POE at SFO experience along with getting the greencard

[Shauna&Wael 211]

Back with another journey that has now come to an end along with some advice.

My husband's POE was November 3rd at SFO airport. I was waiting for him on the other side as he arrived alone. Everything was going swimmingly until his encounter with CBP. He handed the officer the sealed envelope from the embassy, and then the "interrogation" began. He wasn't taken to a second room, but the questioning went a little something like this:

"Have you ever been to x, x, x, x, x, country?" -- No.

"Do you have any family in x, x, x, x, x, country?" --No.

"Are you sure?" Yes.

Now, my husband may have been smirking or smiling while giving his responses because he sometimes does that when he's nervous. So it's possible the officer thought he was being smart with him. He then got extremely frustrated (because my husband wasn't agreeing to being a terrorist?) and took him over to a map of the world and started pointing at the same countries he asked about before. When my husband's responses were the same, he started shouting profanities at him and my husband even saw some people in line laughing at him. During the POE he was supposed to correct the CR1 on his visa to IR1 in the computer database in order to receive the correct greencard. (He had our marriage certificate in hand). However, the officer made him so scared he felt like he couldn't say anything for fear of not being let into the country. So he entered as being under conditional residency.

When we finally met up, after hugs and smooches (lol), he told me what happened and of course I was pissed. Not at him but at the officer for making him feel like such ####### he couldn't even speak. I asked a woman at an information counter where we could go to possibly get this fixed at the airport, and she pointed me to what I believe was a deferred inspection site. The people were friendly but informed me we'd need to go to deferred inspection in San Francisco to get it fixed. In my head I'm thinking greeaaat another mary go round of fun!

We were both so tired and fed up we decided we'd go another day and just wanted to enjoy being in the US together for a little bit. Fast forward a week and we went to deferred inspection. Of course, they told us that's not the right place and we needed to go to USCIS on the other side of the building. When we went to USCIS (without an appointment) both of the women who helped us were extremely friendly. The supervisor informed me he wasn't even in the system yet and to come back in a month. She also said he could obtain employment with just his passport and social security (which he had). Just about a month later we came back and he was in the system. From the words of the man at USCIS he was listed as IR1 category in their system, but in the "system that mattered for the greencard" it was listed as CR1. He said the greencard was printed almost a week ago but he wasn't able to get a picture of it to see what the card said. I can't make this stuff up, when we went home, the greencard had arrived and it was for 10 YEARS!!! We couldn't believe it. I'm not sure if it got fixed because I went to USCIS or if they fixed it on their own, but I would say if you're in the same boat it doesn't hurt to try! Also, if you're even somewhat local to the San Francisco USCIS office definitely go there because you don't need an appointment and they're very helpful.

[Ryan H 3,812]

Moved from Process & Procedures to Progress Reports.