British citizen traveling to USA

I am putting this in Travel and Transport but it relates to travel to the USA. I am hoping someone on this board may be able to help.

My partner took early retirement and we are planning (but not for a year or two) to spend some savings and take an extended trip to a few parts of the world. To do this, I would leave my full-time job in the UK, and we would rent out our house in the UK, which my partner owns. Among the countries we would want to visit are the USA and Canada (I am a citizen of both). My partner is a British citizen.

Under normal circumstances, she travels to the US on the VWP (ESTA) and never has any problems. However, we are thinking ahead to a plan that might include up to 90 days in the US, and several months in Canada. Basically, wondering whether it would be a better idea for her to apply for a visitor visa in advance, even though we would not be staying longer than the VWP allows in any case.

Do any of these factors help or hurt us:
1. I am, as a citizen, eligible to work over there. I would not be intending to take a job there, but could do some freelance work (I'm a writer and editor). Obviously this is completely legal for me, but does it make my partner look like a risk of overstaying?
2. She is retired (although she will probably get another job at some point), so she can't point to a job back in the UK, only to the house and also some family she has here. Are these sufficient ties to the UK?

We would have an itinerary of different relatives/friends we'd be planning to visit, as well as tourist sites--we'd like to see as many states and provinces as possible. We would also have onward tickets purchased to show that we will indeed leave the country on time. But a long vacation like this is unusual, and I am trying to avoid any thing that makes it look like we're intending to stay, rather than visit. We have no plans of moving to the US.

Is a visa in advance a wise idea, or are there specific forms of evidence that would be helpful at the border to prove our intent?

Thank you (and apologies that this relates more to the US than to Britain)

Under normal circumstances, she travels to the US on the VWP (ESTA) and never has any problems. However, we are thinking ahead to a plan that might include up to 90 days in the US, and several months in Canada. Basically, wondering whether it would be a better idea for her to apply for a visitor visa in advance, even though we would not be staying longer than the VWP allows in any case.

I would be very careful about applying for a visitor visa in advance. You should only apply for one if you absolutely do not qualify to travel on the VWP.

If you do qualify to travel under the VWP on ESTA and you don't wish to stay in the US for more than 90 days, then it's likely that the visitor visa will be refused... based on the fact that you didn't need one and could have just travelled on the VWP.

But then this creates a vicious circle, because if you have a US visa refusal this will basically make you ineligible to travel on the VWP, even though the visa was refused because you were eligible... which means you will have to apply for a visitor visa to visit the US... from then on.

Do any of these factors help or hurt us:
1. I am, as a citizen, eligible to work over there. I would not be intending to take a job there, but could do some freelance work (I'm a writer and editor). Obviously this is completely legal for me, but does it make my partner look like a risk of overstaying?

I doubt it will have anything to do with it - as long as you show that you both will leave the US together within the 90 days, I don't think it will matter.

2. She is retired (although she will probably get another job at some point), so she can't point to a job back in the UK, only to the house and also some family she has here. Are these sufficient ties to the UK?

If she can show a home in the UK and also that you live there together and will be returning to your lives in the UK, then this may be enough.

Is a visa in advance a wise idea, or are there specific forms of evidence that would be helpful at the border to prove our intent?

As I said, I wouldn't try to apply for a visitor visa unless you absolutely have no other choice.

I have a visitor visa for the US, but only because I have a DUI and so am no longer allowed to enter the US on the VWP (I travelled to the US a number of times on the VWP before the DUI with no problem at all, but since I got it and have travelled on a visitor visa, I have been under a lot more scrutiny at immigration).

Applying for a visa for the US is a long-winded, and generally not particularly fun experience (especially if you have a conviction), which I would not recommend doing unless you have to.

I have applied for 4 US visas in the past, 3 of which have been since my DUI (student visa, then 2 visitor visas) and each time, it took about 4 months from start to finish to get the visa (from booking the visa interview (which can have up to a 2-month waiting time) to actually getting the visa).

It also cost me between £200 and £400 each time ($160 for the visa, £8 to book the visa appointment (£1.20/minute to call them), £100 for travel to and from London, £200 for blood tests for two of the visas due to the conviction (had to prove I was a) not an alcoholic and b) not a danger to society), £35 for a police certificate each time). Plus, when you go for the visa interview, you can expect to be at the US Embassy for 2-4 hours just waiting to be called up to an interview window.

The US Embassy website has a VWP wizard to help you figure out if you need to apply for a visitor visa: http://london.usembassy.gov/niv/vwp3.html

Thanks so much, ksand24, for this detailed and helpful reply. We definitely don't want to risk ineligibility for the VWP because of a visa application that wasn't necessary in the first place!

We will just have to plan our trip carefully and carry evidence of our home, financial ties etc. back in the UK.

I know from my own experiences of applying for numerous visas that it is a lengthy and unpleasant process--no surprise that the same is true for US visas.

I found my old thread but since we are still no closer to our trip, I thought I'd ask another question!

We would like to spend some months traveling around the US and some months around Canada, and I’m trying to figure logistically what would be the best plan to ensure we don’t clash with any US visa requirements. As ksand has said, a British citizen should NOT apply for a US visa, as any refusal of this would lead to her being ineligible for ESTA for the rest of her life. It seems like this means, no matter how carefully we plan, turning up at the US border and taking our chances on the day.

So what is the most prudent course? Is it important to plan so that ALL our time in the US (max. 90 days) is at one go, and no back and forth e.g. between Alaska and Canada, since each border crossing risks a refusal? Or would it be OK to go to the US for say 2 months, Canada for a while, then say 2 months more in USA, as long as we had a clear itinerary and the evidence of ties to the UK? Is it important to arrive by air and to have an air ticket out of North America (since land crossings might cause some sort of issue in the absence of US exit controls)?

I might be overthinking this, but I would hate to line up some dream trip of national parks and family visits only to find that we should have gone to Canada second, or something stupid like that.

Thank you for indulging my US-centric questions.

This thread is interesting and puts a whole new perspective on my life's experience. Many many years ago I lived and worked on the US/Canada border and crossed every day with ease for business. Controls were so casual; at rural stations there might be a single US Customs officer. At Derby Line VT where the Customs station is a couple of blocks from the border, the officer would sit in a folding chair and watch the traffic go by and wave to people.

No longer.

A few years later I became a Foreign Service Officer and issued visas, although not many. It never occurred to me (pre visa-waiver, pre-ESTA days that the kind of reasoning raised in this thread (doubtless accurate) could ever happen.

My non-Amcit grandson and my Accidental American daughter visited the USA last year, the baby on his UK passport and ESTA. In looking at the law and the FAM, it seems there is a presumption of immigration intent, but the issue never came up and he couldn't have articulated an answer anyway: he doesn't speak yet.

My recollection is that the State Dept. Web site makes clear that as long as you don't exceed the visa waiver time limit you can come and go to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean as many times as you like. But in real life, it depends: since 9/11 border agents have wide discretion.

A British rabbi told me recently that he drove to Alaska with a well-known American rabbi and the latter's family and he was rudely treated by US Immigration to the point that when he said his trip was connected with eventually writing a book he was accused of taking payment for work in the form of the meals paid for by his American colleague.

You never know.

Thanks. I guess we're just taking our chances whatever we do.