My POE is Newark on Thursday....

[helwardman 1]

Hello again,

So I got my shiny new K1 visa delivered to me today

My POE will be Newark on Thursday - does anyone know what I should expect to happen when I go through immigration?

For instance which line do I get in and stuff like that?

Any advice / tips would be useful becuase I like to be prepared B)

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

We went through Newark with a CR1 in August -- we were directed to the line for those not US citizens nor residents. Got up to the counter, I was stamped through and Bruce went off to secondary where they promptly forgot (!!!) about him. He watched about 100 (I am not kidding about that number) people get processed while he waited, and waited... 2 hours later, when he was literally the last person in the room someone noticed he was still there and processed him. They opened his MBE, took some fingerprints, stamped his passport and told him his green card and SSN would be arriving in the post. It took less than 2 minutes -- 2 hours for 2 minutes! (I was having kittens at the baggage carousel not knowing where he was, and the border patrol kept asking me why I was loitering...)

We now realise he *might* have piped up to say "Hey! I'm here!" earlier, but he was paranoid someone would tell him to sit down and shut up. Given a prior incident at Newark where he was treated like poo, he didn't want to chance it. I think I saw in an earlier post you have a 3 hour layover (correct me if I'm wrong) -- this should be plenty, but I wouldn't have chanced less time!

Congrats on your visa -- here's hoping you have a better POE than Bruce!

[helwardman 1]

We went through Newark with a CR1 in August -- we were directed to the line for those not US citizens nor residents. Got up to the counter, I was stamped through and Bruce went off to secondary where they promptly forgot (!!!) about him. He watched about 100 (I am not kidding about that number) people get processed while he waited, and waited... 2 hours later, when he was literally the last person in the room someone noticed he was still there and processed him. They opened his MBE, took some fingerprints, stamped his passport and told him his green card and SSN would be arriving in the post. It took less than 2 minutes -- 2 hours for 2 minutes! (I was having kittens at the baggage carousel not knowing where he was, and the border patrol kept asking me why I was loitering...)

We now realise he *might* have piped up to say "Hey! I'm here!" earlier, but he was paranoid someone would tell him to sit down and shut up. Given a prior incident at Newark where he was treated like poo, he didn't want to chance it. I think I saw in an earlier post you have a 3 hour layover (correct me if I'm wrong) -- this should be plenty, but I wouldn't have chanced less time!

Congrats on your visa -- here's hoping you have a better POE than Bruce!

Yep I have got a 3 hour layover, hopefully that's long enough. Previously, (travelling on VWP) I have been first off the plane, ran round to immigration, been front of the line and cleared immigration AND customs in about 10 minutes and then caught the next plane to Houston. I didnt want to chance that this time travelling on the K1

[Silas 0]

They opened his MBE, took some fingerprints, stamped his passport and told him his green card and SSN would be arriving in the post. It took less than 2 minutes -- 2 hours for 2 minutes! (I was having kittens at the baggage carousel not knowing where he was, and the border patrol kept asking me why I was loitering...)

We now realise he *might* have piped up to say "Hey! I'm here!" earlier, but he was paranoid someone would tell him to sit down and shut up. Given a prior incident at Newark where he was treated like poo, he didn't want to chance it. I think I saw in an earlier post you have a 3 hour layover (correct me if I'm wrong) -- this should be plenty, but I wouldn't have chanced less time!

That's reassuring to know that he had no problems other than the wait. I got the poo treatment in Philly when they sent me to secondary and in the back of my head there's a little pessismistic voice telling me this might get dredged up when I have my POE at JFK this Friday. I don't know how much information, if any, they record for future reference when they interview someone in secondary but I do get worried that an over-zealous officer might want grill me if any FYI's come up against my name on their system. Of course, the rational part of my brain tells me to stop obsessing and that what was to me an unusual and slightly scary interrogation was to the immigration officer a fairly non-descript and slightly dull interview with an English twit who hadn't bothered bringing any proof of ties to the UK with him.