The US asks if you have been to places like Iraq, Iran, Libya etc since 2011. If you do, you can’t ESTA, you need a visa.
Work would like me to go to Iraq, which is fine. They’ll pay for me to get a US Visa too.
Trouble is in 20 years time when I want to go to NY for my kids wedding or whatever, I’ll still have to answer “yes” to the “I visited Iraq” question, and I won’t be working for the company that sent me there, so I’d have to go for the long arduous process of prostrating myself at the US embassy to beg for a visa, incurring a large expense to do so. Just because the stamp isn’t in my active passport doesn’t mean I can answer “no” to the question
It’s not like Israel, where the stamp would cause problems but they don’t ask (or the other way round where an Israeli stamp would cause problems going to Iran).
Even when I apply for a visa and have to list every country (often in a comically small box with like 100 characters max length), like with India, it only asks “what could tries have you visited in the last 10 years”
I wonder how that works for people that went there because their country joined one neocon middle eastern venture or another. Does it count if you went there for invasion purposes?
I have two because I provided a letter from my organisation backing me having two as I travelled frequently and often had a passport away at an embassy waiting for a visa and need to be able to travel at short notice.
Since then I’ve reduced the number of visa based countries I’ve needed to go to (more have gone electronic), and countries have reduced stamps, throw in covid, and it’s to the point that I doubt I’ll fill my passports up before the 10 years has expired. It’s a shame really, the stamps in past passports are a great momento, but places like Hong Kong, Israel, Canada, Australia have all stopped stamping in the last few years.
Guess the lack of stamps means record holding has moved from the passport into the cloud. While the distributed record keeping was certainly more privacy friendly, the new method makes it certainly easier for nation states.
> Without prejudice to the provisions on travel documents applicable to national border controls, Member States shall grant Union citizens leave to enter their territory with a valid identity card or passport
Have you travelled to, or been present in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, North Korea or Yemen on or after March 1, 2011?
Using a second passport, fake passport, alias, fake glasses and moustache doesnt make a differnce to the answer to that question. Its not even a workaround.
I meant that it is not legal to use a second passport as a workaround to support a lie about your travel history. Lying to enter the US is illegal regardless of the number of passports you have.
That's true. This only affects those who have visited Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen on or after March 1, 2011, and they're still not disqualified, but I do understand the frustration at the inconvenience (although none of this will affect me since I am a US and EU citizen).
You can get a second US passport with limited validity. Great when you need to apply for visas but also have other international travel going on. And sometimes it's convenient for hiding visa stamps of one country from another country.
No. Foreign nationals from countries (including most of Europe) that normally have access to the US through the Visa Waiver Program and ESTA lose that access if they visit Iran or a few other countries. They thereafter need to go through the full US visa application process if they want to go to the US.
One of the cases where at least in Germany you can get a second passport without problems. Another example would be travel to Israel and Arabian countries.
The question at the border is "Have you ever visited Iran?", Not "Do you have a stamp for Iran in this passport?".
Since passenger lists on flights around the world are pretty much public information, the US immigration services will know exactly where you have visited in the past, and could totally put you in prison for lying when answering the question.
They ask that questions also during student or work visa issuance - and even during the greencard (adjustment of status) and naturalization processes. They don't ask it every time you enter with these visas or statuses however.
But as a US citizen you will never be asked. And better yet if you are a dual citizen like me. Then you can travel on your other passport to the places the US finds to be undesirable.
Still requires you to lie on the ESTA form, which is not necessarily a good idea. (i.e. if you lie and get caught, that's worse than going through the visa process)
Sure, simple answer: don't carry both passports at the same time. Pretty sure Iran (an the other countries on the US blacklist) don't exchange travel information with the US.
The same is in Norway, although one have to justify it. For example one cannot get a visa to China if one has a stamp from Taiwan. So if one needs to travel to both often, then one can apply for the second passport.
I don’t remember China asking if I’ve been to Taiwan. I’d be surprised too - there’s direct flights between the two. That said I normally visit China on a 168 hour transit visa and fly via Hong Kong, Tokyo or Seoul rather than the hassle of applying for a visa.
If you have an Iranian passport stamp, I would expect very pointed questions at US immigration. I can't find a specific citation that says you need a visa if you've been to Iran, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
> If you have an Iranian passport stamp, I would expect very pointed questions at US immigration
Or any number of things. I know of multiple French citizens born in "suspect" for the Americans places like Algiers and Beirut who have had extensive questioning on arrival at the US, including the mindbogglingly stupid " why were you born there?".
That honestly doesn’t sound like a dumb question to me. People don’t just get randomly born abroad for no reason, it’s typically because their families were doing something there.
It kind of is though, because Algeria was a part of France until 1962, and there are millions of people of Algerian descent who have French citizenship.
Potentially. But, families can also travel to places where they don't live. They can also engage in activities that are of interest to customs officials, regardless of their residency status.
Rather than guessing, it's prudent to simply ask the question, no?
That’s fine for visiting Israel (which rarely stamps nowadays) and Iran.
The US specifically asks “have you ever been to Iran”. You can lie, then get arrested in the US, or you can say “yes”, and have to go through the time and expense to get a US visa. Forever.