Weird science

[burs 0]

Recently while coming back from a week long vacation in Europe, the U.S. customs officer did not stamp my wife's passport and just let us through. We travel often and every time they stamp her passport. I asked him why didn't he do it, and he said that it doesn't need to be stamped and that she doesn't even need the passport. Mind you my wife's from Eastern Europe.

Now I am puzzled. When she applies for citizenship, how are they going to know that she returned to the U.S. in an appropriate amount of time? Did they recently change their system whereby they just make in indication on their computer as opposed to the passport? Anyone had similar experiences?

She has a conditional greencard and we travelled with an extension letter.

Edited December 20, 2007 by burs

[Cassie 8]

When you enter the US using a form of US identification (normally a passport, in your case your wife's GC/extension letter), you don't get a stamp, because you are not a visitor, you are a citizen/permanent resident of the US. When you went through customs, they probably scanned/swiped your wife's green card? That's how they keep track of when she comes back.

[Alt name 1]

Green card holders do not get their passport stamped.

[Aussielad 37]

oh yes they do,....mine got stamped when we came back from the Dominican Republic.

[tweety 1]

I don't remember if I got my passport stamped the last time, but I sure remember them swiping my greencard (unexpired back then).

[zyggy 9]

Just like US Citizens, the stamping of passports for PR's is optional and at the discretion of the officer.

If they do it, it will have the notation ARC (Alien Registration Card)

Edited December 20, 2007 by zyggy

[burs 0]

Just like US Citizens, the stamping of passports for PR's is optional and at the discretion of the officer.

If they do it, it will have the notation ARC (Alien Registration Card)

Thank you, everyone!

[lucyrich 20]

When she applies for citizenship, how are they going to know that she returned to the U.S. in an appropriate amount of time?

It's up to her to keep track of the dates. The general rule in immigration matters is that when applying for an immigration benefit, the person applying has the burden of proving eligibility via a preponderance of the evidence.

Often, a bigger problem is that they won't necessarily know when she left the US. They're a lot less rigorous about checking people leaving the US than checking them on re-entry. That's especially true of the land borders with Canada and Mexico.

In practice, what you do is keep track of your dates of travel, and then write them down correctly on the N-400. If they have their own way of independently verifying those dates, they probably will. If not, they'll probably take your word for it. In rare cases, they might ask for more evidence, like boarding passes and such, but that "preponderance of the evidence" thing means you don't have to show absolute proof -- you just have to show enough evidence to make a reasonable person believe it's more likely than not that your story is true.

Leave it up to them to determine how or if they can verify what you write down. They probably can verify entry dates based on their computer records, but don't depend on that. Keep your own records, and be calm in the knowledge that if they DO have a way of checking the travel dates, whether they've got complete information or not, they'll only discover information that's consistent with what you've written down.