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Old 02-07-2010, 11:36 AM   #1
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Default "overstaying" my visa

Okay, so, if anyone read my bureaucracy bullshit thread, you'll remember how freaked out I was getting about my visa. Everything turned out well after a couple of tears and a couple of faxes, but now I see that this still haunts me.

The date my visa (which I was required by my PROGRAM to get, and not by law) expires is the 24th of April, but my flight out of Dublin is for the 13th of May. I'm going to be staying with my boyfriend in Belfast, traveling in and out of there for a couple of weeks. So, the plan was for me to just fly there from London once I'm done with my program (17th of April), but now I'm worried about traveling out of Belfast to Portugal or something after my visa has expired and being told to go back home (and banned from the country for 10 years).

Technically, no one in the UK looked at my visa. I entered the UK from Ireland and then flew to England from Belfast, so the only customs I went through was in Dublin. So I'm not sure if that means I'm here as a student or as a visitor. If I'm here as a visitor, I have up to June 25th to leave the country, but I've heard of plenty of people who traveled in England after their program was over (so their visa would have expired).

GAH. I just don't know what to do. I've tried calling the Department of State in the US and the UK Embassy in the US but for some reason I can't get past their automated menus. Ironically, I have free calls to the US, but can't call the US Embassy in the UK until I get cash to top up my phone, which will be a while.

Do you think I should just not worry about it? If it weren't for the fact that we're planning on flying in and out of Belfast a couple of times, I wouldn't, but I just don't want to be forced to go back home because of an expired visa that I technically didn't need!

UGH. This whole no border between Ireland and N. Ireland is screwing me up!

Oh, and the only reason I'm getting worried about it now is because of this article on BBC news about how stringent they're getting with their rules about student visas now. Even more stringent than when I was applying a few months ago? I thought it was impossible, but apparently not.
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Last edited by juliagulia; 02-07-2010 at 11:40 AM.
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Old 02-07-2010, 08:26 PM   #2
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I've tried calling the Department of State in the US and the UK Embassy in the US but for some reason I can't get past their automated menus.
You probably need to work it out with the immigration office in the UK. I don't think the US embassy or any foreign UK embassy are going to be able to help. If I were in your shoes, I'd find the nearest immigration office to your school and show up first thing in the morning to speak with an agent. They should be able to tell you what type of visa you're on, when it expires, if/how you can extend it, if you could exit for a day and reenter to get a different visa type, etc.

You should be able to work it out....and also your program ought to be able to help you with this. You're paying them, go chain yourself to a desk in their office until they earn that money by helping with your visa!

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