My POE experience at JFK this weekend...

[featherB 1]

... couldn't have been better! Well, it could have involved a little bit less queueing, but a bit of waiting is only to be expected!

My flight from London arrived at about noon... I had a four and a half hour gap 'til my connecting flight so wasn't worried about running out of time or anything. The lines were pretty long and it took about 40 - 50 minutes for me to get to the front of the line (they were walking up and down the lines looking for people who had connecting flights at 1:30, 2pm etc and calling them to the front so they wouldn't miss their connections) - when I was about 5th in the queue they opened up the desks that had been dealing with US citizens so the queue started moving quicker after that. Anyway, I was called forward by a lovely immigration officer (I'd seen the people he dealt with before me laughing while they were at the desk, so knew he was going to be a nice one!) who was very cheerful and friendly... he saw my brown envelope and said 'oh, you have something for me!', opened it, flipped through everything, had a look at all the photos we'd sent in with our petition ('ooh, is this him? he looks like some actor from the TV, what's that guy's name, you must know the one I'm thinking of...' etc etc ), asked when we're getting married, just generally made friendly smalltalk, nothing remotely approaching even the mildest of grillings! Then he said 'tell him from me he's a lucky American' (hah, smooth-talker!), rummaged in a bag and presented me with a Hershey's Kiss, telling me 'this'll be the last time you get a kiss from another guy' (haha, I'm keeping that as my POE souvenir!)... I reckon he must have a bag of them especially for such occasions. Cheesy but sweet, I thought! Oh, I got a 'Welcome to America' too, which I was ridiculously pleased about.

Anyway... blah blah blah... after that, he did some enthusiastic stamping on my passport & visa, and took me off to 'secondary'... I was thinking I'd have to wait a while in there or answer some questions or something, but I just had to sit down for about 2 minutes after Immigration Officer #1 had asked another guy to do whatever it is they have to do.... the guy did something with my papers, then called me to the desk, gave me back my passport and I was free to go. The only thing he asked me was 'you're getting married? what would you want to go and do a thing like that for!' ( ), that was it... oh, I got the temporary EA stamp on the back of my I-94 - it just says 'employment authorised. date:' in red, but there isn't a date... hopefully that won't matter.

So.... all in all I'd say that was a pretty successful, stress-free POE experience, much less hassle than I'd been expecting, and I wasn't expecting anything too traumatic in the first place. I've only been here since Saturday night and I'm quite amazed that I've already managed to open a bank account (even though I don't have an SSN yet), get myself put on the lease for our apartment and get the phone company to give us a landline (my fiance's only had a cellphone since moving to this apartment a few months ago) in my name... I should touch wood at this point, but am very impressed at how easy it's all been so far! I hope everyone else arriving in the near future has an experience as good as mine's been so far....

[KHURRAM SERAJ 0]

WOW congrats and welcome to America

[Flames9_RN 358]

Glad all went well

[broma25 2]

Glad to hear all went well....Welcome to America

[Melyssa 0]

... couldn't have been better! Well, it could have involved a little bit less queueing, but a bit of waiting is only to be expected!

My flight from London arrived at about noon... I had a four and a half hour gap 'til my connecting flight so wasn't worried about running out of time or anything. The lines were pretty long and it took about 40 - 50 minutes for me to get to the front of the line (they were walking up and down the lines looking for people who had connecting flights at 1:30, 2pm etc and calling them to the front so they wouldn't miss their connections) - when I was about 5th in the queue they opened up the desks that had been dealing with US citizens so the queue started moving quicker after that. Anyway, I was called forward by a lovely immigration officer (I'd seen the people he dealt with before me laughing while they were at the desk, so knew he was going to be a nice one!) who was very cheerful and friendly... he saw my brown envelope and said 'oh, you have something for me!', opened it, flipped through everything, had a look at all the photos we'd sent in with our petition ('ooh, is this him? he looks like some actor from the TV, what's that guy's name, you must know the one I'm thinking of...' etc etc ), asked when we're getting married, just generally made friendly smalltalk, nothing remotely approaching even the mildest of grillings! Then he said 'tell him from me he's a lucky American' (hah, smooth-talker!), rummaged in a bag and presented me with a Hershey's Kiss, telling me 'this'll be the last time you get a kiss from another guy' (haha, I'm keeping that as my POE souvenir!)... I reckon he must have a bag of them especially for such occasions. Cheesy but sweet, I thought! Oh, I got a 'Welcome to America' too, which I was ridiculously pleased about.

Anyway... blah blah blah... after that, he did some enthusiastic stamping on my passport & visa, and took me off to 'secondary'... I was thinking I'd have to wait a while in there or answer some questions or something, but I just had to sit down for about 2 minutes after Immigration Officer #1 had asked another guy to do whatever it is they have to do.... the guy did something with my papers, then called me to the desk, gave me back my passport and I was free to go. The only thing he asked me was 'you're getting married? what would you want to go and do a thing like that for!' ( ), that was it... oh, I got the temporary EA stamp on the back of my I-94 - it just says 'employment authorised. date:' in red, but there isn't a date... hopefully that won't matter.

So.... all in all I'd say that was a pretty successful, stress-free POE experience, much less hassle than I'd been expecting, and I wasn't expecting anything too traumatic in the first place. I've only been here since Saturday night and I'm quite amazed that I've already managed to open a bank account (even though I don't have an SSN yet), get myself put on the lease for our apartment and get the phone company to give us a landline (my fiance's only had a cellphone since moving to this apartment a few months ago) in my name... I should touch wood at this point, but am very impressed at how easy it's all been so far! I hope everyone else arriving in the near future has an experience as good as mine's been so far....

Nice to hear about a friendly POE officer with a sense of humour!

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Congrats/welcome!!

[ajames79 0]

Congrats!!!

I am so pleased to hear that you had a great POE!!

Ours is getting closer!!

[Nikita2Charles 32]

Congrats and welcome to the Big Apple.

[homesick_american 1]

Haha, that sounds like the guy my husband got at JFK...wouldn't it be weird if it was the same guy!

[iya 0]

Congratulations And thanks for posting this. I'll be coming in through JFK too, so this is a relief to read.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Thanks for the recap -- we'll be coming in through JFK too so it's great to hear a good tale at POE. May I say it again...Welcome to America!!!

[Mary Lou 681]

Congrats on the smooth experience and welcome to the USA!!!!!!!!

[cartaverde 12]

Congrats on the smooth entry! I'm glad for you things are going that well.

[Buxton babe 0]

Very happy fo you. There is a nice calmness now you can see each other everyday now. I cant beliebve we have been married two weeks, 2 days, and six hours already.

Welcome to America.

[featherB 1]

Thank you all! Can't believe I posted this then forgot to come back to my own thread.... tsk, how rude of me!!

Can't believe I've been here nearly a week.... ooh, Buxton Babe (and your Buxton Babe), congrats to you both! Good luck to anyone coming through JFK or anywhere else anytime soon... oh, and Homesick_American, did your husband get a chocolate too? ( ) No, seriously... yup, that would be funny - this guy was fantastically friendly and funny, everyone in the queue in front of me that I saw with him was cracking up laughing, so I reckon he must make an impression on most of his 'customers'. It was a very nice welcome, anyway - put a smile on my face!