Arriving in America

[meauxna 15]

Please feel free to add your initial POE experiences here, or advice for your fellow future travelers!

These are some tips for arriving in the US with your Immigrant Visa and getting processed at Immigration.

Visa in passport, go to the airport. Staffers there may want to examine the visa at check-in, so leave enough time. The airline staff must make sure that you have the appropriate visa for the US; your Immigrant Visa is appropriate.

HINT: do not lock your luggage, or use TSA-approved locks, and if connecting in the US remember that your bags may be opened and hand searched/tossed. This is not unique to immigrants, but ours got trashed on our move back from Greece and several precious things were broken. When I came back from Asia just now, I came thru SFO--big enough airport for an xray machine and my bags were not disturbed, but not all have them. The TSA/Transportation Security Administration has tips and answers to your burning questions (Am I wearing the right shoes?) here: http://www.tsa.gov/public/

On the flight, you do not need to complete an I-94 (white card) although the flight attendant may force one on you. Tell them that you are moving to the US and don't need one. You will need to complete a Customs declaration. Since you are immigrating, there is no duty on your belongings.

Moving to the US & Bringing Your Stuff, US Customs Regs. for the move

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...c=17422&hl=

When you get to the US you will be hand-carrying the Mysterious Brown Envelope that the Consulate gave you. DO NOT OPEN. It's just all your visa paperwork. As you enter the Immigration Hall, be holding the envelope out visible to the officers--if they see your immigrant paperwork they will direct you to the right line. Go to a visitor's line, unless otherwise directed by an officer. At the first desk, they will take the envelope away and (usually) direct you to Secondary Inspection. Officers here may be armed, do not be alarmed. Take a number (like the bakery) if it's an option and wait. Usually the whole thing takes 15 minutes, but there may be others ahead of him.

In Secondary, info will be entered into the computer and a few random questions may come out (how long married, where are you going etc). You may want to confirm your US mailing address here. You'll give a fingerprint and autograph (for the Green Card) and the visa in your passport will be stamped aka endorsed. This endorsement is the equivilant of your Green Card and serves as evidence of your status as a Permanent Resident. You can travel with this stamp as a Permanent Resident until you get your Green Card. Hopefully someone will tell you "Welcome to America" as they give you instructions about removing conditions in 2 years (ideally & if applicable).

You are now a Permanent Resident! The Green Card and Social Security card will be mailed to you within 4 weeks. Until you get the Green Card, the endorsed visa is EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

If you have not received your Green Card after 4 weeks, you may as well follow up on it right away---usually nothing else will happen otherwise. Make an InfoPass appointment with your District Office (find it at uscis.gov) and take your passport down. New immigrant's cards are all produced in Texas, so your envelope will have the Texas Service Center return address on it no matter where you live (I was told this by an officer at our DO).

As you leave Immigration, you will need to collect your luggage and clear Customs. There is no duty for your used, personal belongings. Get waved through, welcomed to America and if you are connecting to another flight, look for a baggage belt and airport/airline personnel right outside of Customs. You put your luggage on the belt here and it will be taken to your next flight. You can then run or amble to your connection. If this is your final destination, have a great day, and thanks for entering America.

Social Security card note: If you applied for a Social Security card via form DS-230 II, you should be automagically issued a number and have a card mailed to you. If you do NOT receive your card within three (3) weeks of entry, you should go to your SSA office and apply anew with form SS-5. If you apply before this and have ticked the 'yes' box on DS-230, you may wind up with two SS#s. Yes, this procedure has worked successfully for the majority of people. True, it sometimes does not work. Please see the Social Security Guide here at VJ for more information: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...om&page=ssn

Others' reports:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums2/index.p...c=16291&hl=

Ellie/half-pint:

I entered the US on Sunday 5th September using my CR-1 visa. The POE was Minneapolis, after getting off the plane I asked an officer which line to join, he looked at my passport and told me I could go to the US Citizen and Resident line with my husband. The inspecting officer took the brown envelope from me, he was quite scary looking and stern. He ripped open my brown envelope and seemed pleased with the way things had been put together. He then said "now for the test, tell me what do you have to do before two years today?", to which I responded "apply to have the conditions removed", he smiled and said i had passed the test. He then directed me to the immigration office area for further processing, handed me the contents of the envelope and my passport. I went to the area and took a ticket, luckily I was up next. The officer was very nice, he took the paperwork from me and then asked me how long we'd been married and our reason for moving back. he then told me to sit down and wait. About five minutes later he called me to the desk he asked me to sign a form and then fingerprinted me. My hands were so sticky from the plane journey it took him 7 attempts, he asked if I was nervous, I told him maybe a little and he told me I had no reason to be nervous. he also got myself and my husband to sign a reminder slip about having the conditions removed and showed me where he had stamped my visa. He told me that this was my temporary greencard until one came through the mail. Overall the whole experience took less than 20 minutes and was very stress free!

After leaving the office we found out that our baggage was still in Amsterdam where we transferred! it was delivered to us this morning all intact. One last thing we flew with KLM and took five cases between us to put in the hold, they did not charge us extra which was great.

Ashleigh-Au was not taken to Secondary Inspection:

We came thru LA (kids and me, 3 envelopes).....all our processing was done at the first desk....we weren't taken to the secondary inspection area at all. My son and I were fingerprinted and photographed right at the desk.

We were the last into the baggage hall and someone had removed our baggage from the carousel and put it neatly onto a couple of carts!!

It was all very painless.

Robert&Leia reported a special process in SFO in March 2005:

When myself and leia arrived at SFO, we asked the officers in the immgration hall. Just a well really they had a seprate desk for new immgrants which had NO ONE in the line.

My finger print was ink, but the ink came right off with I rubbed it with a tissue, straight after they finished fingerprinting me

prydwyn/Dennis and Leigh contribute another approach:

I was told at the consulate to go to the visitors line, but Leigh was adamant we should go to the resisdents/immigrants line so thats what we did. The stamped Leighs passport then sent us to another line which was part of the residents section but was set up to take fingerprints.

This was at SFO which is set up the same as LAX.

I think the best solution is go to the line with the least amount of people qeued ;-) Either way they will take you to another desk <nod>

Please pay it forward and post your POE story once you are here! This is a stressful step for some folks, and not everyone has the benefit of traveling with their USC spouse. Your words of wisdom about this important, but low key event will be appreciated by many!

ANYONE using an Immigrant Visa can post to this thread! CR-1 & IR-1 visa folk, that is YOU!

Note: If you have been married for less than 2 years when you enter the US, your Permanent Resident status has “conditions”. A CR-1 PR is no less a PR than anyone else, but they do have an additional step to take 2 years after they enter the US. Please see the Guides for Removal of Conditions (form I-751) and the pinned thread at the top of the Removing Conditions Forum here at VJ: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=310.

I recommend the following reads to anyone who is becoming a Permanent Resident, so you can better understand your rights and responsibilities.

Now That You Are A Permanent Resident

How Do I Remove the Conditions on Permanent Residence Based on Marriage?

Welcome to the United States: A Guide for New Immigrants

Edited November 19, 2006 by meauxna

[Toledospod 0]

Hi all,

I thought I'd add my experience as this is such a useful thread! I think it's important that people know the ups(and the downs)of POE so they know what to expect. As you can from my experience, things don't always go according to plan!

I flew into Newark last night around 5pm on British Airways and it was full flight. Glad I chose the right line to go through when I got to immigration(I went through the 'US Citizens and Permanent Residents' line. Got in the line at abut 5:10pm and there as hardly anyone lining up at the time. As both my wife and my 7-month old daughter are US citizens, I just handed the woman at the immigration desk their US passports and she swiped them through the machine and handed them back. I had already given her my UK passport with the MRIV and the MBE(Mystery Brown Envelope, for those of you new to this!). She asked me to follow her to the secondary inspection area, but said that my wife and my daughter should wait around at the end of the immigration hall, as the secondary inspection area was small and could be crowded. I followed the immigration officer down the hall to a much smaller room with a high desk on the right(looked like a judges court room kind of!) and she asked me to sit and wait to be called(there wasn't a ticket system there). I saw her take my Passport and MBE to a back room off to the left-hand side and then she left to go back to the main immigration hall. It was already busy in this room and got even busier as an Air India and Air Indonesia flights arrived shortly after me. I reckon there must have been at least 30 - 40 people at one point! As I walked into the room, there was this one immigration officer sitting behind this high desk talking to someone who I guess had a problem with his visa, 'cos the next thing I knew the immigration officer was shouting at him saying things like "We are giving you a 30-day extension, do you understand??!!", to which the guy must have mumbled something(I couldn't hear)and the officer said "Do you want to go back tomorrow? Is that what you want?!! If you keep this up you'll be straight out of here tomorrow! Now go and sit down!!!". I was petrified that this officer might be the one who we had to all see or something! He was really nasty to some of the people and to others he just asked normal questions in a normal manner.

Anyway, I must have sat there for about an hour when a couple of other English people came into the room from the main hall. I guess they must have got in the 'all other travellers' line, 'cos I got chatting to this one woman who was there to get a new work visa and she was told to get in the other line for non-US residents/citizens. I told her that I just showed the officer at the front of the line my envelope and she just pointed me to any of the US Citizen/Resident lines.

Every so often, a British Airways representative came in and asked if there was anyone from out flight in the room, what our names were and how many bags we had checked-in. I told the representative that my wife and daughter were outside and could she just let them know whats going on. She said no problem. Another 10 mins later a US Immigration officer came into the room from outside and called my name, to which I answered and he said "Your wife needs the vbaby bag"(I had brought in the baby's bag with the milk and nappies in it and one of our hand luggages for some reason). I just laughed and gave him the baby bag. I guess my daugter must have been getting hungry, having to wait for so long!

After about another 10 or 20 mins(I think....I was starting to lose track of time), the British Airways representative came back in again and was surprised that I was still waiting(apparently, it was just me and this other woman who came for the work visa that were still waiting from the BA flight). I knew that my mother-in-law was gonna be waiting outside the airport to pick us up by now(I had told her not to get to the airport until 6:30pm just in case and it was now 7pm)so I asked the representative if she could call my mother-in-law's cell phone to let her know of the delay('cos the I couldn't use my cell phone anywhere in the immigration hall - people, make note of this!). She took down my mother-in-law's number and went outside to make the call. She said she would try to get the immigration officers to speed things up a bit for myself and this other woman. We had now been waiting over 2 hours! The stupid thing was that all this time, there were two immigration officers behind this high desk and one who kept coming out of a side room to call people in every so often, but there was still about 30 people waiting! They obviously had a staffing problem.

Finally, around 7:15(this was just after the BA representative said she was gonna get them to hurry up)I got called into this back room. The officer asked me to sign something in two places. I explained that I wanted to change the address to where my Green Card was gonna be mailed to and he said no problem, just write it block capitals and make sure it is clear. Then he needed to take my fingerprint and stupidly, I put out my right thumb, to which he said wrong finger, and of course I knew this. He told me to put my index finger on the ink pad and there's me pressing down as hard as I can and he "no, relax your finger, otherwise it doesn't come out right". He asked me to give two fingerprints from the same index finger, as they would choose the best one and this would go on my green card. Then it was all over and he said "Welcome to America". This all took about 5 mins! The officer gave me back my UK passport and I left. When I got outside to the main immigration hall my wife had already got the baby stroller and my daughter was sitting quite comfortably in it. We went downstairs to get our bags and my mother-in-law picked us up. I think overall, the whole thing took about 2 hours and 15 mins.

I reckon if I had flown in on a later flight or perhaps during the week, maybe I would've gone through quicker. In any case, British Airways did a top job of helping me and my family out!

[Candace 2]

This is an awesome thread, do you think it could be pinned? I'd love to have it to refer to when my time comes but it'll be a while!

Thanks

[Anyta Holland 1]

I sent a PM to Chief Wookie to do it, but not sure if he got it...

[Toledospod 0]

I sent a PM to Chief Wookie to do it, but not sure if he got it...

I've sent a few PM's to him(I assume his ID is 'Capt Ewok')to ask him to make my thread a sticky too(the 'Brits in the USA' thread on the UK forum), but haven't heard anything from him at all

[meauxna 15]

<koff>

Shameless bump...

<'scuse me>

[sadie33138 0]

bumpty bump bump -

[aussiewench 9]

My POE experience was pretty much a non event but here it is.

My Qantas flight arrived at Honolulu HI at approx. 8.30am. I never joined any of the queues.....on the indication from a member in a previous thread, I went straight to the desk at the end (located by turning left when you enter the immigration area). I only had to wait a minute, if that, before being attended. Address and form signed, fingerprints taken, a couple of questions, visa endorsed, handed info on lifting conditions and all was complete. Over and done in a few minutes and no second interview. It was as painless as. I didnt get a 'Welcome to America' though The officer directed me to where I had to go to pick up my baggage. No hassles there either as I escaped baggage checks, nothing to declare so handed in my customs form and was waived through. Just had to to rebook it in for the flight to the LAX, which was a pain in the preverbial butt but that was due to flight circumstances.

[simple_male 1]

My POE experience was pretty much a non event but here it is.

My Qantas flight arrived at Honolulu HI at approx. 8.30am. I never joined any of the queues.....on the indication from a member in a previous thread, I went straight to the desk at the end (located by turning left when you enter the immigration area). I only had to wait a minute, if that, before being attended. Address and form signed, fingerprints taken, a couple of questions, visa endorsed, handed info on lifting conditions and all was complete. Over and done in a few minutes and no second interview. It was as painless as. I didnt get a 'Welcome to America' though The officer directed me to where I had to go to pick up my baggage. No hassles there either as I escaped baggage checks, nothing to declare so handed in my customs form and was waived through. Just had to to rebook it in for the flight to the LAX, which was a pain in the preverbial butt but that was due to flight circumstances.

Lorelle,

Welcome to America.

[aussiewench 9]

bump

Come on guys...write up your POE experiences

[sadie33138 0]

Our trip home to the US was pretty smooth other than a few late planes here and there. Left Auckland ok (the day before fog delayed many flights in and out and I was paranoid that we would miss all our connections) The plane out of Sydney was late. And the one out of Houston.

POE experience: Got into LAX around 6:30am. Entering the large Immigration Processing room there were two women Officers directing people into the correct lines. My DAH had his Mysterious Brown Envelope in his hands along with his passport and I had my US passport & the customs form at the ready. We approached one of the women directing folks and I told her I was a US citizen and my husband had an Immigrant Visa and asked which line we should go to. She said, get in the US Citizens, Resident Aliens line. There was only a couple of US citizens/residents ahead of us and when we got to the front of that line, there was another woman Officer, I told her the same thing, she sent us to a lady Officer in one of the booths. At the booth, I repeated my spiel and the Officer quickly scanned my passport, told my husband and myself to take a seat and she would call us up when all the people were processed. I couldn't believe how quickly all the people off of two planes were processed (another group came in after our planeload). It only took them about 15 minutes or less. The Immigration room has roped lines leading to the booths, right side is Aliens, left side is Citizens/Residents. Far left in front of the Citizen/Residents processing booths is a small waiting area with comfortable chairs. That's where we sat until our lady Officer came to get my husbands envelope. She took it back to her booth and rapidly went through it. She then came back to us and handed my husband his passport with the stamp in it and she wrote his A number and IR-1 as well. She then gave him a sheet of paper explaining his status and that he was eligible to work and said his card should be along in a few months but if we didn't get it by eleven months from that day to call Immigration or go to our local office as the stamp is good for only a year. Then, welcome to America. It was smooth and quick. I think overall we were there in the Processing hall about 30 minutes or less.

I am so happy to be back in the USA

[kirk and Jenny 0]

Thanks; I have my own Jenny to the USA folder in Word Perfect. This helps a lot. I copied and pasted.

[meauxna 15]

Thanks; I have my own Jenny to the USA folder in Word Perfect. This helps a lot. I copied and pasted.

Great, kirk!

Keep in mind that this info is specific to Immigrant Visa holders; a K-1 process will be *slightly* different with regard to the details, but the main pieces will be the same: She will go through immigration, go into Secondary inspections, if connecting she will need to recheck her bags.

She WILL NEED to complete an I-94, and guard it carefully---it will be part of her AOS application later on, and will be her proof of legal status for the first 90 days. She will also complete the Customs declaration (those 2 forms are available as samples online).

The guidelines for applying for Jenny's SS# are different--be sure to look those up, and of course her green card will not be magically generated.

If you have any questions, could you please start a new thread? We'll keep this one for people's experiences.

[sadie33138 0]

Update: 20 days after entry at LAX, my DAH has his 10 year green card!

[iceyspots 0]

thanks for the tips