About the I-94

The I-94 card is the U.S. arrival/departure record. In the past, travelers filled out a paper card before entry, and when entering the U.S., the immigration officer would stamp it and note how long you were authorized to stay in the country. When departing, you had to return it to the immigration officer at the port of exit. Nowadays, however, in many cases the I-94 is generated electronically. The officer enters the information directly at inspection, so you will not receive a physical I-94 card, but you can view it online. Likewise, when leaving the U.S., you generally do not need to print or submit anything. Once your passport is scanned, your departure is automatically linked to your I-94 record.

If you apply with USCIS for a change of status or an extension of stay, USCIS may also issue a paper I-94 attached to the bottom of the approval notice (Form 797A). One important thing to note is that the I-94 issued by USCIS for an extension or change of status will not appear on CBP’s I-94 website. So if the website still shows your old information, that is normal and does not mean your I-94 is incorrect. This article does not discuss errors on I-94s issued by USCIS; it only covers errors on I-94s issued by CBP at entry.

When handling certain immigration-related matters in the U.S., you may need to print or copy your I-94 to document your travel history.

Background

  • I sometimes feel like a human guinea pig, always running into bizarre situations. Problems that other people can easily go through somehow turn into all kinds of trouble for me. For example, in my ten years of playing the credit card game, my success rate at matching signup bonuses has been—literally—a big fat zero. If you think you have bad luck, take a look at me!
  • I used to think that the information on an I-94 entry record was automatically imported when CBP scanned the visa page in your passport—that once the system recognized it, you were done. That illusion lasted until this strange issue happened…

My driver’s license was about to expire. California DMV does offer online driver’s license renewal, but that only works for green card holders and citizens. For people like me living on a visa, the system obviously does not just automatically “recognize” us, so I had no choice but to risk a trip to a DMV local office.

To make matters worse, when my DS-2019 was extended, COVID-19 happened and DMV offices were completely shut down. After staying home for over a month, DMV offices finally reopened, so I got my documents together and prepared to renew my license.

As usual, I first went online to print my I-94 record. At first glance, I thought nothing of it, but then I noticed… WTF? Why does it say F-1? That’s the wrong status!

At that point, I finally realized that some of the information on the I-94 is not directly imported from scanning the visa page at entry. Instead, it is manually typed in by the CBP officer. And people make mistakes. Given the enormous workload of the CBP staff at LAX Terminal B, an occasional error or two is not surprising—but when it happens to you, it feels awful.

I searched online and found that many people have had their visa class entered incorrectly. Mine being mistakenly entered as F-1 was actually not that bad… apparently some people have even been entered as N2. A nitrogen visa? What even is that? Have they been watching too much EVA? At least it wasn’t typed in as N3…

How to Fix It

Once there’s a problem, complaining does not help—you need to figure out how to solve it. Since the issue was caused by CBP, the obvious answer is to have CBP correct it.

That sounds simple, but in practice it can be tricky. A lot of online advice says to contact the CBP office at the airport (the famous “secondary inspection room”) to get it corrected. If you discover the problem immediately after leaving the airport, then going directly to the CBP office there is obviously fine. But in my case, I did not discover the error until more than half a year later. On top of that, this was during the COVID-19 outbreak, so whether the airport office would even let you in for an in-person visit was a big question mark. If you showed up blindly, you would be lucky not to get turned away.

Since going to a physical CBP office was not a practical option, there had to be some way to handle it remotely. After searching CBP’s official website, I found this link:

Choose Topic — Traveler compliance/I-94, and Applicable Issue — Inaccurate or Missing Date in I-94 System.

Then enter your email address. In the Description field, explain that your I-94 contains incorrect information. Finally, under Upload File, submit supporting identity/status documents—your passport biographical page, visa page, and status documents such as I-20, DS-2019, employment authorization card, etc., depending on your situation.

After submitting, all you can do is wait. In my case, I submitted the request at 10 p.m. one night, and the correction was completed by 9:30 the next morning. The speed exceeded my expectations. Apparently CBP staff had not gone into idle mode during the pandemic, which was nice to see.

Update

Some readers have said the method above did not work for them. In that case, you can try emailing the airport where you entered the U.S.:

Deferred Inspection Sites

https://www.cbp.gov/contact/ports/deferred-inspection-sites

After sending the email, you will receive an automatic reply listing the required materials and including an I-94 correction request form:

The required materials are as follows (you do not need all of them; send only what applies to your case):

The items listed below are required to process your I-94 correction (Please send only the items that apply to your current status) :
1.  A completed affidavit (For ALL Inquires) Affidavit is attached to this email（see image below; the email attachment will also include a PDF file）
2.  A copy of your passport biographical page (For ALL Inquires)
3.  A copy of your US non-immigrant Visa AND admission stamp of your last arrival to the US (For ALL Inquires)
4.  SEVIS Form (For F-1 International Students and J-1 Exchange Visitors Only)
5.  I-797 Receipt from USCIS (For Work Visas Only)
6.  I-129S (For L-1 Visa Blanket Petitions Only)
7.  I-512 Advanced Parole Document (For Adjustment of Status Applicants Only)
8.  Refugee Airline Boarding Document (For Refugees Only)
9.  DHS G-28 - Notice of Entry of Appearance as Attorney or Accredited Representative (If Represented by an Attorney Only, Attached to this email)

Final Thoughts

After dealing with this issue, I want to remind everyone: after you clear CBP at a U.S. airport, while you are standing around waiting for your luggage, take out your phone and spend a minute checking your I-94 record online to make sure nothing is wrong. If you spot an error, go to the airport office right away and have it corrected. That is the best solution, and a small effort up front can save you a lot of trouble later.

If you have already left the airport before discovering the error, you can still follow the method above and submit a request to CBP online. In many cases, it can still be resolved within a day, though it will cost you some time scanning documents and writing emails.