Lucky2Lucky
Difficulty:  | Review Topic: Port of Entry Review
I entered the USA with my husband and went with him though the visitors line. We got to the immigration officer who was extremely nice and she stamped his passport but I guess it was the wrong stamp and some other officer came over. This one asked us if we had proof of our relationship like pictures etc, I said yes but then remembered I packed all of our stuff we had from the interview in our checked luggage because I didn't think we would need it...luckily this was no problem. The nice lady then stamped his passport, crossed out the other stamp, took his finger prints electronically and lead us over to an office. We then were in this office for almost 2 hours just waiting. When we entered they took his envelope that we received from the embassy and put it in a file on the counter...now we just waited to be called. There were only maybe 4 other people before us but as time went on the room filled up with people. It was getting late and I was panicking that we were going to miss our connecting flight..another hurdle in this process I thought. Meanwhile a lady from the airline jetblue came in asking if any of us had a connection with them and we told them we did. She kept radioing to someone that we were just waiting in immigration and there was nothing she could do. The two officers at the desk were filling out reports but also BSing about random stuff which made me a little upset because they were not talking like professionals or that they had any respect for those of us waiting. When my husbands name was called we both went up to the desk, I believe they took his picture with a web cam and the woman asked who was petitioning him...I said me and waved lol. The lady then said we have to get married within 90 days and we were finished. We were at the desk for mAYBE 2 minutes total. We then ran out of the immigration office to our luggage.
I couldn't find the luggage because it was now so late but I saw the nice jetblue woman and told her we were the ones from immigration and asked if she knew where our bags were. She showed us where they were then she grabbed a cart for us and told us she would expedite us through customs. We skipped everyone waiting, the airline lady rolled our bags straight to the customs officer and he didn't even ask us anything just took our paper and we were though. The jetblue lady then told us she would check our bags for us and we had to go to the next terminal. My husband and I then ran outside to get to the next terminal, I said "welcome to America!" Haha we got to the next building, entered, went up the escalator And then had to go through security. Luckily I had upgraded our tickets to even more space which includes even more speed and we were able to bypass the long line and go to a short line with only a few people. If we had to go through the long security line we would have missed the flight. Got thorough security and just made it to the gate where they had just started boarding the plane.
I recommend having at LEAST a 3 hour layover just in case because it's better to Hang out at the airport doing nothing than rushing and having having anxiety about missing your connecting flight...also if my husband was alone during this process he would have missed it because he wouldn't have known to ask for help or how to get to the next terminal fast enough. I've used his airport multiple times and was familiar with it .
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Port of Entry Member Review #15920
Entry Date: 2015-12-15