Betastar

I hope I can make this somewhat linear - waking up at 5am does strange things to
my brain ~

This morning, Reinhard and I woke up at 5am and were standing in front of the INS
building in Charlotte by 5:30am. (We were the only one to bring chairs, something we
learned from the people in CA who post to this list )

I found myself asleep in my chair by 6am, so I can't tell exactly how the line
progessed, but by 7am, 1/2 hour before the doors opened, the line was wrapped around
the building.

Thanks to Elaine's advice (Thanks Elaine!), I called the immigration laision for one
of our Congressmen, and she told us to either not go for another month, or to make
sure we were there VERY early. Right now Charlotte is undergoing to dreaded audit
(apparently it's not just the service centers!) and they are closing their doors at
11am, and only seeing a limited number of people - people who arrived at 7am were
most likely NOT going to be seen that day. =(

Anyway, when we got there at 5:30 we were about 10th in line.

They opened the doors at 7:30 (well, 7:32 or so) and started letting people in in
small groups.

We were about 10th to be called (imagine that!) and went to the window where we told
the nice INS man that we were there for two reasons.

Reinhard handed the man his letter, and said he would like to get the stamp in his
passport. I then pointed out the bit on the letter about the I-89 and asked him if he
could double-check that the I-89 was sent to Texas for processing.

He said that no, it was too early for it to be in the computer, but Reinhard didn't
need to fill out another one, he did that 2 weeks ago at the interview, though he did
admit it was weird that they put this part into our letter.

I tried to very politely express my concern that they are so overworked there and
have so much paper around, that perhaps Reinhard's I-89 got misplaced.

Just as I was explaining this, a supervisor was walking by behind the guy in the
booth, and he asked her about it. She, too, thought it strange, and the INS officer
told us to hang on, and disappeared for about 5 minutes or so. Apparently he had gone
upstairs to look for Reinhard's file!

He came back down, made some "That's strange" type noises, and said he couldn't tell
one way or the other if the I-89 was sent in, and so he had Reinhard sign and
fingerprint a new one. (I was very happy we had so many ADIT photos made! He had a
few in his passport, so we were able to use those!)

So now we'll see if Reinhard gets two greencards in the mail

We were told that the stamp was good for 1 year, the greencard should come in 6-8
months (unlike the interviewer telling us 6-8 weeks!) and if it didn't come within
the year, come back for another stamp. We were told about removing conditions, etc.
etc. All stuff I already knew from hanging out here for the last year and a half

So now Reinhard has his stamp, good until Sept 20, 2002, and has at least one I-89 on
its way to Texas, and we're glad to be done with that office for a while at least.

About security:

Reinhard and I were very curious about what sort of security they'd have, and left
our jackets, sweaters, my pocketbook, etc. etc. in the car. We just had our
passports, his letter, and our books (for pleasure reading) with us. He even took the
nail-clippers out of his wallet.

Well, not only was there no searching or X-rays or anything like that at the
Charlotte office, but the security guard wasn't even at the door all the time (though
he did notice if someone came in without his letting them in.) The *only* difference
we saw today was that usually they let in 99 people (because they have 99 chairs)
first-thing, but this time they were only letting in about 20 cases at a time. No
added security measures.

The guy in front of us had a backpack and a jacket tied around his waist, and wasn't
even patted down.

I was a little surprised and disappointed, to be honest.

(I figure if Americans are a target, they may not want to go after an INS building...
not a lot of Americans there today.

Betastar

Andy Platt

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Something that always works well is mentioning that they aren't checking people -
tends to get you more attention than you really wanted! I was coming through customs
at Heathrow once; a guy there was complaining (rather loudly) to his family that it
was disgusting that there was nobody there looking at people coming through and
pulling people aside from checks. Sure enough from behind a screen a couple of
customs officers appeared, "Could you step this way please sir ..."

Andy.

--
I'm not really here - it's just your warped imagination.

Betastar

[usenetquote2]>> The guy in front of us had a backpack and a jacket tied around his waist, and[/usenetquote2]
[usenetquote2]>> wasn't even patted down.[/usenetquote2]
[usenetquote2]>>[/usenetquote2]
[usenetquote2]>> I was a little surprised and disappointed, to be honest.[/usenetquote2]
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*chuckle* Well, there's really no place to hide going into this office. As I (think)
I said, the security guard wasn't even at the door most of the time, running in and
asking questions for people and such (which is nice, though I think it was more along
the lines of his being unsure if they were in the right place).

Seriously, though - if Americans are targets for terrorists, would an INS building be
a logical place to hit? I don't think so...

Betastar still thinking of skipping that trip to Japan.