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But if you leave the country for any reason and your entry visa has expired, you have to apply for a new visa to be allowed to return. And you often have to return to your home country to do that. Which can be inconvenient, as it can turn a short vacation or conference trip to a month-long stay in another country. And for citizens of some countries, there is a high risk of denial. Visiting your family can then leave you stranded in a country that's no longer your home, while being locked out of your actual home and life in the US.
This is a peculiar feature of the US system. In most countries, when you renew your temporary work permit (whatever it's called), you also renew you entry permit.
Why do you need a new physical stamp at all if you are not re-entering? I think your argument is backwards here. What I think you’re asking is “why can I stay in the country without taking this step, but I have to take this step to re-enter.”
Well, because when you leave the country you are subject to certain laws. Even a permanent resident cannot just leave and expect to come back whenever without consequence. Even a person eligible to apply for citizenship must meet a minimum threshold of presence.
Now, your question becomes “why are the laws the way they are” and/or “why doesn’t the law make sense”. I conjecture that these situations are particularly fringe for our legislators so they don’t get a ton of attention, and they make just enough sense to remain as is.
Another incredibly stupid thing of the American system is the fact that your spouse cannot work while you're subject to it.
Yeah, seems like this re-approval concept makes a ton of sense. FedEx at least got some business.
We are Finnish citizens and if the passports really had been lost, we could always get new ones at the Finnish consulate in New York to return home.
I’ve held several types of visas, L-1 and O-1, and I also applied for a PERM whatever that I eventually abandoned because I didn’t want to stay in the country and with that employer. The American immigration system is incredibly poorly designed and frustrating for all parties. It drives honest legal immigrants like us to an “I don’t give a shit” mindset where we just did the minimum to get the paperwork while waiting to leave the country.
Now I still get paid by an American company at the same rates as before, but I pay taxes to Finland instead. The immigrant-hostile system isn’t the success you imagine.
You have made it so complicated and unattractive to stay in the country that you don’t care about losing people who wanted to stay and pay taxes, and instead are enabling these jobs to be exported.
The reason I have strong feelings about this topic is that I want America to continue succeeding, and I wanted to be part of it but it didn’t make practical sense for me.
When I was a child in the 1980s living next door to the Soviet Union, the USA was a beacon of hope to us. It sounds corny but it’s true. (Reagan and Clinton were politicians who seemed to intuitively understand this global mood and were able to leverage it. I disagree with them on many specifics, but they excelled at this.)
I know Americans always feel like there’s too much going on at home to care about the rest of the world. But often in history the solutions at home have appeared by opening up, not closing in.
No. You only have to leave the country to have the visa stamp on your passport. That has no bearing on you being authorized to stay or work in the country.
That’s the simple truth. They do that for all types of visas. My mother had to do it, until she finally (reluctantly) became a US citizen, and she lived here, most of her life.
I think she had long-term visas, though. I only remember her doing it a couple of times. I think I went with her, on one of the trips.
As long as you have a valid H1b status, you can stay in the US indefinitely. Having a physical visa in your passport is optional, you only need it when you want to cross back into the US.
Some DMVs like to pretend they are USCIS and they want to see the physical visa in your passport. Annoyed me to no end.
Edit: and, it's flagged and gone. Voila.