Twotrees

The kids and I popped down to the border this morning (3 miles from our house) to
activate our K3/4s. We are not actually moving to the States til the end of the
school year but I was tired of explaining the unstamped visa in my passport every
time I go down house hunting. The first officer I dealt with was having a bad hair
day or something. Very cranky and slightly rude and TOTALLY unfamiliar with the K3.
He was upset that I didn't have a Uhaul and decided I couldn't activate the visa
until I was actually moving. He told me it was a one time entry visa. I politely
argued with him until he decided to double-check. Ages later, as the kids and I
watched him scurry from desk to office to desk in the back of the building, he
decided that perhaps I was right. However, he caught me short by asking for my
husband's physical address in the States. I don't have it memorized and I left my
daytimer on my desk. AAARGH! So at their suggestion, I popped across the street to
phone my husband. As the phone rang and rang, I remembered that he's working nights,
had gone to bed about 8 this morning and would have shut the ringer off his phone. As
I trudged back across the street, anticipating having to go back home without my
stamp, my son stuck his head out the door, yelling "They found it!" Of
course....dunh!...it would be on some of the paperwork inside the Mysterious Brown
Envelope. When I got inside, there was a different officer there. Very pleasant, very
efficient and totally aware of what a K3 is. He apologized for the mix-up, apologized
for the $6 fee, apologized for the fact that Sumas does not give temp EAD's, and
really apologized when he realized that they were out of the EAD application forms.
He gave some advise about filing for AOS (all of which I knew already thanks to this
group). Indulged in some small talk while he was busy stamping, stapling, etc. He's
ex Navy. My hubby's ex Navy - great ice breaker. Mine was only the third one Sumas
has processed (and he said they did the first one wrong!) but he felt they were
getting the "hang of it". So there....that's out of the way. Now for serious house
hunting, then AOS and I'm done!!!!

Lorrie (Canada) and Jeff (US)

Eddie

Lorrie:

Like you I crossed the Buffalo border on Saturday to activate my K3. It was a fairly
easy process except for the 1 hour wait. The immigration officer asked me when I'm
planning to get married then I told him we already did so back in August last year.
They are not too familiar with K3 and I did pay US$6. More so after he opened the
brown envelop all my docs were returned to me. Were yours returned to you as well?
The office said they only retain docs. for K1. I'm also undergoing my I-130
application, not sure if the docs. were to be supposed to forward back to US
Consulate in Montreal, where I'm supposed to have my future interview for I-130. Any
info you can update me with will be great. Cheers,

Richard Sun

Have you used your K3 visa to go back and forth between countries?

Here's my current time line:

http://www.richsun.com/20020227.html

Twotrees

The officer did not return any documents to me. I'm not pursuing the I-130 through
Montreal. I've got lots of copies of everything for the AOS so I'm not worried.

Eddie <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Lorrie:
    >
    > Like you I crossed the Buffalo border on Saturday to activate my K3. It was a
    > fairly easy process except for the 1 hour wait. The immigration officer asked me
    > when I'm planning to get married then I told him we already did so back in August
    > last year. They are not too familiar with K3 and I did pay US$6. More so after he
    > opened the brown envelop all my docs were returned to me. Were yours returned to
    > you as well? The office said they only retain docs. for K1. I'm also undergoing my
    > I-130 application, not sure if the docs. were to be supposed to forward back to US
    > Consulate in Montreal, where I'm supposed to have my future interview for I-130.
    > Any info you can update me with will be great. Cheers,

Twotrees

Used mine yesterday to "pop down" for some house hunting. They didn't give me any
problems at all. They did ask if we were all moving down. I refrained from snapping
that I jumped through all the visas hoops for all of us just for the fun of it. But I
thought better of it, smiled and went on my way.

Richard Sun <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Have you used your K3 visa to go back and forth between countries?
    >
    > Here's my current time line:
    >
    > http://www.richsun.com/20020227.html