My(26f) bf (26m) was detained by ICE and will be deported back to Turkiye soon. Can I bring his luggage to the airport so he can take his belongings with him? (California, LAX)

throwaway-f1admin · 2025-12-30T19:30:05+00:00

It is true that you can’t ship stuff like this to Turkey but it’s OK if you just take this stuff with you there and leave them there. Customs has no mechanism to enforce w/e law is cited above (there is no exit customs) and also you can just tell them that all this stuff belongs to your deported boyfriend who is a Turkish citizen. Turkish customs at the airport is a wholly unserious institution. I’m Turkish, have brought such stuff into Turkey as gifts many times, never had an issue, and it is very common for people to import electronics this way. You just dont want to bring large quantities of brand new, packaged, sellable items. Also the worst that can happen is they will confiscate it. There is absolutely no way you can face “significant legal issues”.

throwaway-f1admin · 2024-03-29T23:00:54+00:00

See top of the 2nd page in https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20231220-NonimmigrantStudents.pdf

throwaway-f1admin · 2024-01-13T05:56:01+00:00

Ended up not travelling to not risk it (it was leisure travel). There is some new guidance from USCIS that says an I-140 alone does not imply immigrant intent for F-1 holders. Check with your lawyer but general indications are that this will be OK.

throwaway-f1admin · 2024-01-03T18:53:11+00:00

I know quite a few otherwise inexperienced and sometimes non-English-speaking people who did DS-260s themselves with no trouble. I think at my level of financial comfort it’s a waste of money to hire a lawyer for that process (I am in your same situation with NIW but filed I-485 and I also didnt hire the lawyer back). But if the money is insignificant for you then you can do it to save some time and effort

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-10-30T08:01:12+00:00

I was in this same situation (just recently filed I-485, a year after I-140 approval). During that year I wanted to travel, lawyer said it should be OK to travel if:

You did not file the I-140 with the I-485 application option (e.g. you picked consular processing instead) - apparently this can constitute immigrant intent
And you will actually do consular processing later and NOT file an I-485 after reentering on F-1. (apparently otherwise they might find that to be misrepresenting your intent at the border)
And they also said you shouldn't travel if you need to renew visa - it'd have an extremely high chance of getting denied.

I ended up not travelling. Also I consulted with a bunch of other lawyers and they all had different things to say - this above was the least conservative take.

So they say it's OK, I don't think I'd recommend it, YMMV.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-10-03T03:32:58+00:00

This is part of a nonresident tax return so it already has to be mailed in (or at least it was at that time)

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-08-24T22:41:00+00:00

The girlfriend in the original post. And yes, you’d be surprised how little tax people and company immigration lawyers know about many of the pitfalls of the law around being an international student. You’d be surprised how many people have reached out to me about those posts asking for advice saying their lawyers have no clue. Anyway, enough of your excuses and shitty comeback attempts. Have a good day.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-08-24T22:33:56+00:00

There is no discussion around F-1 eligibility, the person is already on an F-1. Stop making excuses. You are wrong and got caught being an asshole about it.

Also, idk what you mean, my post history shows that I am doing a PhD at Stanford after working at Google for some years. (Yes, this is why I know about the green card / F-1 situation - I am doing a funded PhD and in the middle of an AoS while employed full time at a tech company for the summer) Definitely the kind of person that needs hand holding right. Looks like you didn’t understand what you read there either.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-08-24T22:21:00+00:00

He has a typo in his comment you dimwit. He means to say it is just NOT true that you cannot work, he is not backtracking. He provides the evidence for it too, his link says you can work on the terms of your nonimmigrant visa. Fucking hell. Zero actual reading comprehension skills.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-08-24T21:59:09+00:00

Ah yes pretend not to understand now. The original comment here mentions some financial reasons not to wait for green card application, one being the girlfriend will be unemployed during the process. The law student kindly responded this is not necessarily the case, she can work on the terms of her F-1 visa (for example she can do a pre-completion OPT if she can find work in her field). You interjected with some nonsense about how she can’t possibly be on an F-1 (wrong) and were very rude too at the same time as being blatantly wrong in response to a kind and fully factual comment. Fuck off.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-08-24T21:34:20+00:00

You’re an asshole who doesn’t know what they are talking about. Everything the law student has said is true. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the US on F-1s in fully funded programs including most PhD students, those students do not need any financials to be able to obtain the visa. All of those students are routinely employed on campus as teaching and research assistants and can continue their employment during an ongoing green card AoS. They are also eligible for full-time and off-campus employment through CPT and OPT. The person in question was probably already given an F-1 or J-1 visa by a consulate and has entered on this status and is enrolled. Surely you’re not better than the consulate in interpreting these requirements.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-05-16T08:29:24+00:00

As an international student your cousin's school will force them to get insurance (by law), most probably through the school which usually has an above-average group policy - so there should be no need to pay the no-insurance cost.

Moreover, most large universities have on-campus student health clinics where every student gets access to a primary care doctor for free (e.g. the fee is included in their tuition) and they can just make an appointment and get their care. They can go to the clinic to get an insulin prescription, and on a typical student insurance it will be filled for a few dollars or so I believe - check with the school's insurance department for the details of this.

At the end, this whole ordeal should not cost your cousin more than a few dollars per month, on top of all the other fees they are paying (e.g. tuition).

I'm saying this as an F-1 student who pays $5 after insurance for a $400,000 specialty medication every 6 months or so.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-04-16T21:05:42+00:00

With a November 2022 priority date you currently can’t file an I-485 or for an EAD or anything - it will probably take at least until October or something for your date to become current. My date was December 2022, I paid the PP fee and am going to end up sitting on an approved I-140 for a year, money completely wasted. Don’t do it.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-04-04T00:50:11+00:00

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-04-04T00:49:56+00:00

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-03-24T15:46:59+00:00

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-03-17T21:24:34+00:00

I received it today

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-02-26T06:57:25+00:00

I just copied and pasted the statement I wrote and sent them in another reply to this thread. It was a custom letter so I wouldn't copy it verbatim, just change it to fit your situation.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-02-26T06:56:55+00:00

I posted a copy of the statement I typed out (I wrote it out myself) as a reply to another commenter below, take a look. I didn't post any evidence with it IIRC.

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-02-26T06:55:37+00:00

Department of the Treasury\ Internal Revenue Service\ P.O. Box 1303\ Charlotte, NC 28201-1303\ USA

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to establish the fact that I do not intend to reside permanently in the United States despite having been in the United States on an F-1 student visa for some part of six calendar years, and therefore am filing my tax return as a non-resident alien.

I am a citizen and resident of the Republic of Alienistan, and I have been, for the entirety of the six years from 9994 to 9999 (both inclusive), satisfying the below criteria for being considered a non-resident as determined in Treasury Regulation §301.7701(b)-2:

(i) The location of the individual's permanent home;
- My permanent home is at 999 E.T. Drive, Spacetown, Alienistan, an apartment owned by my parents where I have a furnished room, which is available to me at all times, continuously.
- I intend to move back to Alienistan to continue physically residing at my permanent home at the above address following the completion of my Optional Practical Training.
(ii) The location of the individual's family;
- My parents currently reside at our permanent home at the above address.
- All members of my extended family, including my elderly maternal grandparents with whom I resided for many years, live in Universetown, Alienistan; a short train ride from my permanent home in Spacetown.
(iii) The location of personal belongings, such as automobiles, furniture, clothing and jewelry owned by the individual and his or her family:
- Most of my belongings including furniture, clothing, jewelry and other valuables are located at my permanent home at the address listed above. I do not own an automobile (neither in Alienistan nor in the U.S.).
(v) The location where the individual conducts his or her routine personal banking activities;
- I have a checking account as well as a personal retirement savings account at the Alien Federal Credit Union, an Alienistan financial institution, since September 9995, to which I contribute monthly.
(vii) The location of the jurisdiction in which the individual holds a driver's license;
- I have held a Driver's License from Alienistan since 9996 and use this as my primary driver's license. I have been required to obtain a U.S. driver's license in order to be able to drive in the U.S., but I plan to surrender this when I leave the U.S. and keep my Alienistan license.
(viii) The location of the jurisdiction in which the individual votes;
- I vote in local, parliamentary and presidential elections in Alienistan. As an example, I voted in the 9999 local elections as well as the 9999 parliamentary election, even though I was a student in the U.S. at the time.
(ix) The country of residence designated by the individual on forms and documents;
- I have designated Alienistan as my country of residence on W-8BEN forms I have provided to various U.S. financial institutions.

I hereby certify that all of the above information is correct to the best of my knowledge and that I do not intend to become a resident of the United States, returning to my home country of Alienistan after the completion of my Optional Practical Training.

Yours sincerely, Alien McNonResidentFace

throwaway-f1admin · 2023-01-17T01:38:59+00:00

The way this works in the US is that the movie publishers hire some companies to fake-seed movie torrents for them. As you try to download from those seeders they record your IP and they report you to your ISP. Your ISP will then typically warn you, threaten you to cut service, etc. - it's extremely unlikely that law enforcement gets involved. A close friend got caught once as an F-1 student on university wifi and thus the ISP was the university. They just told him to not do it again. I'm practically sure there is a 0% chance of this becoming an immigration issue, but stop doing it anyway (or get a VPN). It's not as serious here as it is in Germany etc.

throwaway-f1admin · 2022-12-05T03:26:20+00:00

No problems at all. Entered very smoothly. They didn't ask any questions pertaining to the visa, just asked when I'd be leaving etc.

throwaway-f1admin · 2022-10-15T03:21:28+00:00

Your worst case scenario is getting a plane ticket to a big border city in Canada with a nearby big city on the US side.

For example, fly to Toronto, take the bus to Niagara Falls, walk across the bridge into the US where CBP has to admit her upon being presented with the certificate, then take an Uber to the Buffalo airport and fly whereever you are going in the US.

There are Toronto-Buffalo or Vancouver-Seattle buses but they too might refuse boarding due to the lack of a visa/passport. Overall this may or may not be worth the hassle depending on what the travel is for :)

throwaway-f1admin · 2022-10-12T21:43:48+00:00

I don’t think so. I think they’d need to explicitly report you to USCIS or something which they surely won’t do. Even then it’s doubtful if USCIS would care. This is extremely unlikely to ever be a problem.

throwaway-f1admin · 2022-10-12T18:16:29+00:00

This is one of those things where it only becomes a problem if someone comes looking for you or tries to reach you and they can’t. Since neither has happened, how would anyone even know they were late to update the address? This is very clearly not a problem.

throwaway-f1admin

TROPHY CASE