WhiteHouse.gov petition: Allow international researchers to renew visas from the US

[AtomicMermaid]

Link is here, if you are interested.

 

I though you guys might be interested in this petition. Recently, a large number of international students at my school have had to go home for 4-6 weeks at a time to renew visas.  Do your schools do anything special to help make this less painful for the students/PIs, or is it just a fact of life?

[Science_Nerd]

Why did they have to go back to their country?

For what I understand, if you have F-1, you can still stay in the US just fine even after the F-1 visa expires as long as you maintain the full-time student requirement, and also you can still take a short leave, like for international conference or what not, and be able to return as long as you have the signed I-20 and such.

 

Idk, maybe my information is out-of-date.

[TakeruK]

A visa is only required to enter the United States (or any country), so it doesn't matter if the visa is expired and you are already in the US. In fact, some countries have visas that are only valid for one single entry so as soon as you cross the border, it's expired/invalid. I know a lot of people with visas that are valid for just one year (so during the first year, you can enter/leave as much as you want, but afterwards you must get a new visa).

 

If you have an expired visa and you leave the US, then you must get a new visa before you can return, unless you are leaving to go to Canada or Mexico. So this means if a F-1 (or J-1) student goes to a conference in France after their visa has expired, then they cannot re-enter the US until they get a new visa. For some people, this is very inconvenient (and expensive) to stay in France and apply for a visa through the US Embassy/Consulate in France. So, what a lot of people do when they know they need to travel later is to go to Canada or Mexico or home (or anywhere else really) and get a new visa ahead of time. Or, if they want to visit home they will be stuck there until they get a new visa issued. 

 

I haven't known anyone to be extremely inconvenienced by this, though. One time, my TA was stuck for an extra week in China as he got extra paperwork to complete (or something) so he missed the first week of class. I think it will be a fact of life though. I can understand the extra security for someone to have to leave to the US in order to get their visa approved.

 

Also, I think this will create problems if someone's visa application is denied while they are already in the US. Unless the denial is an administrative issue (e.g. missing paperwork), the decision would make no logical sense, since how can you deny access to your country to someone already in it? At the same time, the US doesn't want to grant visas to everyone already holding a visa. Instead, it makes far more sense to only decide on the visa application when the user actually needs the visa to enter the US. It's far easier to keep someone out of the US than to remove someone who is already in the US.

 

And, I think approving visas within the US might encourage some people who get their visas denied to remain in the US beyond their F-1 or J-1 status because they know they won't be able to return. 

 

Maybe there are other arguments for allowing visa renewals within the country? I agree (and I think it is already possible) that one should be able to extend their I-20s or DS-2019s within the US if they end up needing more time to finish and so on. But visas (permission to enter) should be applied for and granted when the applicant is outside of the country in question!

[fuzzylogician]

If we're worried about people over-staying because they are applying for a visa renewal, we might just as well worry about people not bothering trying to renew their visa and over-staying just for the heck of it. As was already mentioned, the document you need to keep valid throughout your stay in the US is your I-20 or DS-2019, not your visa. Even if someone is denied a new visa, they could in principle stay in the US until their documents expire, and they probably would appreciate knowing that they won't be able to re-enter the US because presumably their belongings would remain behind them in the US if all they are doing is going away for a few days for a conference. The main argument I see for letting students extend (or renew) their visas from the US is the hassle that it creates if you need to renew them from abroad, especially since you're supposed to get the visa renewed in your home country and not in any other US embassy. Doing that (=trying at another embassy) sometimes works and sometimes doesn't and there is a risk involved. Needing to fly to your home country after every visit to another country is expensive and it takes much longer to then be able to get back into the US. We are talking here about people who need to leave e.g. to go to a conference and who otherwise have valid documents, so people who we otherwise expect to get their visas renewed but who have the misfortune of being citizens of countries that the US is not on the best terms with. People who aren't sure of their status or don't have all of their (other) documents in order will probably not leave the US to begin with. 

[TakeruK]

Good points, fuzzylogician! I was under the impression that a third-country visa renewal (i.e. doing it at an US embassy in the country of the conference) was the same as doing it in your home country (except for the location). If it actually is unreliable and that you're supposed to do the application in your home country, then wow, that sucks! 

[Science_Nerd]

Well, since my family back in Japan is asking me to visit them before my grad school starts, so I guess I just might as well renew my visa then.

Short vacation in Tokyo sounds sweet before stressful life in the laboratory.  

[VioletAyame]

Everything fuzzy said. Especially when it takes at least 2 flights and costs at least approx $1000 for me to fly back home.

But can we really petition the US government when we're not citizens?

[TakeruK]

Everything fuzzy said. Especially when it takes at least 2 flights and costs at least approx $1000 for me to fly back home.

But can we really petition the US government when we're not citizens?

 

I was reading the "Terms of Participation" on the website (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/terms-participation) and it says nothing about being a citizen! In the FAQ, the answer to "Who can participate in We The People?" is

Anyone 13 or older can create or sign a petition on WhiteHouse.gov. In order to participate in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov, users must create a WhiteHouse.gov account and verify their email address.

 

 

 

Anyways, so I figure this means I'm allowed to sign it and so I did! 

 

(Although I imagine this is part of the reason that the wording of the petition is from an American point of view.)

Edited March 18, 2014 by TakeruK