Crossed_fingers
Difficulty:  | Review Topic: Port of Entry Review
I am a USC and my husband was the holder of a CR-1 visa from the consulate in Casablanca, Morocco. We flew in together and, since he was traveling with me, we both went to the passport control line for returning citizens. The officer was slow but friendly. My husband gave his fingerprints and had his photo taken and handed over his passport and brown sealed envelope. The officer told us to wait along the wall behind him and kept the envelope, my husband's passport, and our customs form. He welcomed my husband to the U.S. A few minutes later, another officer came and collected the papers and guided us to a two connected waiting rooms, showed us where the vending machines and restrooms were, and told us to take any seat we could find. He apologized very nicely that it would be a long wait. We waited 3 hours or so before hearing anything. Eventually various officers approached us at different times and asked us which carrier we flew and checked on our baggage. We were there so long so late at night that they finally had to bring our luggage to us in that room. Everyone we spoke to was nice enough to us, though we weren't able to get any information about what took so long.
Eventually a friendly officer called my husband to another room for just a moment, and then brought us both to his booth. He asked how long we had been married, and when we told him more than 2 years he left to make a copy of our wedding certificate and translation to verify the date. He switched the CR-1 to an IR-1 and said the green card we receive in the mail would be the unconditional 10 year card. He asked my husband his height and weight and verified my address. It took about 10-15 minutes for us to finish with that officer even though he didn't ask any more questions, I think because of the change from CR-1 to IR-1. Eventually the officer said everything was all ready and explained when to expect the card on the mail, and came around and shook my husband's hand and welcomed him to the U.S. We had one more officer to see by the exit from that room, who stamped my husband's passport and gave us our luggage.
We got pulled over to the agricultural line for customs, but just before we put our bags in the X-ray scanner, an officer from upstairs who was leaving for the night happened to pass by and said, "We already went through their bags before we brought them up, they're checked."
Overall: absolutely no harassment or suspicion or rudeness of any kind; we were treated professionally and in a downright friendly and relaxed manner by everyone, but it was an extremely long wait. Flight landed 4 hours before we finally left the airport.
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Port of Entry Member Review #15509
Entry Date: 2013-08-21