Arrival processing at the airport with DV

[mimosadoro 0]

Hi, this  August I will be entering USA with my DV after winning the green card. Im wondering about your experience with this process.

I've entered the US before several times with different visa types and I know that after the landing there is a procedure with the officers. Does the procedure for  the new permanent resident takes longer than the usual airport interview with the officer or/and does that include some special actions?

I will have some of my friends picking me up at the airport and to adapt to their schedule I would need to provide them with the estimated timestamps.

Thank you!

[JFH 12,190]

All depends on the airport and how busy it is on the day. I came in through Las Vegas with my immigrant visa just before Christmas 2016 and spent 2.5 hours in secondary. Others arrived on other days and breezed through in a matter of minutes. 

 

They take the envelope from you, take your finger prints and photo, check where you will be living (so they know where to send the green card to), stamp your passport and off you go. 

[WandY 430]

You will go through the same line (foreigner, not U.S. citizen). Impossible to know how long. You'll be finished whenever you are finished. In other words, your friends may have to wait an hour or two - or maybe not. Impossible to know. It shouldn't be a big deal - international travel is not for the impatient.

[mimosadoro 0]

Thank you! I will probably just ask them to arrive around 2 hours after my planned arrival. I dont mind waiting in case the procedure will take only few minutes. And if it takes couple of hours, they will be just on time  

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

You’ll be very lucky if it’s only a few minutes....

it will mostly depend on the airport and how busy it is at the time of day you get there. 

Most airports you’ll join the non-resident line, a couple of airports have a dedicated new immigrants line. 

then you will usually be sent to secondary processing where they process your envelope, take fingerprints etc. again this depends on how busy it is and what’s happening on the day. We had the misfortune on our day to be stuck behind a couple of people who were undergoing security screening in secondary and that took quite a while, without that we’d probably have been pretty fast. 1-2 hours is probably an average time taking into account queues etc. 

[mimosadoro 0]

Any idea how is it in JFK? There is where I land. 

However, thank you all for making my vision clear on this.  I will certainly have more questions in process of time, so will get back here later. Just have to sort out many things here first. 

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

1 hour ago, mimosadoro said:

Any idea how is it in JFK? There is where I land. 

However, thank you all for making my vision clear on this.  I will certainly have more questions in process of time, so will get back here later. Just have to sort out many things here first. 

Totally depends on which terminal at which time of day. I’ve had everything from 10 minutes to 3 hours at jfk - without secondary processing.