Q. I haven’t yet bought my tickets or requested leave because I’m waiting to see if I get my visa next week. How long should I say that I will be in the United States during my visa interview? I heard that the right amount of time to travel to the United States on a visitor’s visa is two weeks. Is this true?

A. You are wise to wait to purchase any ticket to the US until you have your visa in hand! That suggests you are planning your trip with care. At the interview window, you should tell the interviewing officer exactly how long you plan to stay. We hope you can stay long enough to see the people and places you look forward to visiting. As long as you are using the visa in the right way, we are happy to have you as our guest. Please feel welcome at your visa interview and if you haven’t yet set your exact dates, you can explain your plans during your interview whatever they may be.

Some travellers for business or pleasure will spend only a few hours in the United States. Others may stay several weeks, or even months, depending on their personal circumstances. For example, some people’s life circumstances, such as their annual leave, the nature of their work or their retirement, allow them to travel to the United States for a longer period of time. Others only want to come for a short vacation of a few days.

Each time you enter the United States, you will be interviewed briefly by the Customs and Border Patrol agent at the airport. He or she will authorise your length of stay after you have shared with him/her your travel plans. You may be interested to know, the agent can authorise a visit of up to six months to the bearer of a B1/B-2 visa. (A B-1/B-2 visa is our standard tourist visa). If for some reason — illness or other unforeseen situation — you later needed to stay even longer than that time frame, you would have to apply for an extension of stay at the nearest office of Homeland Security. Most people, of course, don’t face such unexpected circumstances and comfortably enjoy their visit within the time authorised. Please also remember that employment in the United States is not permitted on a B-1/B-2 visa.

We hope this answers your question, and we hope you have a wonderful visit to the United States.

You can find more information about how to travel to the US on our website, www.kingston. usembassy.gov and the website of our authorised service provider at www.usvisa-info.com. Keep on top of Embassy news on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/pages/US-Embassy-Jamaica and by following @USEmbassyJA on Twitter. We also answer general visa questions on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

The embassy staff in Kingston will answer questions you may have regarding the US Mission, including consular law, regulations and/or practice. In order to respect privacy, staff will not answer questions about specific visa applications. The embassy employs a visa appointment system, so it is only necessary for visa applicants to arrive 15 minutes before their scheduled appointment.

Send your questions to: editorial@jamaicaobserver.com and we will forward them to the embassy.

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