Entered USA without activating K-1

[suzukiwookie 1]

Hi Guys,

I'm down here in the USA spending the holidays with my fiancee, and I'm hving a great time! I was a little worried (very worried, actually) about whether or not I could visit the US with a big fat K-1 visa on my passport (without activating the visa). So here is my experience. I hope it eases your mind.

I am self-employed, have no debt, and there is nothing much really holding me to stay in Canada (except for deciding who I will sell my business to). So when I searched this forum (as I have done throughout my whole K-1 process) I didn't really find any postings with anyone's experience in this particular scenario. All I gathered was that I was going to have to show proof of ties to Canada. So I spent some time putting whatever proof I could muster (all I ended up with was a list of client meetings for the month of Jan...) and lost sleep the night before my flight.

I arrived at the airport 4 hours early with an anxious stomach. As I lined up for US customs my palms began to sweat, and I raced through multiple scenarios in my head. I was pretty sure that I would be sent to secondary for interrogation and would certainly come close to missing my flight. I looked up suddenly and came back to reality, I was waved in by a Customs officer. "Ok it's show time!" I thought.

Here is a transcript of how it went (I will do my best to provide it as exact as possible without boring you to tears):

Officer: [in an inaudible voice]

Me: "Pardon me? I can't hear you."

Officer: "Where are you going?

Me: (handed him my passport) "I'm going to Florida."

Officer: (leafing through my passport and stopping at the K-1 visa looks at me)

Me: (trying to beat him to it and blurt out as much info in as little time as I could) "That's a K-1 visa. But I am not activating that today. I will be activating it in March. On this trip I will just be going to visit for 2 weeks."

Officer: "Well.. I don't know."

Me: I'm thinking 'what does he mean - I don't know?'

Officer: "I'm not sure if this is allowed." (and he started leafing through booklets that he pulled out of a briefcase) This indicated to me that he has no prior experience with the K-1 visa. So I thought I had better inform the guy and try to sound like I know what I'm talking about (which I actually do, thanks to VisaJourney and having gone through the process this far).

Me: (Very confidently speaking) "The gentleman at the embassy told me to tell you that I would not be activating the K-1 visa and that I will only be visiting. I didn't even bring the envelope so I would have no way of even activating this today if we tried. You should be letting me in as a B2 Visitor." He did not like this!

Officer: (in a very antagonistic tone) "How do you know what I should be doing? Why are you telling me how to do this?"

Me: "Well I travel back and forth every month. You can see that on your screen."

Then paused and looked at me with annoyance, and then began to shoot quick, angry questions at me without letting me finish the previous answer before starting on the next question (I notice that they are trained to do this - not sure why though, it's only effective in making the traveler feel upset) So I thought I was pretty much screwed at this time, so I would just return very quick antagonistic answers back. In Science class I learned that a wave of equal vibration will cancel out another wave traveling in the opposite direction. So I thought I would match his antagonism with my own! lol

Officer: "What do you do for a living? Who are your customers? What kind of people are they?"

Me: "What kind of people are they?"

Officer: "Yes. What kind of people are they?"

Me: "Officer, I'm not sure how to answer that - they're people.."

Then he asked me about my education and tried to convince me that my school program was called something else.. and then he handed back my passport and papers and let me through.. This was certainly the weirdest experience at customs yet! But I was really happy because this took all of 5 minutes and they let me through! And then I had to kill 3.5 hours at the airport, but It was worth it.

I am now here enjoying some quality time with my fiancee. The funny thing is, on this visit I'm getting really jittery and anxious because I know in 12 weeks I will be living here.... A whole new life in a whole new country.

Anyways, I hope someone out there finds this helpfull, or atleast amusing.

[Damian&Kelly 16]

Congrats on getting in with little harassment! I know that the customs officers hate! when you know more then them. My last visit to the UK was quite amusing as well. Customs officer didn't know what a K-1 was and looked at me like I was making it up, but she had all the paper work in front of her.

Enjoy your time/visit with your fiancee!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

[William33 110]

Immigration personnel at (many destination) airports can be total Jackazzes, especially here.

Another story - I recall travelling back from Japan in 2003 (between overseas posts) and was harassed by yet another entity, US Customs. Given that I was between overseas postings, I listed no address on the customs declaration card. I was confronted by a guy who insisted that I list an address. Well, I did not have a US address at the time, since I had planned on visiting about 7 different addresses during the vacation.

To make a long story short, I was sent through secondary customs inspection. A point of note, I held a US Diplomatic passport (black - not blue). Meanwhile, many suspicious individuals walked into the USA.

Great program we have here.

[raymaga 25]

Both myself (K-1) and my daughter (K-2) had no problems entering the U.S. without actually activating our visas. We were just visiting my fiance and told the officers that we were not ready to activate our visas at that time.

We drove across the border at Blaine, Washington, we did not fly into the U.S.

The border officers are very uninformed in matters regarding to visas. I actually returned to Canada a couple of weeks after activating my K-1 visa to attend my brother's wedding. I had not married my fiance at the time and was allowed to enter the U.S. even after I had activated my K-1 visa.

I do NOT recommend anyone do this, I am simply stating what my experience was. It just goes to show you that they make up the rules as they go along. I was told I could return to Canada to attend my brother's wedding (a couple of weeks after I entered the US) the day that I activated my K-1 visa.

Edited December 25, 2008 by raymaga