Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing overstay in the United States. For those who are unaware, overstay means you have gone into the US for example on a US Tourist Visa; you had 6 months of lawful status, usually it is 6 months that's the way most people go in these days. By the way, that is not automatic as we have discussed in other videos. It's basically only 6 months because the Customs and Border Protection Officers that adjudicate folks at the point of entry don't want to keep resetting their stamp so they just set it the next day over from the prior day so that it is always 6 months out because that's the max. amount of time allowed on a Tourist Visa to America, so they just stamp folks in with that six months. It is not automatic; folks think that it is, it is not. 

But the reason for this video, I saw a recent comment on our channel and I thought I would do this video to kind of put that into perspective. Quoting directly: "In America, visa overstays are not tracked. People don't do Border Runs, they just never leave." Well yeah overstays are tracked, they are in fact tracked. Kind of hard to see it, I get, I will grant. Yeah as we've discussed in other videos there are probably something to be said for or maybe I should say enforcement of US Immigration Law and Policy is a little bit lacking at the moment for lack of a better term. That being stated, I am not over there so I am not going to go any further than because that's just beyond my ability to make a personal observation because I haven't been in the United States for quite a long time. 

That said, the notion that overstays are not tracked is just categorically incorrect. Overstays are very much tracked; the Immigration Systems knows when people come in. A lot of folks don't think they are because you don't really go through an Immigration checkpoint on the way out insofar as they don't stamp you out the way, for example they do here in Thailand where you get stamped out. They see you have overstayed; generally they fine you at that point, possibly detain you depending on circumstances and then they deport you. It is all sort of one fluid motion and they just say "okay you have overstayed", they may stamp your passport and off you go. You will be entered in the system here in Thailand as an overstay. In the United States oftentimes people just leave and they think "oh they didn't see that I overstayed." Yeah they did, they know. As we have discussed in other videos, there is a system similar to the so-called APPS System, the Advance Passenger Processing System. Flight manifests with all of the relevant biometric data is given to USCBP on the way out for folks that are leaving the United States and they are aware who is coming and who is going, so yeah in point of fact overstays are monitored. 

Now I do get that maybe this comment was made a little bit sarcastically and pertaining to again issues surrounding Immigration Law enforcement in the United States, that is kind of beyond the scope of this video. But I wanted to make this video just to dispel any misunderstandings that there might be. Yes very much so, overstay is tracked in the United States. Overstaying in the United States can also lead to what's called a Legal Ground of Inadmissibility which would thereby preclude somebody from returning to the United States for a given period of time. Usually that will be dependent on the amount of time one overstayed in the US and then they will be given a certain period where they are effectively "blacklisted" from coming back in to the USA due to that prior overstay. It may be possible to go ahead to have that ground of Inadmissibility based on a prior overstay waived by using what's called an I-601 Waiver. Again depending on the circumstances in the case, it may be possible to get that waived and be able to get that person back into the United States but make no mistake, overstays most certainly are tracked by the US Immigration apparatus and there are consequences associated with overstaying in the USA.