Visit USA again after having left USA, but with unexpired F1 visa & I20/OPT

Question

I was an F1 student in the USA till Sept 2014. Then I had a job offer in S. America that started in Jan 2015 (so I am living in S. America now). As soon as I graduated in Sept, my major program switched my status to 'Research Scientist'. So I continued working at the same university from Sept-Dec 2014 in an OPT. So my re-stamped I20 (and of course the OPT card) is valid till Sept 2015. My F1 visa won't actually expire till 2016.

Now, I want to visit my friends in the USA next month (April 2015). In this case, would I have any problems at the port of entry with the immigration officers?

My only concern is that, though my travel documents haven't expired, the university might have put a note such as 'this person is no longer working with us', which could have terminated the validity of my I20, and there's no way of knowing this.

Answer 1

First, OPT has a requirement that you cannot have more than 90 cumulative days of not being employed in the U.S. So if you stopped working in December, by April you will already have more than 90 cumulative days of unemployment, and you will have violated the terms of your OPT and you won't have OPT anymore.

Even if someone has not violated the terms of their OPT, immigrations officers will generally not let someone back in on OPT unless they have either 1) paystubs or other documents showing continuing employment with an existing employer in the U.S., or 2) an offer letter for a new upcoming employment in the U.S. You don't have either, so even if your OPT was still valid, you would probably still not get in.

Yes, your F1 visa is valid. But the visa is useless unless you have a student program or OPT to go into, which you won't have in April.

You should get a B2 visa for visiting friends.