Overstayed Visa--How Many Times Is This Acceptable?

[bigmolly]

Hi All,

I'm hoping you may help shed some light on my situation, so I know how seriously I should "worry" about my visa status. I was planning to go to Uruguay to access my US account and renew my tourist visa--or rather get issued a new one, as mine is expired-- but when I went to immigrations at Retiro to pay the fee for overstaying my visa, the lady I spoke with gave me a stern warning that I may not be let back in the country. I've been living in Argentina for 2 years now on a tourist visa. I have not been making regular "visa runs" to keep it up to date, but rather have left the country twice and simply paid the fee for overstaying the visa. Both times have been allowed back in the country with no fuss--so now I've entered the country 3 times. However my current visa is VERY overstayed, as the last time I came back in Argentina was almost a year ago.

I am working to get a student visa (a long and complicated process, being a US citizen). But in the meantime, I'm curious if anyone can help answer the following:

1) How serious are they about only being allowed to overstay your visa X number of times before they get stern and punishing and deny you entry/deport you? The lady I spoke with said something about 5 times paying the fee looks bad, but I don't know if she was just throwing out a number arbitrarily or if this is actually a policy somewhere?

2) How helpful is it to do the "visa runs" every 90 days. That is, if I successfully leave and come back into the country, is this actually a useful strategy? Or do they still look down on this because you are still essentially living permanently in Argentina without having legal status? (via student or work visa, e.g.)

Many thanks for your insight!

Molly

 

[Bajo_cero2]

1) there aren't rules, imo how many people can i kill before police find it out?????
2) useless.

 

[Matt84]

1) there aren't rules, imo how many people can i kill before police find it out?????

I may conceive that as a lawyer you might very technically come up with such a comparison... however and
assuming the OP is an honest person, don't you a see a difference between a person who murders people in society, and a foreigner from a wealthier country spending valuable hard currency in such a society and, further, preoccupied with how to legally spend more?

 

[lucha54]

Can OP please just poke around the forum FOR A FEW MINUTES and save us all a whole lot of time.... (poor Bajo!!)

 

[bigmolly]

Thanks to the folks who have replied so far. I just read a ton of posts on this topic from before and now have decided it's probably best to continue to overstay here unless and until I can move forward on residency--although it will just be temporary as a student. But hell, you can be a student in Argentina indefinitely.

BTW when I initially searched on this topic I didn't find all the information I just found now, so forgive the redundancy.

 

[Matt84]

But hell, you can be a student in Argentina indefinitely.

That's the spirit! You didn't come to the Wild South for the law abidingness after all! I'm not kidding that's the right attitude!

 

[nicoenarg]

1) there aren't rules, imo how many people can i kill before police find it out?????
2) useless.

Haha, cracked me up. Nice one.

 

[steveinbsas]

Overstayed Visa--How many time is this acceptable?

Asking this question is like asking. "How long is a piece of string?"

The answer is: "It's as long as it is until it gets cut."

(And there's no way to know in advance since someone else is holding the knife.)

 

[demokritos]

The "three strikes and you're out" rule has seemed to be a common theme in these threads. Multiple posters have indicated that the third overstay is when they were told they wouldn't be let back in; so while to a certain point it is up to the buen humor of the immigrations officer, it sounds like there's an obvious pattern.

 

[steveinbsas]

The "three strikes and you're out" rule has seemed to be a common theme in these threads. Multiple posters have indicated that the third overstay is when they were told they wouldn't be let back in; so while to a certain point it is up to the buen humor of the immigrations officer, it sounds like there's an obvious pattern.

Though this has been discussed in several threads, I don't remember a single example of anyone actually being denied reentry after the third overstay (which is different from someone being told they would be denied reentry after the third overstay).

And I think the source of the "three strikes and your our rule" are posts in this forum and not what any immigration officer actually said.

I know that Dr. Rubilar has denied it's existence, and he's also made it clear that "visa runs" (and rums) are useless.