Tara J. Goldsmith Immigration Law Blog on Lawyers.com

This week I received a call from a very frustrated client: "Immigration made a mistake on my I-94 and gave me the wrong expiration date."  I too rolled my eyes and cursed under my breath, until I looked at a copy of the I-94 card.  Actually, no mistake was made.

CBP (Customs Border Protection) has the right to limit a foreign national's I-94 to the expiration date of the holder's passport if the passport will expire before the period of authorized stay.  So if for example you are working pursuant to H1B visa status which expires September 29, 2012 and your passport will expire December 1, 2010, the next time you travel and return to the US, chances are that your I-94 will expire December 1, 2010.  Now normally, this can pretty easily be "corrected" by renewing your passport and then traveling (before December 1, 2010 of course) - upon re-entry you should be given an expiration date of September 29, 2012.  Or in the worst case scenario, if you are not able to travel, you company could file for an extension of your status prior to the new I-94 expiration date.  The problem is that often times people do not look at their I-94s.  They simply assume that they are given the correct expiration date and/or correct nonimmigrant visa classification and do not pay attention.

This is what happened with my client.  He last traveled in January and his passport (and I-94 expired in June).  He renewed his passport but never even noticed that his I-94 expired.  So now he has overstayed his status and the reprocussions are potentially very serious.  And all of this could have been pretty easily corrected had he simply looked.  While this was always a rule, in practice we are finding that CBP is really checking passports and limiting I-94s much more frequently. For this reason, please make it a habit to always review your I-94 card after you are inspected at the airport.  If you think there has been in a mistake, ask to speak to a supervisor.  If your I-94 is limited to the passport expiration date, make it a point to renew your passport immediately and speak to an immigration attorney about your options regarding extension.

For more than 30 years, the law firm of Garganigo, Goldsmith & Weiss has been assisting people with immigration, green card or visa issues. For more information on how our immigration attorneys in NY can help, please call us at 212-643-6400, email us online, or visit our office at 14 Penn Plaza, Suite 1020, New York, NY 10122.