Doubt with dates, am I gonna be overstaying my VWP?

LORIEandPHIL · February 1, 2015

It is common sense someone would live 90 days in a foreign country with no jobs, no family. A lot of people go to secondary to explain.

I made several long trips here before I got my K-1. two of them were for the full 90 days. I have never been called into secondary, and only had a couple of questions about the lengths of my stays. Its common sense that if you can afford it, and have the spare time you would stay as long as you could.

PeruvyandGringa · February 1, 2015

If you arrive on 2/17 at 11:50 p.m., and you go through immigration on 2/18 at 12:05 a.m., the stamp in your passport should say 2/18. That would technically give you the extra day you need, since you were writing "minutes", I guess this is the case for you. Hide out in the aiport toilette until you reach the next day

It seems the OP has already changed the flight, but I was going to suggest the same thing. When I flew to Peru I was wondering why they stamped my passport with the wrong date, then i realized I had waited in line for an hour and a half! So, yes, if you are arriving with only minutes in the US you can always just wait the few minutes before proceeding through and getting stamped!

Dave&Roza · February 1, 2015

It seems the OP has already changed the flight, but I was going to suggest the same thing. When I flew to Peru I was wondering why they stamped my passport with the wrong date, then i realized I had waited in line for an hour and a half! So, yes, if you are arriving with only minutes in the US you can always just wait the few minutes before proceeding through and getting stamped!

You are assuming that they change the date on the stamp they are using. When I arrive in Kazakhstan, the flight is scheduled to land at 23:55. The stamp is always the day the flight lands even though it is usually well after nidnight when I go thru passport control, but that is Kazakhstan. I have never entered the US near midnight, so I do not know if the CBP person stops processing people at midnight and changes the date, but I am doubtful. If a new line opens up that CBP agent may have the new date, but I really do not see them stopping in the middle to change a date--maybe they do.

If you read the USCIS website about foreign travel, you need to count any part of a day before midnight as a day for the number of days outside the US, so I alway assumed that if you arrive before midnight it counted as a day and if were in the US past midnight that was another day until you left or until midnight. Not 24 hours.

Dave

Mark88 · February 1, 2015

...so I alway assumed that if you arrive before midnight it counted as a day and if were in the US past midnight that was another day until you left or until midnight.

The difference is between arriving and entering. If your flight arrives at 23:55, you still didn't enter the US. The area before passport control is considered international territory (at least for CBP). So if you really wait or enter after 0:00 they change the stamps to the new date (I had this case already twice).

PeruvyandGringa · February 1, 2015

You are assuming that they change the date on the stamp they are using. When I arrive in Kazakhstan, the flight is scheduled to land at 23:55. The stamp is always the day the flight lands even though it is usually well after nidnight when I go thru passport control, but that is Kazakhstan. I have never entered the US near midnight, so I do not know if the CBP person stops processing people at midnight and changes the date, but I am doubtful. If a new line opens up that CBP agent may have the new date, but I really do not see them stopping in the middle to change a date--maybe they do.

(

If you read the USCIS website about foreign travel, you need to count any part of a day before midnight as a day for the number of days outside the US, so I alway assumed that if you arrive before midnight it counted as a day and if were in the US past midnight that was another day until you left or until midnight. Not 24 hours.

Dave

When Victor arrived to the states, his plane landed just before midnight and it took him over an hour to get through (he managed to be the very last person of it seemed multiple flights!), and they did also stamp his passport coming this direction with the new date. That was in Orlando, but when they have multiple flights arriving at all hours, they can't separate people by which flight they came in on either. (thinking of Atlanta, it's always crazy busy there).