gotenks2

Hi, I live in Mexico and I travel to the US with a spanish (VWP Eligible) passport with no issues. Sometimes by air and sometimes by highway (land border). (I have both nationalities)

But this time I'm gonna buy a car in the US and import it into Mexico, so I'll enter the US by air and leave by land in the purchased car.

As many of you know when you enter by air you use ESTA you no longer recieve the I-94W (the green form that you have to surrender to the border officer upon leaving the country to register your departure). So, how will I be able to register my departure properly if I'll have no I-94W card to surender. Since I'm mexican citizen too I won't get my passport stamped by the mexican authorities.

I will have the return ticket cuz it's cheaper to buy round-trip than one-way so I'll have the return ticket anyways, I just won't use it and let it loose. so that's not a problem when asking for admission the problem here is how to record my departure properly.

If any of you have had any experience or done something like that please let me know in order to know what to do.

Thanks in advance.

hoffage123

https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/det...l-have-my-i-94

You need to validate your departure asap at the address mentioned in the link above, otherwise it will be recorded as an overstay.

If you are travelling on your spanish passport, assume that at the land POE you would also show your passport to be stamped out as well as your mexican passport?

gotenks2

No, it's not the case. First I haven't flown yet. I'm gonna fly within 1 week and do what I said (leave by land in the purchased car). Besides I'll get no I-94 in paper (ESTA insead) so I won't have any I-94 to send to Kentucky. The thing is how to record my departure at the land border without the paper form.

I don't have mexican passport, just the spanish but the problem is that CBP doesn't stamp the passport upon leaving. Only when arriving. And Mexico doesn't stamp passports in the land border. Only at airports. In the border there's no immigration checkpoint in the mexican side, at least in the northern mexican border. I guess in the southern border with central america it should be a different story.

If any of you have done so I'll appreciate your experience.

Michael

If you have a paper form I-94 and depart by land, you can turn the form into Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) upon entry into Canada or to CBP at the port of entry prior to entering Mexico. If you received an electronic I-94 upon arrival by air or sea and depart via land, your departure may not be recorded accurately. A departure will be recorded if you depart via land and re-enter the United States prior to the expiration date stamped in your passport. If you are not a resident of Canada or Mexico and you receive an electronic I-94 and depart via land, but do not re-enter the United States prior to the expiration date stamped on your passport, you may want to travel with evidence of your departure into Canada or Mexico. Evidence of departure can include, but is not limited to, entry stamps in a passport, transportation tickets, pay stubs and/or other receipts. A traveler can request an entry stamp from CBSA when entering Canada or from the InstitutoNacional de Migracion (INM) when entering Mexico.

https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/request.html

You can also print your I-94 from the following web site and possibly hand that to the CBP.

http://cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/id_vis..._instructions/

Hopefully the above information will help.

gotenks2

Thanks. So I guess I can cross the border into Mexico. Park my car in the mexican side and walk back through the brddge to cross to the US side and go to the immigration office (a re-enter) to get my passport scanned, probably my fingerprints and record my departure.

It makes sense. I think that's what I'm gonna do.

Thanks for the info. And again if there's anybody who have done so I'll apprecierte if you share your experience.

I can't get my passport stamped by the mexican Immigration.... in theory they should, but in practice they don't do it... I know becaus I live here and I know how it actually works... and I've cross the border a lot of times... so I know in practice it doesn't work that way.... Even there's no immigration check point in the mexican side.... at least in the northern border.... Here in Mexico there are many things that in theory they should work in some way and in practice it's totally different... the burocracy here is messy and complicated...

gotenks2

Finally my journey was finished. As the car had to cross to Mexico totally empty to import it, I left my belongings at the hotel where I was staying in El Paso, so I crossed into Mexico with the empty car and when I finished all the mexican customs formalities I crossed back to the US to pick up my belongings and the CBP officer sent me to the immigration office to apply for a tourist permit, ignoring I had entered by air a few days ago and the ESTA admission was still active (I didn't tell him either), so I cleared immigration again and this time they did give me the paper I-94 and that's what I surrendered upon leaving the US.

I guess the last admission (the one I got at the Airport) was automatically canceled when I got the new one with the I-94. The strange thing is that in El Paso they don't give you the classic green form that you have to fill out; here they just ask you for the address where you're staying at and they print the White form and stamp it (you don't fill anything). It's the same white form used for B2 Visa which is printed but it says "Visa Waiver", and in Admission type it says "WB" instead of B2

crg

They could have readmitted you with the stamp you received at the airport.

You received the white form they printed because you had ESTA. Had you not had ESTA, you would have completed the green form.

I'm not sure why they admitted you for business (WB) instead of tourism (WT).