Hi all,

I am planning a trip to North and Central America for later in the year and have a few questions regarding the time limits on the B2 visa. I have read a few conflicting opinions and so there’s a few aspects that I’m uncertain about.

The plan for the trip is for use to ship our truck to Brunswick (Georgia) in October or November, and spend about 2 months travelling South West to Mexico. We then want to spend about 3 months travelling around Mexico, possibly heading further south into Guatemala, and possibly as far as Costa Rica. We would then return up to Baja and re-enter USA, we would like to spend another 4 months on this leg of the trip driving north up the West Coast and going inland as far as Colorado, up to Washington State to enter Canada near Vancouver. We then plan to spend the last 3 months of the trip driving East across Canada, dropping back into the USA before the great lakes and driving up the East Coast to Halifax from where will ship home.

I am aware of the difficulties getting a B2 visa but I feel I have as good a case as is possible (own a house, have a long term job on hold to go back to, have family in the UK, and will have about £30k in the bank). My confusion is on how long I can spend in the USA.

1. As far as I understand it, the embassy in London will issue my visa for up to 10 years, but have no say on how long I will be allowed to stay when I arrive in the USA. Is this correct?

2. I am also aware that when most people arrive in the USA, the immigration authority will set a limit on how long you are allowed to stay, usually between 3 and 6 months. Is this also correct?

3. What I don’t know is how the 6 month limit is defined, and how easy it is to extend. If I was limited to 6 months when I arrived in Brunswick, would this stop when I enter Mexico? If it pauses, does the 6 month limit refresh when I re-enter at Baja, or will I then only have 4 months to make my way up to Canada? If it doesn’t pause when I enter Mexico, will I then only have 1 month to travel up to Canada unless I can agree an extension?

4. Is it possible to agree a stay of longer than 6 months in the first instance when I arrive at Brunswick, if my circumstances are acceptable to the immigrations people? What would my circumstances need to be? Presumably adequate funds are part of it? If I did agree a stay of 12 months, would I still be entitled to this when I re-enter USA from Mexico, or would I have to restart my negotiations?

5. Presuming the worst case and I only have a month of travel left when I renter USA in Baja, what are my chances of being able to extend by stay once in the USA to allow me more time to travel up to Canada.

6. Presuming once I have got to Canada I am at the end of my allowed stay in the USA, would I be correct in assuming that I would be unlikely to be allowed back into the USA when I get to Minnesota or thereabouts? How long does the USA like you to leave their country for, before being allowed back in? Is the 6 month stay, limited to 6 months per year, or is it more flexible than that?

My apologies for the multiple questions; here’s hoping that there is someone here with a better understanding of USA immigrations law than me!

Thanks for any help,

Regards

Nick

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