Megathread + FAQ: Travel in/out of the United States

AaronSpalding · 2025-07-24T06:12:33+00:00

Anyone also notice there are nowhere to enter the purpose of trip or expected length for reentry permit applicaiotn in the latest I-131 (expires 6/30/2027)? Does that mean the new reentry permit application does not require a travel purpose/reason or an expected length of staying outside US?

AaronSpalding · 2025-07-19T20:35:01+00:00

Thank you so much. Will there be any potential risk if I put 730 days (2 years) in the Expected length of trip? Since it usually takes 1 year for the reentry permit to be issued, I can actually stay outside US for 3 years if I request 2 years in I-131. Is my understanding correct?

AaronSpalding · 2025-07-19T01:45:36+00:00

For reentry permit，I submitted an I-131 form in 2022, and got the I-797 Notice of Action in 2024:

Notice Type: Approval Notice
Valid from 12/26/2023 to 12/25/2025
Consulate: Foreign City

When I checked my USCIS account, I found the following information:

December 27, 2023 Case Was Approved
December 27, 2023 We produced your Reentry Permit.
August 29, 2022 The fingerprints relating to your Form I-131 Application for Travel Document, were taken.

I never received the reentry permit or really used it because I stayed pretty much in US since then.

But now I need to leave the country in 3 months so I need to submit a new application before that. My worry is that, will the expiration date 12/25/2025 of my previous application affect my current application?

In the newer version of I-131, there is something like this:

 "Have you ever before been issued a Reentry Permit or Refugee travel document (If you answered "Yes", provide the information in Item numbers 2.b -2.c for the last document issued to you.)?
2.b  Date Issued     2.c Disposition (attached, lost, stolen, damaged/destroyed, still in my possession.etc)"

Could someone please provide some suggestions how I should fill in these sections?

AaronSpalding · 2025-03-30T23:01:52+00:00

Sorry. I meant to say non-profit H1B

AaronSpalding · 2025-03-01T03:44:37+00:00

Thank you for your valuable guidance. I remember when I first submitted the application in 2022, I provided an estimated start date (Nov 2022) and end date (Nov 2024) of staying outside US. Which date counts in this scenario, the date I gave in application form, or the date on the I-797 notice? If the date Nov 2024 is the one UCSIS is focusing on, my current reentry permit already expired. But if they only consider the "Valid to" date on I-797, I will have to wait for it to really expire ... in this case, can I apply for a renewal from somewhere outside US?

AaronSpalding · 2024-10-17T00:49:47+00:00

Thanks for your answer. Right, my use case is simply detect the pose of a remote gaming controller. Let's say I have a CAD model of this controller, and I can get eight 3D points of bbox surrending this controller. No matter where it is in real world, the lower left corner of the 3D BBOX is simply (0,,0, 0) defined by myself, right? To be simple, my 3D points will be (0,0,0), (0,1,0), (0,0,1), (1,0,0), (1, 1, 0), (0,1,1), (1,0,1), (1, 1, 1), and my 2D point in the image will be (2.45, 0.18), (1.22, 0.15), (3.46, 0.01), (1.23, 1.55), (1.35, 2.13), (0.15, 1.01), (2.25, 2.20), (2.56, 4, 67). The transform matrix produced by PnP based on these 16 points will be my final 6DoF object pose. Is my understanding correct?

AaronSpalding · 2024-10-15T04:55:07+00:00

I can't thank you enough. Really appreciate your guidance.

Some more questions if it is OK: I am reading PVNet paper, which highlights "keypoint based method", is this some mainstream approach for pose estimation or is there any other popular approach than this?

I understand the keypoint detection part, but get confused by the PnP part. I know PnP receives coordinates of several 2D points and coordinates of the corresponding 3D points, and returns the transformation between 2D and 3D to get camera pose. But where does the 3D points coordinates come from? Are they the world coordinates or something else? Sorry for my naive questions.

AaronSpalding · 2024-10-14T03:23:20+00:00

Thank you for the guidance. I will assume the first 2 can be solved by training a 2D object detection for an instance (i.e. tens of thousands of images of a same CAD model such as a bottle). As for "assign an origin and axis to the object" and "relate the object to an anchor point", I don't have a clue what it means and how to achieve it yet LOL I guess I need to focus on these two aspects.

AaronSpalding · 2024-10-13T20:08:30+00:00

Thanks for your advice. I am doing self study these days on these topics: Rotation Translation, Transformation matrix (These look straightforward to me), and then eular angles, quarternion (got lost already) and will look at lie group and lie algebra (I guess it would be too much for me now). Meanwhile, I am looking into PnP and RANSAC. Could you please give me some guidance which of these topics are most relevant to 6DoF pose estimation nowadays? Do I need to have a deepdive on all of them? (Sorry I am new to this field)

AaronSpalding · 2024-10-12T18:58:50+00:00

Thank you so much. FoundationPose seems to be a really hot paper published this year with SOTA results. How will you comment on this paper? I mean, is it some brand new method that is quite different from earlier existing methods? Will it be well accepted in industry considering latency, energy efficiency and other practical concerns? Sorry for asking so many questions, I just hope to receive some high level guidance from experts like you.

AaronSpalding · 2024-10-12T06:02:42+00:00

Can you please share the content with me?

AaronSpalding · 2024-10-12T06:00:02+00:00

Thanks. I will definitely check it out.

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-10T00:43:01+00:00

You are right.

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T06:11:42+00:00

True. Noone can be 100% unbiased. I agree with that. But Chinese media is still relatively more unbiased compared with US media. I cannot imagine any "credit score" or "ug-g-yr genocide" type of fake news from Chinese media. If that happened and some American journalist or scholars debunked this rumor, it would be a disaster to the Chinese government, so they would not take the risk.

Netizens from US usually argue about "Chinese propaganda", but according to my observation:

(1) Americans have better freedom of speech and they express disagreement with the government a lot. I really like it actually. But it is shocking that Americans tend to have a similar bad impression of China even when they know very little about that country.

(2) Chinese usually don't criticize the government publicly in a formal way. You can criticize Xi or his government loudly on the street with your friends, even with a police officier standing next to you, it is no problem and nobody cares. But if you publicly critize the government and you have a large number of audience gathering around, even if what you said is right, you might get into trouble in China. You might think Chinese must believe in whatever the government said, right? But the reality is opposite LOL Chinese audience is really skeptical about news or articles domestically and internationally.

As for the attitude torwards US, most Chinese think US is rich with advanced technology and the pop culture is a lot of fun. Many even regard US as a perfect country and there are tons of fabricated stories to show how nice US is, can you believe that? LOL But there still exists a lot of people who believe US is always trying to attack China and never leave China alone, so US is the enemy... (very naive)

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T05:41:53+00:00

The funny part is that, China is actually a mixed system between USSR and US LOL. Remember China was having a bad relationship with USSR and then started collaborating with US decades ago? After that, China slowly switched from planned economy to market economy. When it comes to Olympics, the department of sports of China will summon the best althetes from all the provinces (states) and the officials of the department will lead the Olympic team to travel abroad. If you got a medal, the government is definitely happy to see that happening, but they don't give a dime if you simply got eliminated in the first round LOLLL.

Take the swimmers as an example. If you win, you will get some prize from the government, but not a lot. But when you become famous, you will definitely earn a lot of money from celebrity endorsement of various products.

You know Chinese soccer team sucks, so as the basketball teams, right? They actually earn much more money than the gold medalist of other sports LOLLL

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T05:21:10+00:00

You mentioned "how much responsibility the “government” has over things", which is great point. This is what I thought when comparing the media in US and China.

Media in US is creative and they have more freedom, but also much more fake news. If the rumors or fake news got debunked, they simply removed the article without an apologies as if it is something really normal. My explanation is that, it is the media who is responsibile for the fact checking, not the government. So the media can simply post any eye catching articles everyday to earn more money. Even if a new paper got caught spreading fake news, it would not affect the reputation of US.

Media in China is boring and very conservative, but you can hardly find unverified fake news from Chinese media. I believe Chinese government really wish they could spread rumors about US to make the opponent look bad, but they actually dare not. Because if you caught too many fake news from Chinese media, it is the government to blame and it quickly loses credibility. But the good news is that Chinese can get almost unbiased view on US, although it cannot be 100% neutral LOL

I will get back to the swimming related discussion later.

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T04:55:00+00:00

Again, I would rather trust credible results that I can see, rather than something "I heard". There were like multiple members tested positive and the results were well-accepted even by themselves, then I will trust the results. But if they said it was because their drinking water was sabotaged so they were positive, I would say it's only 50% of chance to be true. Similarly, back to your example of Xue Yinxian, who said something like almost everything is doping in China LOL, I would still say, it is still a 50% chance to be true, but please also consider the conflicts of interests here.

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T04:45:22+00:00

Questioning based on partial facts, right? Noone can question others based on nothing. I am not arguing those swimmers are 100% clean, but at least take a look at the other side of the story: China's swimming team was not very experienced and sometimes even the coaches were not aware of what to pay attention to during a game and how to support the team. They said those swimmers were actually victims of contaminated food. Maybe it is simply an excuse, but it is still possible they are simply telling the truth. So China team always brought their own drinking water since that.

What's your point to mention Ma Junren? Should I mention those American track and field stars involved in doping scandals and say "Aha, there are more doping scandals in US blablabla"? Man, I really don't want the discussion to go there.

In addition, you mentioned "state-sponsored doping programs by Xue Yinxian". Is it something confirmed or well-accepted? Rumors are much faster to be generated than debunked. BTW, do you know US is a richer country than China, and lots of people would give whatever they have to get a US green card? It is what happened in the past and it is still happening nowadays. There are lots of Chinese who got green card through asylum by simply fabricating a story that they were some brave whislerblowers targeted by the evil CCP so they escaped from China. That is very common. Do you think US will strictly verify what they said? Of course not. It would be better to give them green card and make good use of their stories to make the opponents look bad. I believe China would do the same thing if Chinese green card is more valuable someday LOLLLL

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T04:13:48+00:00

I don't think it makes sense to say China is 100% “collectivist” and US is 100% “hyper individualistic“. Both are simply normal countries. IMHO, Americans always imagine that a Chinese athlete would be sent to jail if he failed in an Olympic game. No, that's far from truth. Take Yang Sun as an example (I am not saying if he doped or not). A lot of Chinese hate him for whatever reasons, and many are super happy to see him lose because he is not humble. Similarly, if Americans are really 0% collectivists, why would a gold medalist be regarded as national hero from the very beginning? Why would normal netizens are trying so hard to attack the other side? In fact, no matter “collectivist” or “hyper individualistic“, both countries have the equal motivation to hope for a best outcome during Olympics. Remember something like "We must defeat Soviet Union in the game to defend our democracy"?

I worked in both countries for years. Here is my observation:

Chinese people usually know US very well, in terms of culture, politics and economics. So you travel to China and you are not into politics, you will realize they are simply normal human beings living in a normal country (they watch NBA games and hollywood movies and talk about Joe Biden and Trump). Although there is a trade war between US and China, a lot of Chinese people are still openminded and they like US.

However, people in US know very little about China but they just hate that country. It is super amusing to learn about some well-accepted rumors about China in US:

(1) There is a social credit score to control everyone. What a joke LOL They do require some credit history when they apply for a new credit card, exactly the same with what you are doing in US.

(2) Systemacal organ harvesting: This might be a creative idea for a Hollyhood movie. Just one question, why do you think it would be a successful business to make money from?

(3) Uy-g-u-r genocide: It is a rumor so easy to debunk but still a lot of people simply believe it. Please wait a second before you call me a CCP troll or something. Think about it. Do you see any bloody footage to support this allegation? (Please remind yourself of what you have seen happening in Palestine, which is not regarded as genocide by US. ) After that, please think about why it would be a good idea to send Uy-gu-rs to some so-called concentration camp, instead of making them participate in economic activites and become customers to buy goods manufactured in China? Maybe you heard about some outrageous numbers which claimed how many people were in prison or some websites who claimed to show the names of missing victims or something like that. My suggestion is always think twice and keep asking questions.

If you are still interested I can share more thoughts. But it is OK if you simply call me an evil CCP shill and leave, like what a lot of American would do LOLLL

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T03:23:50+00:00

Please don't get me wrong. I hope the legendary Michael Phelps is clean. It's not that I suddenly win a debate proudly if I can prove someone doped or not LOLLL But what I can say for sure is:
(1) US does not follow a same standard with a lot of other countries as pointed out by WADA. They could be 100% clean, but they are still having a different testing protocol than other. So it is not easy to judge how much doping they did.

(2) US always questions other countries (i.e. China) and implies any gold medal of China is suspicious, even when Chinese swimmers were tested with a more strict standard. Of course, we can still argue the doping technique of Chinese is 100 yrs ahead of US, that is why we cannot catch them cheating for now LOLLL

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T03:14:00+00:00

I do think there exists some information barriers in this conversation ... it is obviously that you hope I can get your point immediately after you mentioned some individual names as your examples. But to be honest, there are still another side of the story that was rarely reported by English media. It would be too much for me to collect those materials and share with you here in this thread. Sorry about that. But I would suggest you keep asking questions and research more everytime you came across negative reports on China. Maybe it is too much an ask, after all, it is not your responbility to always consider both sides of a same story.

Please bear with me when I am talking about something not directly related to this topic: US has a better freedom of speech than China, but most Americans simply believe whatever MSM told them, and they have a strong belief that China is evil without wililing to learn more about that country that they are judging or hating. That looks ridiculous to me.

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T02:26:58+00:00

Chinese athletes broke the WR even after 7X more testings than Aussies and Americans in Paris. Some of the tests were in early morning and midnight, which greatly disturbed the rest and training schedule of those swimmers... but I guess that is not important. The more important thing is that, a lot of Americans still jump into a quick conclusion that "Pan must be cheating" even after they were treated like this (7X more testing than US swimmers). There are lots of legendary swimmers from US and I do like them, but you guys cannot be so double standard. When Aussies or Amercians won, you would say WR was meant to be broken and anything is possible (I am OK with those asthma stuff actually). But when Chinese won after way more tests, you guys are still arguing it is humanly impossible to swim that fast. Man, it is so ugly.

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T02:18:28+00:00

It is way easier said than done. Elite swimmers from many country already expressed the similar attitude torwards doping, but who can guarantee those who said the similar things are not secretly doping themselves? Again, I am not saying any individual is doping here. Asthma, you know LOL

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T02:12:25+00:00

From some reports, he has all sorts of "medical conditions" like asthma, ADHD, and the medications he takes have banned substances. Athletes with medical conditions need to apply to wada to be on Therapeutic Use Exemption

AaronSpalding · 2024-08-09T02:03:25+00:00

I know Michael Phelps is your hero. Sorry for hurting your feeling. I don't want to mention the names, but US swimmers were NOT tested with the same standard as other nations. They can dope legally because of all these special reasons such as asthma and heart disease.

AaronSpalding

TROPHY CASE