ESTA Overstay - HELP

We travelled to New York in April from LHR on a one way ticket, we then took a transatlantic cruise three days later back to Southampton. I have just received an email saying that we have ten days to leave the USA under the Visa Waiver. It would appear that we have not been booked out as leaving the States - What can i do?

Any advice would be appreciated,

Kind Regards,

Cath

[Nottingham Nick]

I have never heard of this before , so my thoughts are

1. Is the email genuine?
2. What does the email tell you that you should do? If it tells you to click on a link, then see 1 above.
3. Does the proper CPB website offer advice? https://www.cbp.gov Beware - there are hundreds of bogus ESTA sites selling ESTAs at inflated prices.
4. If none of the above work, then I would be tempted to take proper legal advice from an Immigration law firm.

Nick

Don’t panic - in the first instance I’d contact the American embassy in London asap and explain the situation.

Sounds like a simple admin error between the cruise line and the CBP but you do not want to be marked down as overstaying as it’ll make life very difficult next time you try to enter the US.

Thanks Guys - The email is genuine, it says we have 10 days left in the USA which will be 90 days after our arrival. The CPB website is down for maintenance until 8.30am so I will need to check then. I'll probably contact the Embassy or the cruise line to sort it out.

Thanks again,

Cath

I have checked on the website. it shows my husband leaving on the 27th, when i enter my information it say's no traveller record found. It does however allows me to view my most recent i94 which says i entered on 24/4/2019 and can stay until 22/7/2019 which coincides with the email saying i have 10 days left!! They have been doing maintenance overnight, it could be a glitch due to this, as i received my email at 05.37am. I'm a bit confused and concerned!!

Cath

It happens - with millions of arrivals and departures to be reconciled each year there will always be some that slip through the net.

These days it’s all done electronically but back in the days of the green form it happened to a friend of mine. We’d flown into Newark and at immigration he was led away and, it turns out, questioned for an hour before being allowed in. Apparently there was no record of him leaving the US on his previous visit so they assumed he’d overstayed and was still there, illegally.

Very concerning at the time as I had no clue what was happening - he could have been refused entry and sent back home for all I knew as I sat waiting in a deserted baggage hall at EWR.

We’d flown into Newark and at immigration he was led away... Apparently there was no record of him leaving the US on his previous visit...

You'd hope common sense prevails and he would have obviously left the US to be able to fly back in.

I recall one of the 'travellers woe' letters in the Guardian many years ago when someone was in a panic because they had discovered the green I-94 receipt was still in their passport and what should they do.

The answer at the time was to send a letter with the card and a statement stating when you left the USA (flight number etc) plus some evidence that showed you left the country - copies of credit card / bank statement showing you had financial activities you could only have when you were at home as it were. I guess a screen shot of your flying club account would help as well. As per this but this is if you have the green stub - https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail ... ve-my-i-94

There must be a way of resolving this electronically. I've not checked my I-94 on-line history for sometime and you've prompted me to do that - though I must be OK as I've not had any emails following my last trip in February and they gave me GE as well - is there something on that website about 'correcting your record?

I assume this is what you used to check your status?

https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/home

My original reaction to the OP's post was that the email was more than likely genuine, as the dates (April-July) were fast approaching the 90 day ESTA / VWP visit window. The OP has since confirmed it's authenticity.

TBH I'd be surprised if fraudsters would start randomly spamming emails with this sort of scam, as the "hit-rate" would be very low as it's more than possible a lot of recipients would never have gone abroad / to the USA - and if to the USA within the timeframe approaching the 90 day limit. Far easier pickings to be made by other email / phishing scams.

Back in the days of the green I-94 stub in your passport, I know a few people who found one still in their passport when back in the UK - most just destroyed it and played dumb on their next US trip. More than a few of those stubs were clearly never reconciled.

I concur with tontybear's advice - a letter stating when you left the USA, boarding pass stub (if you have it) or screenshot of flying club account, plus a bank / credit card statement showing financial activity in the UK. ATM withdrawals are always good here as they cannot be done online. In theory this should be fairly easy for the US CBP to sort out and update their records.

That said, a few years ago due to a computer glitch at Sanford a lot of Brits got marked as overstayers. The CBP knew about the problem but it did not stop more than a few getting pulled on their next arrival for Secondary Inspection / some ESTA refusals.

The mere fact that you are arriving in the USA will never be enough for a CBP officer initially, as they don't know when you left. You could have left the previous day & be returning the next.

Thanks for all your replies - The email is genuine, I have emailed Border Force and explained the situation. I think you are right, I will probably have to send some form of proof that i left the country and was actually on a 12 night transatlantic cruise back to the UK and not still in New York. Will keep you updated on how i get on

Cath

What have the cruise company said? It would be much easier for them to get your record corrected. It must have happened before and so they would have a mechanism for resolving it. Plus they would have contacts at CBP to sort this out for them.

Only send your 'evidence if they ask for it. The case I mentioned was pre ESTA etc where you physically had a green slip.

Thanks Tonty, I will call them on Monday

Update!!

I have spoken with NCL and Virgin Cruises who we booked through. Both were very helpful, but there is nothing they can do. NCL said it is the port authority who checks you out of the USA, not the cruise line, and this happens, but very rarely. They have sent me the purchase records of our ship folio to prove we were on the ship and have also sent me a letter sating that we disembarked the ship at Southampton. I will send CBP the details and hopefully they will correct their records. It will make for a nervous arrival when we go to Miami early next year!!

Thanks for all your help,

Cath

This is not a rare occurrence at all. I know of quite a number of cruiser that have had this email recently. Mainly Cunard passengers. It appears that exit info is not being passed onto Homeland Security.

Cunard have sorted it out for their passengers.

It will make for a nervous arrival when we go to Miami early next year!!

Thanks for all your help,

Cath

i think the advice on the link I posted above is to take copies of the 'evidence' with you in case your I-94 hasn't been updated to show the CBP officer should it be an issue.

CPB has emailed me asking for various things, Bank statements, Credit card statements , wage slips, to prove we are back in the UK. Ive also got a letter from NCL confirming we were on the cruise and our on board account statement. Ive sent them and will check again in a few weeks, they said they do not send emails confirming it has been updated, which i find a bit odd!!

Like you said Tonty, they have also advised me to bring them along in case there are issues when we enter the next time.

Just a thought though, will Virgin even allow us to board if the i94 information is not correct and we are marked as an overstayer?

Thanks,

Cath

As long as you have a valid ESTA, yes.

Your biggest problem may be renewing your ESTA, as if you’re marked down as an overstayer you may be turned down. But hopefully the CBP will sort it out once you send in the paperwork they want.

You are by no means the only person this has ever happened to so there’ll be an established process in place to resolve it.

[buns]

Apologies for resurrecting this post, but this has happened to Mrs Buns

She received the dreaded E Mail on Saturday morning and I was so grateful that I could point her to this thread. Our big concern is that we are due to travel back to the US before the 10 day deadline!!

In our case, we both left the US on 19 November and whilst my I 94 exit was recorded, hers was not (we both recall there being some technical problems at the gate).

We contacted Virgin and the call handler was very helpful and immediately provided some written confirmation we were both on the flight and promised this would be passed on to the relevant department at Virgin.

Armed with this, we raised a ticket with CBP including this information and followed it up yesterday with a phone call. After a very long wait, we got through to someone who said I 94 issues were not dealt with on the phone. However she did take details and expedited our case.

We have received the following reply, so fingers crossed for our arrival (armed with lots of documents)

Current wait times for resolution is 3-4 weeks. We will contact you via this incident number once the request has been processed.

If you need plan on traveling to the United States before your record is adjusted, you are allowed to apply for entry. Your incomplete record history is not an inadmissibility to enter the US. Please bring any evidence you have with you to present at entry.

Will let you know the outcome

buns

Hi Buns,

They finally sorted it- they didn't let us know but i checked the i94 system a few months later and it showed us leaving on the day we did - I have kept the file with all the details though in case there are any issues when we go to Miami in April.

Hope you get it all sorted,

Cath

Hope you get it sorted buns.
I wonder how many of us were checking the I94 link after reading.

Just fired up the I94 website... that is quite cool.

A bit disconcerting to have a few UNKNOWN entries in the location field.... do they seriously not know where I entered and departed the country? Ha ha ha ha .

I have a couple of 'unkown' exits (unkown in terms of the airport not the date or that I left) but they tie up with trips where I did a connection before leaving the US e.g SFO-ORD-LHR and I've not had any issues on my next entry into the US or causing problems with my GE application

According to that website I entered Las Vegas in Nov 2016 and never left, but I entered and left Miami in 2018 and Orlando in 2019. I hope the other me is having fun in Vegas!

Very interesting thread, last year at Tampa the automatic machine wouldn't accept my son's passport and we had to join a very big queue, just gave it a check on the link above and looks like his previous departure (via Aer Lingus) hadn't been properly registered. I can't remember the agent's questioning but he probably realised we entered and left as a group.

Now I know this exists I'll monitor it a bit closer.

Buns if you can't get this resolved beforehand take some evidence with you (payslips?) and be prepared to be interview on arrival.

[buns]

Thanks for all the support guys - greatly appreciated

Whether my printer ink lasts out before our flight is of course a different matter

buns