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Just Came Back Through Miami Airport with Pending VAWA and Valid Advance Parole
Hey everyone, Since traveling with Advance Parole can be super stressful, I wanted to share as many details as I can from my recent experience. I was out of states for 4 weeks. On my last arrival at JFK in January, I was asked many questions, and with the waiting time, the whole process took around 3 hours, even though there was not a huge line at secondary inspection. Because of that, I was more nervous this time and wondering if they would ask similar questions again. This time, I traveled from Istanbul to Miami with Turkish Airlines. First, before boarding, I asked the officers if Advance Parole ever gets denied. They told me it can happen in two ways: 1. When they scan the passport and enter “parole” into the APIS system, the system can give a red flag right away. They said this is very rare and usually happens in serious situations, such as if someone is wanted internationally. 2. Sometimes the system may request approval from the U.S., and that approval can come within two hours or even two days, depending on the day and time. In my case, when they entered my information, it took only about 3 seconds to show “cleared for boarding.” When I arrived at Miami Airport, the officer at passport control saw the Advance Parole document in my hand and said, “You know how it works. For processing, you need to go to secondary inspection.” I said yes. She only asked me where I was coming from and whether I had anything to declare, like alcohol, etc. Then I went to secondary inspection. I waited around 5 minutes. An officer called my name and said, “Have a seat, please.” He asked me: 1. “Have you adjusted your status, and do you have a pending application?”
I said yes. 2. “Are you married?”
I said no. 3. He asked something like, “Did your spouse pass away, or how did you adjust your status? Because it looks like it has been about 3 years.”
I said I have a pending I-360 form. He kept checking and said, “Special immigrant?”
I told him I have a pending VAWA application. He said, “Okay, give me two minutes.” He walked away. I think his computer was not working for some reason. Then he called my name again and took me to another officer’s desk. They took my fingerprint, and all the officers were very nice. We walked back to the room together. He stamped both my passport and my Advance Parole paper and told me, “Goodbye, take care.” Before leaving, I asked him, “If you don’t mind me asking, is there a limit for traveling with Advance Parole?” He said, “Don’t ask me, look at what the paper says,” and showed me that it says “multiple entry.” So I said, “No limit?”
Then he confirmed that as long as my case is valid and pending, and the Advance Parole document is valid, I can travel multiple times. Overall, the entire process took about 20 minutes. Based on my personal experience: if you do not have a criminal background, your case is still pending, your Advance Parole document is valid, and you can properly answer the officers’ questions, do not be scared to travel.
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Visa Bulletin Prediction.
Hello everyone, Posting after a long time, I’ve been getting constant emails to do a prediction post so I’m doing it now. My model which was able to predict the date previously does not work anymore as the historical data has changed i.e travel ban and unban which might occur so it’s really hard to predict.. Below is an assumption and an educated guess, please feel free to let me know if I’m wrong or you disagree. I’m currently guessing that around 6500 to 8000 visas have been used at max, there should be roughly around 2000 to 3500 visas still left this year. Let’s take the middle number and say around 2800 visas are available. I think the FAD will advance and reach the end of April to early May by Sepetember if nothing changes and USCIS/DHS still pause the visas from the banned countries as a federal judge has ruled it to be unconstitutional but the case will definitely go to the appeals court. if the ban is lifted there should be no movement but we should not retrogress in my opinion. There will still be unutilized visas as the pace that USCIS is approving cases is really slow so there will be wastage. Anyways for April and May folks there is a reason to be joyful as even if this prediction does not come to be true, the new fiscal year brings new set of visa number. The challenge accours after June which had a high infux of applicants. Might take a while to get through those cases, if you are eligible to file for i485 around next October you should do that asap so that you can atleast get your EAD. Again this is just a guess, past data cannot be used in calculation as the context has changed over the past few months. Let me know your thoughts.
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