Monika Jorde
News Reporter
Summer is nearly here, and many international students are looking forward to travel.
But they might have some difficulty traveling if they haven't met the necessary visa requirements.
"It is rather rare, but we have had students who had difficulties re-entering the U.S. because they didn't have the necessary documents with them or they had lost their legal status before traveling outside the U.S.," said Anita Gaines, director of International Student and Scholar Services at the University of Houston.
In order to re-enter the United States, international students need a valid student visa, a valid passport, a valid I-94 form for permission to return and their certificate of eligibility form.
That form is an immigration authorization document that shows the college the student is attending, his or her intended degree and the estimated length of the student's stay in the United States.
The form has different titles depending on the type of visa the student holds. For F-1 students (who are taking a full course load or are enrolled in a language study program), the form is called the I-20. For J-1 students (who are studying on an exchange basis), it is called the IAP-66.
Before any trip outside the United States, international students must have that immigration authorization form endorsed for re-entry by an international student counselor.
"One cannot emphasize enough the importance (of getting) the document endorsed for re-entry," said David Schaumburg, an international student counselor.
"It will create a problem if the immigration officer sees that the student hasn't had proper authorization for traveling," he said. "Traveling outside the U.S. is not the problem, but coming back to the U.S. is."
Before the form can be authorized, the counselor must check on whether the student has always maintained the necessary legal status. In order to be legal, students must take a full load of classes - a minimum of 12 hours for undergraduate students and nine hours for graduates.
The student also must never have worked without proper authorization.
Becky Burdette, an immigration lawyer who spoke at a recent employment seminar sponsored by ISSO, said maintaining legal status is very important for international students.
"International students should be very careful about maintaining their legal status," Burdette said. "New immigration laws have been passed, and the regulations are expected to be even stricter on immigration issues.
"Things that might have been tolerated in the past can turn out to create a legal problem for the student in the future," she continued. "Thus, the student should always make sure not to drop below full-time studies and (should not) work without proper authorization."
The other documents needed to travel are a valid passport and visa.
Under certain circumstances, international students may re-enter the United States with an expired visa. One such situation could involve a student traveling to Mexico, Canada or the adjacent islands of the Caribbean (except Cuba).
A valid I-20 or IAP-66, together with a valid passport and the I-94 departure permission card, are obligatory documents no matter where students travel, however.
"Sometimes a student is just being busy to rush home and forgets to get his documents signed," Schaumburg explained. "The student then discovers at the U.S. airport that he or she does not have the proper authorization for coming back in the United States."
Without the proper documentation, the immigration officer could theoretically refuse the entry. "However, this is rather extraordinary," Schaumburg said.
In most cases, the Immigration and Naturalization Service will try to contact the ISSO, and if convinced that the student has a valid status, will give him or her a 30-day grace period to enter the country and be re-inspected by the local INS office, Schaumburg said.
If the student cannot provide a valid visa or has engaged in any unlawful activity, like working without authorization or dropping beneath the minimum course-load requirement, he said the situation can become more difficult.
Obtaining a new visa in one's home country can sometimes be very difficult. If students cannot fully convince their embassies that they are making enough progress in their classes or that they are planning to return to their home countries, new visas may be refused.
"When there are problems, we try to communicate with the embassies, but in a few cases we have had students who couldn't come back," Gaines said.
Patrese Ruffin-Bush, the student/school officer for the Houston District INS office, said the most common cause for students having problems returning to the U.S. is that they forget to bring their I-20 or IAP-66, which Schaumburg called the most important documents international students have when traveling.