Exclusive: An Australian couple were forced to cancel an expensive cruise and now face the prospect of being banned from the US after a bizarre immigration error.
Perth retirees Wayne and Carol Burley, aged in their 70s, were at the start of a cruise holiday around Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, the US, Canada and Mexico when their ship pulled into Hawaii in April this year.
US Immigration officers then boarded the vessel and performed the usual visa checks on passengers.
The couple couldn’t have imagined the strange reason their dream holiday would be derailed.
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The Burleys had completed their Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTAs) like many times before and assumed they’d be let into the US without a hitch.
“They looked at our ESTAs and took our passports and one of them said, ‘Come with us’,” Wayne told 9news.com.au.
“We were told to sit down and a senior officer started asking us questions.”
Wayne said he and Carol’s names and passports had been flagged in the system for having breached the conditions of their previous ESTA.
“He said, ‘You have overstayed in the USA by more than 1000 days’,” Wayne said.
The couple were astonished.
The last time they’d visited the US was nearly nine years ago in 2016.
“He said their records showed we never left America,” Wayne said, despite the fact the couple boarded the ship in Sydney.
Wayne said the immigration officer all but shrugged and admitted that “sometimes our systems don’t match up”.
The apparent administration error meant their ESTAs were promptly cancelled and US Immigration needed the Burleys to apply for a B2 visitor visa.
Do you have a story? Contact reporter April Glover at april.glover@nine.com.au
The fees for this were waived and the couple could continue on the first leg of their cruise.
But a condition of this visa came with a huge snag – the officer confirmed they could not leave and re-enter the US.
“We were told if we tried to do that, we’d be detained,” Wayne explained.
It meant their next cruise, which was from Los Angeles to Panama, had to be cancelled, leaving them out of pocket by more than $12,000.
He said the immigration officer also warned it was unlikely they’d ever be let back into the US again.
The Burleys then cancelled their second cruise with Princess Cruises, booked a hotel in Los Angeles once they reached that port and reluctantly headed back home.
They were refunded their port fees and lodged a claim with their insurance agent 1Cover.
After an initial denial and some back and forth, Wayne said he received a call from 1Cover saying their claim would be honoured.
But the avid travellers are now left wondering if they’ll be deported – or worse – if they try to holiday in the US again.
Wayne said he and his wife are scared of travelling back to America in fear of being treated like a criminal.
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Melbourne-based immigration lawyer Sherwin Noorian told 9news.com.au this issue sometimes impacts non-US citizens attempting to enter the US after a previous trip.
“The US does not have outbound passport control like Australia does for international departures,” Noorian said.
“At the airport, there are no gates where one must scan their passport before travelling abroad the way Australian airports do.”
“Customs and Border Protection relies on various data sources such as flight manifests to record departures from the US.
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“At times, they fail to record departures for foreign nationals and this may result in an ‘overstay’ being recorded for the traveller that is not accurate.”
For now, Wayne and Carol are trying to solve their potential travel ban by requesting a record of their travel in and out of Australia from the Department of Home Affairs, but they have not yet heard back.
9news.com.au has contacted the US Customs and Border Protection for comment.
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