Angela & Paul
Difficulty:  | Review Topic: Port of Entry Review
Future JFK reviewers: please indicate Airline, Terminal and Time of arrival in your review because I do think it matters in how you will be treated.
Arrived via TAM Brazilian Airlines in Terminal 4 at 5:30am on January 17, 2009.
Immigration room is large and modern. We asked an officer directing passengers at the beginning of both lines if we could go together in the "US Citizens" line, he said yes. The "US & Residents" line was much shorter and faster than the "non-US" line, so we were very happy to shave at least 30mn off our wait.
When we got to the first immigration officer, we explained the situation and gave him the sealed yellow envelope. He pulled a "cheat sheet" from his desk and started reading instructions. He seemed new at this. Then he looked in the computer and found Angela's "red flag" 
He asked a few questions about her history and then took her picture and fingerprints. He explained he usually does most of the work at his desk, but because of her "special" case, he needed to take us to the back room. He was nice and friendly through the whole thing (about 7 minutes, I felt bad for the passengers waiting behind us).
In the back room, he put the file on a desk next to three officers standing on what looks like a stage above the rows of seats. There were about 50 to 70 chairs, and about 15 people in there. We waited 10mn, expecting a torrent of questions and a hard time from them. An officer finally came to us, took us to the back of the room, noticed our address and told us he was from CA too. He was very nice and told Angela could never come back to the US with her other passport (the one with the "red flag"). He guided us to another station next to the luggage pickup where two officers process the final documents. We felt better at that point even if we still did not have a final answer as to the I-94 status.
After waiting another 10mn, the officer at the desk called Angela and then called me, and asked if I was the petitioner. She told us to wait a few more minutes, and 5 minutes later called Angela to get her passport. Angela then asked if she could get the Employement EAD stamp, to which the officer said "it's already there on the back of the I-94" 
We proceeded to get our luggage, which we could see turning on the carousel the past 10mn while waiting at the last immigration station, and proceeded to the United terminal. The 30+ minutes to get through Immigration and the -13 degrees C (9 degrees Fahrenheit) outside did not damper the celebration as we walked to our gate 
Overall, the process was not too difficult, yet a bit lengthy. From the point we first stood in line to getting our luggage, it took us about 1 hour. Had we had to go through the non-US resident line, I am guessing it would have been 1hr 30mn. With the Terminal change, I would highly recommend anyone going through JFK to allocate a minimum 2 hours for any connection with a K-1 visa.
All officers were extremely friendly and answered our questions clearly.
We got the I-94 stamp, the EAD stamp and our luggage. When I look at other reviews on the forum, maybe we were lucky.
Feel free to send us messages if you have any further questions. Thank you.
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Port of Entry Member Review #14258
Entry Date: 2009-01-17