POE experience in Newark

[Toledospod 0]

I guess this is the right area of the forum to post this, I sometimes get confused!

Well, after almost 6 months(cut it close to the deadline for getting my IR-1 visa stamped!), my wife, daughter and I finally flew over to the States and I got my Visa stamped and Green cad is on it's way! I thought I would share my POE experience with you all, for those that may be going through Newark soon.

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 5:10 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 alrady 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 suggested that my wife and my daughter 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 large 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. 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 flight 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 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(or 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 wrong 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 Baby 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 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 6:30 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-laws 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(just 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 chose 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.

So, now I'm a US Resident and my journey is pretty much over! Unfortunately, we have to fly back to the UK on May 9th so I can close on the sale of my flat(its taken a lot longer han we expected). I'll still be on here to help out other people to share my experiences though.

Take care everyone!

[sukie175 0]

Congrats on your relatively easy arrival