We are a family from Europe, Romania traveling in California as tourists. Today someone broke into our car and stole our backpacks while we were in a store. In one of our backpacks there were all of our passports, visas and my mother's ID card. I know we shouldn't have left our passports in our backpacks but it happened. Anyways we went to the police and talked with someone from the Romanian embassy, who told us that it's possible making some temporary passports to fly back home. The problem is that in three weeks we should fly to Hawaii and despite the fact we no longer have visas, we were thinking that because we are somehow already registered in their data base ( I mean they took our finger prints when we made our visas and when we arrived in California) we could still go to Hawaii. Does anyone know such a case ? Or know if we could still fly to Hawaii from California with a temporary passport? Thanks
1 Answer
Since you're in the US legally, your visa remains valid even though it's been lost, and it should be fine to travel to Hawaii:
If you are a foreign citizen temporarily in the United States, and you lose your U.S. visa, you can remain for the duration of your authorized stay.
You will need photo ID to board your flight to Hawaii, but a "Foreign government-issued passport" qualifies, temporary or otherwise.
answered Jun 24, 2014 at 0:14
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Visa and authorized stay are different things. Visa is only for entry. They have already entered. Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 10:37
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Are there different requirements for foreign passports when it comes to entering the US and identifying yourself within the US? The Norwegian government especially emphasizes that Norwegian emergency passports are not valid in the US since they are handwritten and contain no OCR field or biometric data. Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 10:52
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Entering the US is an entirely different matter. The TSA is only concerned with photo ID, not whether you're legally in the country. Commented Jun 24, 2014 at 11:18