Applying for U visa and traveling with U visa

Now if you’re in immigration court the government shutdown is creating a huge backlog with cases that are in immigration court and if you do have a case where you are in Deportation proceedings you should check with the court and with your attorney on what is going on with your hearings because many hearings are being cancelled.

We just talked about the government shutdown now we’re going to talk about U visas and traveling.

So Brian…
what kind of questions have we been getting?

One of the main questions I hear from people that are applying for the U Visa, or they’re not even applying,

Is it possible to travel while you’re in the process of getting a U Visa approved?

So I recommend that you don’t travel.

One reason is that if you travel you may not be able to come back in because of unlawful presence , so I don’t recommend that you do travel while your application is pending. Even if your application is approved, I also don’t recommend that you travel because again that unlawful presence.

Another reason is you need to get a visa from the United States Embassy.

For a U Visa applicant,
when will they be able to travel, when is it recommended for them to travel outside the United States ?

So when you’re applying for the green card you can apply for advance parole and once you apply for advance parole while your green card application is pending, you could apply for that at that time but the safest approach is just to wait until you get your green card through the visa.

Once you obtain that permission to leave the United States there is no guarantee that they will still allow back in right? Even if USCIS allows you to travel outside the United States CBP has to review and admit you – is there any kind of guarantee?

Yes so you could like even if you get an advance parole document to allow you to leave, people may think oh well I can travel and I’ll be able to come back in to the United States but if you’re subject to unlawful presence when you come back in they may not allow you to come back in just because you’ve been given the advanced parole document: it can be deceiving – even if you get the advanced parole document, it may lead you to think you can travel when in fact you may be able to travel outside but you may not be able to travel back inside.

Is this something that could happen to any green card holder? For example, can any green card holder be held at the border when they try to re-enter?

So for green card holders and every case is unique that situation is a little bit different it depends upon whether or not you have been to be admissible to the United States when you enter as a green card holder so as long as you haven’t shown that you’ve committed any crimes if you have you should consult with an immigration lawyer.