Pb2835
Difficulty:  | Review Topic: Port of Entry Review
Here's my (USC) and my wife's (awesome Filipina) experience of POE Honolulu last weekend, her CR1 visa finally having been issued.
When we arrived in Honolulu on the Philippine Airlines flight at ten or so in the morning, we took the mandatory airport shuttle to the immigration area. There were two long long lines: 1) returning USC, and 2) Other. We had read a lot of discussion about which line we (as a couple) should take, but here at the Honolulu airport, to our delight, it turned out there was a third (very short) line, for First Time Immigrants. There were maybe ten of us in line there, all off the PAL flight. The immigration officer handling that line was a real jokester, trying out spanish, tagalog, ilocano, anything on us, and generally making us feel relaxed and welcome. The vibe was that he was trying to help us with the process, not catch us out in some mistake or misstatement. He ripped open each person's famous "Sealed Packet" in turn, flipped through the papers there, entered a bunch of info into his own computer, and welcomed us to the USA. All in all, the smoothest part of the whole long visa saga -- YAY!
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Port of Entry Member Review #15964
Entry Date: 2015-08-22