A common question for asylees (people who have been granted asylum) is whether they can travel using their home country passport. If all were right in the world, this would never be an issue. Asylees and Green Card holders who received their status based on asylum are eligible for a Refugee Travel Document, and it is best to use the RTD instead of your home country passport.
Unfortunately, the RTD is valid for only one year, takes 10 or 11 months to renew, and is not accepted by many countries. For these reasons, asylees (and people who received a Green Card based on asylum) are often unable to use the RTD and are left with a difficult choice: Either skip the trip or travel using the home country passport, which can potentially have negative implications for a person’s status in the United States.
In this post, we will talk about the RTD and then discuss travel using a passport from your home country.