As a fairly recent "ex-Green card holder" I can assure you that if you fly out of the United States to a foreign country with just your green card, you will NOT be able to re-enter the United States.

They ALWAYS look at your passport to make sure that it has not expired and ALSO check your green card to make sure that it is valid. Forget re-entering, most airlines will NOT let you board a plane without the boarding pass and passport. They do not look at green cards as valid travel documentation. If you don't have a passport, you will not be able to board any international flights originating from any country heading to another country. You WILL be denied a boarding pass at the ticket counter without a passport of any kind.

My questions is, when you enter a foreign country (regardless of the country) you are REQUIRED to provide a valid passport. How is someone with only a green card be able to enter another country without a valid passport from any country? *scratching head*

Safe Travels!

As a U.S. Citizen who arrived in the U.S. as an International Student eons ago with a F-1 VISA, I cannot emphasize enough how CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT it is for each person to keep proper documentation and check once, check twice and check again to make sure that their VISA's authorized by the School's authorizing officer for re-entry to the United States. As an International Student, you are allowed to exit and re-enter the United States, but ONLY with the permission from your school. If you forget and not get your F-1 Visa authorized prior to leaving the country, it can be a long and arduous process to get back in to the country. As mentioned above, if you don't have the correct paper work, you will be denied a boarding pass by the airline employee at the ticket counter! Just be careful when going home for vacations and breaks!

Safe Travels!

Well, some countries will allow their own citizens (and sometimes citizens of other selected countries) to enter on an official identity card without a passport. Many European countries do this, for example. But such an ID card would certainly not allow the holder to re-enter the USA and, indeed, boarding would almost certainly be denied by the airline for the return trip.

Or sometimes even with an expired passport or ID card. A German citizen can get into Germany with an expired German passport (even if expired for decades) or an expired German ID card (expired up to one year).

For the case of the OP, departure is not a problem. Timatic says:

For the return, Timatic says:

This is incorrect per the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
Foreign nationals that are lawful permanent residents of the U.S. must present a Permanent Resident Card (�Green Card�, INS Form I-551), a Reentry Permit (if gone for more than 1 year), or a Returning Resident Visa (if gone for 2 years or more) to reenter the United States. U.S. LPRs are not required by the U.S. to have a passport for travel, although most foreign destinations will require you to have one to enter their country. (LPRs that are out of the U.S. for more than 180 days are subject to new immigrant inspection procedures as per 8 USC 1101.)

The difficulty can be the lack of knowledge among airline personnel who may not allow you to board without what they consider they proper documents.(Usually a passport and visa, if needed). Airlines are very strick about enforcing what they consider is needed, as they can be hit with substantial fines for allowing pax without the required travel documents to board.

A US CBP officer may ask for a passport as they will have the same question Fly-Me-to-the-Moon! raises, namely, how did the person enter the other country without one. But as others have pointed out, it is possible for citizens of some countries to enter their own country without a passport. An LPR without a passport can obtain a Re-entry permit and visas for other countries can be put in that. Both the I-551 and the Re-entry permit are lieu travel documents recognized by the US that can be used in place of a passport.

(Bolding mine)

That's not correct. I believe you are mixing two different things together here: student visa and I-20.

The international student paperwork for status (meaning I-20) is different from student visa, which is used for entry purpose ONLY. The attending school issues you the I-20. Before leaving the States for international travels, the international student needs to get the endorsement from the school. In other words, the school officials sign your I-20. Schools don't sign nor authorize visa.

As for student visa, you don't get it from the school. US government/proper authority issues the visa. Upon entry/re-entry the country, the immigration/customs will check both your student visa (required for entry) and I-20 (supporting document to the student visa, I suppose).

Both student visa and I-20 have to be current upon entry (or re-entry) to the country. If the student visa needed renewal, you apply for renewal through the embassy (or the designated office or whatever you call it). As for I-20 renewal, you turn in your application to the school. Without current paperwork (both I-20 and student visa), your entry/reentry will be denied. (Sometimes even with current paperwork, you can be denied for entry/reentry for other reasons as well. But that's for another thread. )

Hope I make the distinction clear now.

******************************
Sorry, OT (again):

BTW, Fly-Me-to-the-Moon!, you probably really like color navy. However, it's very difficult for me personally to read your posts in color navy all the way through. Not only do my "aging" eyes get hurt, but also it's not customary to any of the online forum I've visited. If you pay attention, you will see even when our fellow FTers quoted your posts, they only used the default black. I don't recall seeing other FTers use their own preferable colors as consistent as you either. There was another FTer that I remember was using her personal default color in every post years ago. Upon the 1st "complaint" (not from me BTW), she said she liked it that way. However, after quite a few suggestions from our friendly fellow FTers, she changed her mind and has been posting in the same color like everybody does.

I know sometimes we use colors to make a point or some special effects. I do it too but only with some words, a sentence, or maybe a short paragraph. When you do it with every single word in your posts, well, IMHO, there's no special point/effect any more. Besides, I recall some FTers said they would just skip the posts that were too "difficult" to read (color-wise or font-wise). I don't think reading posts that hurt my eyes is a good idea either.

Please don't take it too personal. It's just a friendly suggestion. You will not lose any of your "style" when keeping it black-and-white simple! Thank you for considering it.

lin821 is correct. In actuality. the I-94 arrival/departure form number is recorded on the I-20 (or should/used to be) at time of first entry as a student with the F-1 visa. Subsequent valid entries would thus use the original I-94 number. Additionally. the I-20 had to be endorsed by the school each year to indicate the student was still enrolled in full time academic studies. J-1 visa students needed an IAP-66 form (which has been replaced by the DS-2019 form)

lin821 - ...and my experience on FT has showed that such "lessons" as you wished to share with Fly-Me-to-the-Moon belong in a PM not in the thread. Just so we're all learning something new every day

Not any more.

My last re-entry was 2.5 years ago and I was asked to use the new I-94 number from the I-94 that I had filled out in-flight. My current I-94 number is not on my I-20 and not the same number as my very 1st I-94 either.

This is not accurate.

The length of the I-20 is originally issued based on the expected timeframe to complete the degree requirement. As long as the student has no travel plan to leave the country and the I-20 hasn't expired, no yearly endorsement on the I-20 is needed from the school.

However, if the international student needs to travel internationally and the last endorsement on the I-20 has been more than one-year old, a new endorsement is indeed required from the school. It's because each endorsement is only valid for one year. It has nothing to do with full-time enrollment status or not.

I would think the validation of enrollment status (full-time or not) has to do with registration. Students have to register each semester (or quarter) to be enrolled. Since 2001, SEVIS is used to monitor and track the progress of international students. SEVIS doesn't function on a yearly basis either.

hey guys thanks for the clarifications and thanks for a the infos which you have posted...thanks so muchhh.....

Sounds like SEVIS has improved the process since I was last involved with it (2000). When I mentioned that the I-20 had to be endorsed, it was under the assumption that the student would travel outside the US during the validity period of the I-20. Thanks for making that clear.

The OP can also find lots of info about document requirements and the entry process on the www.cbp.gov and www.uscis,gov sites.

hi guys,

sorry to resurrect such an old thread. it seems that the original poster's question was never really fully addressed.

i find myself in a similar situation as the OP. I am a permanent resident, but for reasons I don't want to get into- I don't have a passport. I am thinking about applying for a re-entry permit... can I travel with that?

Has anyone had any problems with that?

Did you read post#7 (w/r/t a PR/Greencard holder w/o a passport)?

If that still doesn't address your particular question, even though I respect your decision to not get into details, you probably have to give FTers specifics of your situation before a more "accurate" advice can be given. Everyone's case is kind of different, you know.

Sorry to get back to you this late. There's no way to PM this person in question. Believe me. I tried. Since 2008. And more than once.

Go and check his profile page. You'll see FT will take you to another FTer who signed up in 2003 with post count of 700+, who is apparently not the same person with join date of Feb 2008.

The current FT software doesn't distinguish FT handles with underscore from those with hyphens. Even say John-Doe and John_Doe are two very different FTers, there's no way you get to see John-Doe's posting history and profile. John_Doe is all you can see. This technical "problem" had been discussion in Technical Issues Forum more than once. I don't recall IB ever provides a solution other than asking say John-Doe to change his FT handle. If John-Doe refuses, we are back to square one. FWIW, I don't know if the admin ever asks this poster in question to change his FT handle.

(I left as a kid and never had a passport there) - same reason really. came here when i was five.

it doesn't really confirm though. so it is possible to travel just with a reentry permit and a greencard? any country? does anyone give you a hard time about it?

There's no blanket policy for the entire world; it varies country by country.