All J-1 Scholars must report their arrival to their sponsoring academic department. The Department is responsible for collecting the arrival documents from the J-1 Scholar and submitting them to UB Immigration Services (UBIS). UBIS will then validate the J-1 Scholar's SEVIS record. J-1 Scholars and Department contacts will receive an e-mail from UBIS confirming that the record has been validated. All J-1 Scholars must have a validated SEVIS record in order to have legal status.
All J-1 scholars must report their arrival to their sponsoring department. The sponsoring department will then be responsible for collecting the check-in documents and submitting them to our office via e-mail.
The check-in documents consist of the following:
J-1 Scholar Data Form, attached. Note about the local address on the form: The J-1 Scholar Data form requires a local U.S. address and phone number which is needed to validate the SEVIS record. If the scholar has a temporary address (such as hotel or friend’s house) they will need to provide that temporary address for the purposes of filling out the form. However, once they have a new residence, they will need to e-mail our office with the new address and phone number. Immigration regulations require scholars to update their address in SEVIS within 10 days of moving.
Copy of your J-1 visa (found inside of their passport)
Copy of your DS-2019
I-94 admission stamp (inside the passport it will say J-1 D/S) and I-94 information which can be looked up from the website https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/home.
We are now requiring all J-1 scholars to report their arrival to their sponsoring department. The department will then be responsible for collecting the check-in documents from the scholar and submitting them to our office via e-mail. We will then validate the scholar’s SEVIS record. All scholars must have a validated SEVIS record in order to be in legal status.
The check-in documents consist of the following:
J-1 Scholar Data Form, attached. Note about the local address on the form: The J-1 Scholar Data form requires a local U.S. address and phone number which is needed to validate the SEVIS record. If the scholar has a temporary address (such as hotel or friend’s house) they will need to provide that temporary address for the purposes of filling out the form. However, once they have a new residence, they will need to e-mail our office with the new address and phone number. Immigration regulations require scholars to update their address in SEVIS within 10 days of moving.
Copy of their J-1 visa (found inside of their passport)
Copy of their DS-2019
I-94 admission stamp (inside the passport it will say J-1 D/S) and I-94 information which can be looked up from the website https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/home.
Once you have gathered all of the documents and review them for completeness, you will need to scan the documents and e-mail them to immsvcga@buffalo.edu. Please send the check-in documents in a single email attachment. The subject line should be Check-In: Name of Scholar. We will notify the department and the scholar once we have validated the SEVIS record.
We must receive the check-in documents and validate the scholar’s SEVIS record within 15 days of the program start date listed on the DS-2019. Failure to do so in a timely manner will cause the J-1 scholar to fall out of legal status. If the scholar will not arrive by the program start date listed on the DS-2019 our office needs to be notified immediately so we can update the start date.
