Asylum seekers can travel abroad with permission
My asylum application is pending with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Can I travel ab road? Adrian With your asylum application pending, you can travel abroad and return to the United States if U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services gives you permission called “advance parole.” You apply using USCIS form I-131, Application for Travel Document.
USCIS grants advance parole to asylum applicants sparingly, usually for urgent humanitarian needs. If you plan to travel to your home country, even with advance parole, speak to an immigration law expert before filing form I-131.
If you travel home, USCIS may question whether your asylum claim was genuine. It depends on the nature of your claim. If you claimed that you would be arrested and imprisoned for your beliefs or actions, then traveling home undermines that claim. However, if your claim was that you faced or feared persecution for your beliefs, but a short visit home would not be risky, that trip shouldn’t be a problem.
I discovered I am hepatitis B positive. Can I still get a visa to work in the United States? I’m a nurse living in Nigeria. A., Nigeria
You can get either a temporary or permanent visa (green card) even though you tested positive for hepatitis. If you are coming on a temporary work visa, you need not submit a medical exam at your interview.
If you are coming on an immigrant visa, you must submit an exam, but hepatitis B is not on the list of diseases that would bar you from getting a visa. That list includes only diseases that the federal Health and Human Services Department (HHS) determines are communicable diseases of public health significance.
On the HHS list are chancroid, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, infectious leprosy, lymphogranuloma venereum, infectious syphilis, and active tuberculosis. Note that testing HIV-positive is no longer on the list. Only permanent residence applicants must submit a medical exam to show that they don’t have a condition on the HHS list.
Applicants who have a disease on the list may qualify for a waiver of inadmissibility based on family relations in the United States. Applicants with treatable diseases such as tuberculosis or syphilis can become permanent residents once they are no longer contagious.