Travelling to the U.S.

billy-ray

Hi,

I'm thinking of going to NYC this October and it will be my first time in America since i over-stayed my visa by about 7 months back in 04/05. Back then i was never fingerprinted and was on my old passport.

Are you asked if you've been to America before? And if so should i say 'yes', since i was arrested for driving with no license for which i had to pay a fine.

What do you think my chances of getting approved are?
Thanks for any advice

rockonollie

It hard to tell whether or not you'll get approved without details of you leaving the country, did USCIS issue you with any documentation regarding overstaying.

As for your other questions, whatever they ask you, answer truthfully.....the database immigration security use is vast, even though they may ask you if you've been to the US before, it's quite likely that the officer already knows that you have.

iusedtoknow

Have you applied for the ESTA? That is a pretty good marker.

Answer the questions truthfully, you may get approved or you may not. If you don't, there is your answer and you'll have to go to the embassy and get a visa.

Always answer truthfully, if they catch you out in a lie you could be banned from the US for 10 years anyway.

My advice: apply for ESTA truthfully, if it is approved happy days. If not, go to the embassy and apply for the visitor visa. You'll be interviewed and have to prove your ties to Ireland (job, college, lease/mortgage). A 7 month overstay is pretty serious so if they do have record of you overstaying (at that time you would have surrendered the i-94W in your passport when you left) then the odds are pretty slim you'll get approved for the waiver.

Also, remember with a visa - that does not mean you will get in. If the guy at the border thinks you are going to overstay again he is within his rights to refuse you entry.

billy-ray

Thanks for your replies.

I applied for the ESTA, so just waiting to hear back.
I've been reading some more on the Embassy website and because i only stayed illegally between 180 days and one year I was banned for 3 years instead of the 10 years which is issued for a stay longer than a year.
Also with regard to being arrested, because it was a traffic offense and not 'a crime involving moral turpitude' it should be ok.

But either way i get the feeling I'll have to apply for a visa:(

iusedtoknow

it seems that way - usually the ESTA comes back straight away as approved.

It is a shame, but having been through the visa process (albeit for L1 status) it is pretty long but the steps you need to take are clear cut. Remember the burden of proof is on you to prove that you are not going to overstay.

good luck!

coylemj

iusedtoknow wrote: »

it seems that way - usually the ESTA comes back straight away as approved.

+1 ESTA approval is usually immediate. If the system has deferred a decision then it means it will come up on a screen somewhere and the official can decide to approve you or bump you and tell you to apply for a visa.

You'll just have to sweat it out and see what happens.

billy-ray

Hi folks,

Once again thanks for you're replies.
Got my ESTA approval by email a couple of hours ago, so glad of that.

I'll still be very nervous though when in the airport.

coylemj

billy-ray wrote: »

Hi folks,

Once again thanks for you're replies.
Got my ESTA approval by email a couple of hours ago, so glad of that.

I'll still be very nervous though when in the airport.

Glad to hear you got approved. As already stated and I think you're aware of it, having ESTA approval does not guarantee that you will be admitted to the US, just that you may present yourself at a point of entry which for most of us is the CBP official in Dublin airport.

Whatever caused your ESTA to be delayed will be on the screen when you're talking to the immigration official so make sure the story you tell is consistent with what you put into the online application.

billy-ray

Yeah,

I'm thinking the same regarding the Border Control.
When i applied for the ESTA i clicked into the first one on the screen which was 'esta-authorization.org' instead of going through the 'US Customs and Border' website. Hopefully this was the only reason it was slow to be approved. And it actually cost more!!!

I'm tempted to contact the Embassy but don't really want to highlight anything with them.

coylemj

billy-ray wrote: »

When i applied for the ESTA i clicked into the first one on the screen which was 'esta-authorization.org' instead of going through the 'US Customs and Border' website. Hopefully this was the only reason it was slow to be approved. And it actually cost more!!!

Probably, you fell for one of the shyster websites which takes money for applying via a screen-scraper. That would explain the delay so you were probably approved immediately.

billy-ray wrote: »

I'm tempted to contact the Embassy but don't really want to highlight anything with them.

No need to contact the Embassy, the website you used appears to the CBP website to be a person at a keyboard, that's how screen scrapers work. The ESTA is valid because it applies to your passport. Hopefully they passed on all of the data you filled in on the form they presented to you.

billy-ray

Yeah,

I hope so too. The questions on the ESTA form only mentions fairly serious crimes or drug offenses, which mine was nothing like, so i ticked no to that question. And there's no question about previous visits so the fact that my overstay was so long ago hopefully means they've seen this and my 3 years of ineligibility has passed and they're not worried.

Only time will tell i suppose,

Thanks again though

lonestargirl

As faw as I'm aware overstaying on the visa wavier also bans you from using it again, you need to get a visa from the embassy. It's probably worth it anyway as it would be 10-year mulit entry one and it would give you peace of mind.