Documents Needed For Traveling Outside The United States

By Published On: December 22, 2021Categories: Vlog, Immigration

”El Show Sin Fronteras”

Spanish Video Above Translated In English Below

Today’s Show

Welcome to our beautiful immigrant community. We are here enjoying our “Show Sin Fronteras” where we are constantly doing these meetings with the intention of helping you to have a clearer understanding of immigration and bankruptcy topics, also to keep you updated about what is going on with immigration policies, updates, etc.

Keep in mind that this show was created with the intention of letting you know what you need to do to get your papers, how you can visit your family in your home country, and what you may need to do to get them there now so they can be with you.

Today we will be talking about this plan, and we are prepared to talk about the permissions we need to obtain before traveling on these holidays where we want to meet with our loved ones.

What Should I Do To Travel Undocumented?

Our dear attorney Kate tells us: ”It’s almost the holidays and there are a lot of people who want to visit their friends or their relatives here in the United States, and we’re not talking about international travel, but undocumented people should be especially careful in their travels because now we have the Washington policy.

It is The Bank’s price policy, and it says that the State will not try to detain or deport immigrants who have no criminal record, have been in the United States for more than one year, are not suspected or involved in terrorism, or are gang members, have no arrests in their past, etc.

For those people, the policy means that they are not at risk of being caught or placed in deportation proceedings, but the policy also states that a deportation officer on the ground has the power to make the decision to detain or arrest a person, or directly place them in deportation proceedings.

That means that no one is 100% sure that they won’t have that kind of interaction with law enforcement or immigration officer.

If you plan to travel you should be aware that normally at airports within the United States such as Oklahoma, there are no Border Patrol agents at those locations, but sometimes there are and no one knows when or why.

We have a client who was caught in an airport in the interior, not knowing that person was going to have contact with Border Patrol agents, so if you’re flying through Brownsville or maybe international airports like San Diego or Dallas, you may come across Border Patrol agents.

It is risky to fly or go through an airport without having some type of permission to be in the United States, but if you have a valid Visa, have a work permit, or have a Green Card, you are safe to fly.

This information is intended for undocumented immigrants who overstayed their visas, entered without permission, and do not have legal status.

Those people can have contact with an immigration officer at an airport and it’s the same for car travel because it doesn’t matter if the person driving is standing in a rural place where the police are anti-immigrant, it’s risky to have that interaction with a police officer.

I’m not saying no one should travel, but it’s a personal decision and you have to consider the risks when you’re planning your travel, and we’re available to talk to anyone about their immigration case, their travel plans, and we don’t charge you anything to consult with us”.

Something worth mentioning is that it is important to check the car you are traveling in (if it is overland) and also the car you are using every day, to make sure all the lights are working, to make sure you don’t miss something so you don’t get stuck in the middle of the road because that is where you run the risk of being stopped by a cop, or if you leave your car in the middle of the road and suddenly the cops come by to try to help you, and in that same interaction you run the risk of it escalating to something else.

Make sure you have everything current with your car, network, registration, insurance. All must be current and up to date.

Black Friday Special At Lincoln-Goldfinch Law

As we already know, it was recently Black Friday, and we at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law want to give you some excellent news that our dearest attorney will share with us.

Kate: ”I want to announce that in our office we have a Black Friday Special that we are doing, it’s the first time we have done a discount on the first payment, we are offering for the first time 25% off.

Normally when we give a discount, we apply the discount to the total cost of your case, and normally the first payment on a case is around $1,000 depending on how much work we have to start your case, and we do not lower the price of the first payment because immediately our legal team and our legal guardians begin their work with our new clients.

We send the welcome email and then the legal team will take care of helping the client fill out their information, find the required documents, help them collect the evidence, which can be a bit of a difficult task for people who have to prove their presence in the United States for 10 years for example, and also the attorney reviews the case immediately.

New Immigration Reforms That Will Benefit The Immigrant Community

Then after we open the case we can’t give a discount on the down payment because we are working hard, but we want to recognize that it’s Christmas time and that’s why we want to give a gift to our community and offer a down payment that is less than the normal price that we offer so that you can start your cases now and not wait for the new year, not wait for your taxes to have more peace in your life because it’s better to be able to go through the holidays knowing that you have made the decision to improve your life.”

What Is Plan C?

One question we get from our audience is this: What is Plan C all about?

Kate tells us: ”What we know about Plan C is that they’re calling it part of the proposed Congressional bill that’s going to cover infrastructure costs, streets, and things for the community.

There is a part of that bill for the immigrant community; Biden and members of Congress wanted to give more, and this, this is a way to be able to fix the immigrant community in a permanent way to give them their residency and their citizenship at the end of the day.

Those first two plans, Plan A and Plan B didn’t happen, so what happened was when the house of representatives passed these infrastructure costs, they included Plan C, which will give work permits to undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for more than 10 years, who have been here since 2011.

It’s very important to know that it hasn’t passed the Senate yet, so we have about a 50% chance.

We still have to wait for the other half of Congress and nobody knows if it’s going to pass as expected, but they can start gathering evidence from people who are going to qualify, people who are undocumented and have more than 10 years in the United States.

You will probably have to prove your time in the United States for more than 10 years, so you can start by gathering receipts that prove your time in the country, which can be for example your work records, your pay stubs, your taxes, your school records, marriage license, divorce license, birth certificates of your children, rent payments… Any receipt that contains your name, a place, and date will definitely do.

We at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law advise you to gather everything you need because we are waiting for the Senate’s decision and we will be updating you immediately when we have news.”

You don’t have to wait either, because most banks and institutions only keep a certain amount of years, so after so many years, they can’t get hold of your files anymore, so you have to go now. So you have to go now.

Something else that happened when DACA happened was that they were running low because they had so many requests from these banks and school districts, so they were taking more time to give customers what they needed.

You don’t have to wait, you have to go as soon as you can, you have to be prepared for when this is announced and be able to apply.

If the new law doesn’t pass there is no problem because you already have all these documents that you will need to have in hand, so you definitely need to prepare and be ready.

DACA & TPS This 2021

Kate: ”In DACA there is no deadline built into the program.

There is no application due within a year, but the deadlines for the DACA program were because of decisions by judges in the Federal Courts.

There are also other programs, for example, TPS for Hondurans, Salvadorans, or Haitians, these do have deadlines.

When the president announced a TPS program he said that there are Venezuelans who have to apply before say September 15th of next year, so people know that they have to apply in this window of opportunity.

We honestly don’t think there’s a window like that in Plan C, but we’re going to have to wait because what happens is that when Congress sends an immigration reform, what follows is a rule from the immigration agency that’s going to say what form you have to use, it’s the I-556 form, for example, and you have to submit that list of documents, and so they give us the specific requirements for those types of cases.

We don’t have that information on Plan C yet because it is currently only a proposed it’s only a proposed law”.

Another question we received from our esteemed audience is the following: Is there an expected time when we might see some action or a decision on the part of the Senate?

Our lawyer Kate shares with us: ”I think it’s going to be quick, it’s going to be probably within a month, but the moment we have the information we will make a video on our networks to announce the news immediately as soon as we get it.”

How Long Is It Taking To Receive The Pardon Receipt?

Another question asked by our audience says: Good morning, I have a question, we sent a waiver to immigration at the end of August and they are taking forever to send us that receipt.

Kate shares with us: ”Yes, it can take two or three months for the receipt to arrive.

If you haven’t received a receipt since August it seems a little strange to me, but what they can do is if you paid with a check, they can check with your bank to see if the check was processed by immigration, and that way, they can give you a picture of the back of the check where they put a stamp with your case number on it.

Apply For DACA Or TPS To Fix Your Status With Lincoln-Goldfinch Law

That would be the way to check if the package was received, that’s why in our office we send our own checks even though customers sometimes want to pay with their own check because that allows us to track the status of that package and we keep them updated.”

I-130 Form & Plan C

Another question we get asked on our networks: Good morning, assuming the Senate passes this new law, would those with an I-130 already in have an adjustment inside?

Kate says, ”No one knows at this point.

Maybe we’ll have to see if they include it in Plan C since it gives a legal admission for the adjustment of the status process.

It’s something we’re going to have to look at in the rules and in the details of the program that come after we pass the bill.”

This means that if that happens, many, many people will be able to adjust their immigration status here in the United States.

In case you have additional questions about your upcoming trip, the new immigration laws, your adjustment of status, or about your specific case, you can contact us at (855) 502-0555. After a short 10 minute evaluation of your case via telephone we will let you know what options you have. You can also follow us on our social networks so you don’t miss our weekly broadcasts via Facebook, YouTube & Twitch.

About the Author: Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch

I am the managing partner of Lincoln-Goldfinch Law. Upon graduating from the University of Texas for college and law school, I received an Equal Justice Works Fellowship in 2008, completed at American Gateways. My project served the detained families seeking asylum. After my fellowship, I entered private immigration practice. My firm offers family-based immigration, such as greencards and naturalization, deportation defense, and humanitarian cases such as asylum, U Visa, and VAWA. Everyone at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law is bilingual, has a connection to our cause, and has demonstrated a history of activism for immigrants. To us, our work is not just a job. After the pandemic we began offering bankruptcy services in addition to immigration I realized how much lack of information there is in financial literacy resources in Spanish.

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