My wife, two young daughters and I are normally resident in the UK. I'm American, wife is Swedish. Both kids are both American and Swedish.
Covid has been difficult, and I was out of the possibility of work in the UK, so I flew back to the US at the end of last year and started to work as a delivery driver. My family came to meet me a few months later (kids on American passports, wife on ESTA), and stayed the whole 90 days available to my wife. We've been in Mexico since it expired, as we weren't ready to go back to Europe for a number of reasons, but she had to leave the country.
We had initially planned to continue on further south to South America, but we're now exploring the possibility of going back to the US for a few more months.
I was under the impression that my wife had to leave "the continent of" North America for 90 days before she could come back to the US on the ESTA, but I've read a few things like this: https://uk.usembassy.gov/visas/non-immigrant-visa-faqs/visa-waiver-program-and-esta/.
If I'm interpreting it correctly, Mexico counts toward your initial 90 days if you transit back to the US before leaving Mexico, but there's no actual amount of time we have to be "outside" the country before you're allowed back in if you leave "Canada/Mexico/Carribbean islands". But, it says if you leave the US and enter those places and go back to the US, the entire trip has to be under 90 days.
Am I wrong to think I just need one day outside the aforementioned region to "break" the North America trip? And the entire time in Mexico will be "counted" as "time outside the US"?
She's been out of the US (in Mexico) since April 18th (over 90 days), so I should generally be ok to bring her to Belize or Guatemala before heading back to the US if that's the case.
I know every case is different, and each is decided at the border, but would this generally look ok to a border agent? We would either drive to Belize and back to Cancun before flying home, or fly to whatever country is cheapest to fly to the US from. We would plan to leave at he end of the new 90 days–either continue on to South America as initially planned or back to Europe.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/ostte7/experience_traveling_back_to_us_twice_on_esta/