Immigration Corner | Did I jeopardise my visitor’s visa?

Dear Mrs Walker-Huntington,

I have travelled on my visitor’s visa three times. The first time, I spent three months, and the second time, three weeks. The third time, I went up to have a baby and I spent three months and three weeks. However, I took no form of health insurance when I went up to have my son. I’m still making monthly payments to the hospital.

It’s been almost two years now since I’ve had my son and I haven’t gone back to the States. However, I’m planning on travelling next year. What’s the best advice you would give?

Kind regards,

– H.J.

Dear HJ,

The best advice I can give you is to tell the truth. The length of your visits may be questioned on your next trip to America. When a person spends several months in America on a visitor’s visa, the presumption is that they were working without authorisation while they were in America. People all over the world do enter the United States as a visitor and work without authorisation, and this creates a negative presumption for others who do not. Working without authorisation is a violation of your non-immigrant, visitor’s visa and cause for US Department of Homeland Security to revoke your visa, or for the US Department of State to refuse to renew it when it expires.

Travellers to the United States are not always asked about their previous stays, but it is open to the discretion of the Customs and Border Protection officer if and what type of questions a traveller is asked. Your two lengthy visits are open for questioning, and you should have answers and evidence to back up your answer.

If your first extended visit was to stay with family and friends and they financially supported you and you did not work or were able to personally fund your extended stay – travel with the proof. Likewise, having a baby in America is not against the law, and since you paid for the cost of the birth, that should not be held against you from an immigration perspective.

Dahlia A. Walker-Huntington, Esq, is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States; and family, criminal and international law in Florida. She is a diversity and inclusion consultant, mediator, and former special magistrate and hearing officer in Broward County, Florida. info@walkerhuntington.com