Hardly a week goes by when a client doesn’t tell us, “I don’t have an I-94. They got rid of I-94s.” And it’s understandable, since there has been a lot of confusion after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) converted from paper I-94s to electronic I-94s in 2013. To recap: the I-94 is an electronic document (formerly paper) issued to foreign nationals that:

1. Tracks arrivals and (indirectly) departures to and from the United States; and
2. Is evidence of legal status in the US for foreign nationals in their category of admission (for example, H-1, O-1, L-1, F-1, and so on).

The lack of a paper stapled into a passport has led to many misunderstandings. We try to address five of the most common.