took longer than an hour, but it's still annoying after a 20 hour 3 segment flight from Greece or 13-15 hours when I fly in from Germany.

I guess I will just have to explain as well as possible the next time and hope they will understand. It still is a very unpleasant procedure though and I would prefer to unflag me somehow if possible, since I am not going to stay for a long time in the future and since I am probably not going to be visiting again for a while after November.

Thanks a lot, Alex! So that's to basically clear your name from being flagged, right? I am going to definitely submit that form once my B1/B2 visa is ready to make sure everything is ok before I leave. That link made my day lol.

DHS TRIP is basically useless for this kind of circumstance unless you've been misidentified or someone else has been misidentified as you.

Getting EU national residency status -- with some significant national-level exceptions -- is a breeze relative to getting US residency status, when it comes to standing "romantic" relationships.

The problem will be IF you are denied the visa (27%) Greek failure rate, you will have a hard time getting an ESTA as you will have to declare the refusal on your next ESTA application which will likely be denied.

Oh wow. I hope it goes well with my visa then, cause I have already started the process. Thanks for the info!

do yourself a great favor......avoid going to the paranoid USA, rather, invite your gf to Greece instead. Let her study in Greece if possible.
American immigration likes to give tough time to everyone crossing its borders. The Europeans are much better/nicer

Just ridiculous -- reminds me of The 10000 dollar cash limit. They establish clear specific limits -- how much cash you can carry, how long you can stay, etc, but then they want to harass people for going close to the limits. If they don't want people staying 86 days then they should make the limit 85 days and not bother anyone that stays 84. If they don't want people carrying 9950 dollars they should change the limit to 9949. What they really prefer is rules that are so arcane and confusing that it's impossible for anyone to follow them, so when there is clarity and people read and follow the rules it makes them unhappy because it's frustrating their plans to turn everyone into a felon.

That's why I asked the officer if I am doing something wrong and if I should cut back on visiting. I didn't get a clear answer on it, he just suggested for me to do the B1/B2 so i am doing that. I hope it works out. I guess it was just a mistake to stay for 3 months, but had I known, Iwouldn't have stayed so long. I just follow the law and took it once close to the limit but never went above. Anyway I really hope this turns out well. We are already having a very hard time being apart and if now one of us won't be able to visit anymore it's gonna make things more sad than they already are. Fingers crossed :)

I don't think they are paranoid, but definitely sometimes a little too strict. I am on the visa waiver, which means my country is not a big threat for the US and all I do is visit my girlfriend as a tourist. Nevertheless I get treated like I am about to do illegal stuff. If I wanted to immigrate, as a European citizen I would follow their simple steps to do so, but that's not what I want to do. I am just visiting until I finish university. I would prefer the legal way if I meant to become a US citizen and I would still be able to visit. Since there is no such intention, I am not filing paperwork for that. We don't want to get married at the moment and so I see no point in filing a fiance visa.

All I want is to be allowed to visit her 2-3 times a year like I did for the past 4 years. It's not easy just to have one party travel all the time. We both need to be able to visit each other when we need to

22 years ago I was the girl visiting my american boy friend.Me and him was in our 40+. We spent qual time in Sweden and USA..
Most of the time it went "sailing through". Some times I got stopped.
He never got stopped in Sweden.
We eventually married.
Lived in Sweden. Just told them that I was married to an american and that we lived over seas. and was visiting.
Those time's no problems at all.
So it has a lot to do an the immigraiton agent at the time. Some just dont like foriegners at all.
Good luck. Times are harder now.

No, they are profiling for patterns that may indicate illegal activity. Carrying $9,950 through on one trip is perfectly legal. But, the person carrying $9,950 is more likely to be structuring transactions than the person carrying $300. Same with the person staying 86 days instead of 14 days. They get the scrutiny.

I dont know if I aggree with you about the money.
To much is not good. But to little is even worse. Cause is going to feed you?
They just want to see that you are not a burden to the country.
I got away with it at that time. The reason was that I was the "bread winner".

Before you even consider this, make sure you read up on FATCA and tax filing reqirements for US citizens living outside of the country, but that a whole other can of worms...

The whole "structuring" thing is exactly the kind of nonsense I am talking about. First they set a limit, then they come up with a new "crime" that involves observing that limit. I had a U.S. Treasury official admit to me in a meeting that they don't want to get rid of the FBAR requirement specifically because it creates an additional "crime" they can add to a rap sheet in order to maximise the leverage they have to get someone to plea out, or better yet, rat out. He explicitly referred approvingly to how spitting on the side walk laws are used for this purpose, and not actually to prevent people from spitting on the sidewalk.

What "limit" are you consistently referring to? There is no limit on carrying currency, items of value, or negotiable instruments into or out of the country of which I am aware.

Are you perhaps referring to the requirement to "declare" possession of such items in amounts equal to or greater than $10,000?

And yes, it is a time-honored practice to use a myriad of laws to establish probable cause for "fishing expeditions" or obtain leverage such as expired license plates, objects hanging from the rear-view mirror, "unsafe" lane changes, using the US Mail for wire-fraud, "impeding the public on a sidewalk by standing on the sidewalk", and my personal favorite: "mopery with intent to creep."

You could have just said "Greece." Americans who frequent this website know where it is.

Ha, I also thought it odd that the OP phrased it as Greece, Europe. :)

No real suggestions but I don't think the it's just the CBP that's paranoid. They are just doing their job, and some are more strict than others. The ones in Europe aren't any less strict, especially in London, based on personal experience.

Some years ago, I was taking my mom and sibling for a visit to Scotland (which I've visited before ) and then to switzerland (our main destination) for our vacation. The border control rep in the UK was grilling the few people in front of us. I thought, it shouldn't be that bad, we're only staying a couple of days and then moving on. But he really grilled us, from the usual (length of stay, why we are here) to asking more specific details about our stay. When I said we were on a short holiday and then transiting to Switzerland (our main destination), the guy asked us to see our onwards itinerary (and really looked through it). It's kind of annoying to have to dig it out of my backpack when my stuff is nicely packed, but I guess that satisfied him. So yeah, keep your documentation.

So rest assured that being grilled at border control is not just exclusive to you visiting the US. Some of us get the same royal treatment over in Europe, though Europeans traveling back home may not see it happening since they are in their expedited EU lanes ;) So you're not alone.

Never had any problem with CBP when visiting my girlfriend last and this year. Questions ranged from none and just "you know the drill, right hand...." to "where and exactly when did you meet? what do you do for a living? what is your major? what do you intend to do afterwards?".
Been staying for like one week plus a few days each with a 1 to 2 month frequency.

However, if you cannot convince them or they are not convinced of you doing whatsoever and going back to your origin, they won't let you in - and in case of a VWP you also waive your right to appeal to that decision (compared to visas).
I got Global Entry the last time I was abroad and I'm going to use it for the first time in Miami at the end of June.

I am still pretty new to the forums so I thought I'd better clarify it's in Europe, sorry about that, lol :) just wrote it because I have been asked a few times if I speak Italian because I am from Greece so I thought maybe if they don't know what language Greeks speak, they won't know where it lies either (which would make sense, cause I don't know where all US states lie on the map either).

Now regarding border security, I am not afraid of anything, cause I am obviously not planning on moving over when I have my medical career going on in Europe, but I was curious why staying close to the limit of 90 days would raise a red flag. I understand that they would want to pull me over to secondary questioning, but just because I came once for almost 3 months, I seem to be having a harder time now because besides secondary questioning I was flagged in the system because of that. I just hope it will be less of a hassle if I get a B1/B2 visa, but it's still annoying to go through the process when all I do is being a tourist and spending my money in the USA. I will also carry all documents that certify what I am saying from now on. The thing is, MSP officers were very nice and since I am following what they suggested, there shouldn't be a problem in the future.

Now about the UK, they are stricter than other countries, even with us Europeans, so don't worry about it, but if you enter from any other European country, even Germany who are generally strict, it should be going real fast if your intentions are clear.

I wonder if CBP questions Greeks about their intentions a bit more than visitors from other VWP European countries due to the economic problems in Greece.

I thought about it as well, but I've been visiting for 4 years now and it's only gotten very bad financially the last couple years in Greece. The laws that apply are the same ones for all countries of the European Union except for Germany that can also have Global Entry.

To be honest, since I was born and raised in Germany, I have the right to get dual citizenship and also have German rights, but I've never thought I would need to, lol. But that's a whole different story and not worth the hassle just to be able to visit for a few weeks.

Hopefully after presenting the B1/B2 it will be a little better. Worst case, I will just do it from preclearance airports so that I can get it over with and not be questioned after an exhausting 20 hour flight

Excuse me, but how is ATH to MSP an exhausting twenty hour flight? AMS/CDG/LHR to MSP is about eight hours and ATH to these airports should only be about four hours. You don't need an eight hour connection at AMS/CDG/LHR and, in fact, it would be pretty ahrd to schedule flights with eight hours in these airports. The three airports I listed here are the only choices for nonstop flights from Europe on legacy carriers; if you connect in the USA, you wouldn't go through CBP at MSP.

Not everyone flying from Greece is either from Athens or originating trips from ATH on one-stop routings. From a bit outside Chicago to parts of Greece where some of my acquaintances go, some trips from door to door take close to twenty hours.

That. My trip was

SKG - ATH 11:55pm - 12:45am (+1 day)
ATH - CDG 06:30am - 09:00am
CDG - MSP 10:35am - 12:59pm (Greek time 8:59pm)

so it's pretty much 21 hours just for these particular flights.

Anyway, sometimes I do STR - ATL, ATL - MSP because my parents live in Germany, but that's still a good 15 hours sometimes.

Yes, but 20 < 24. OP mentioned doing CBP at MSP, so he's not making connections in the USA.

I've seen 27 hours frequently enough in one direction at least for some U.S.-Greek trips, so 20-24 or more hours is well possible from Greece, a country where a part of the population lives on islands.

Making connections on the way from Greece to the USA and clearing CBP at MSP, the trip can still be long and in the time range mentioned by the OP.

Keep in mind that when the OP is using the word "flight", the reference is to a trip with multiple flights rather than just one flight. You know well enough that there is no non-stop scheduled commercial passenger flight service from even ATH to MSP -- never seen it in my decades of flying in and out of MSP. And even just for ATH to MSP via existing connections with CBP clearance done in MSP, 14-17 hours is rather common; but once someone adds a Greek airport other than ATH to the picture, it frequently enough hits the 17-23 hour range for flights inclusive of transit time.

Please check the third post above this one. It can be 21 hours and going through CBP in MSP. I don't fly always like that, but sometimes I have no better option