Simon&Vik

With our interview coming up on the 25th, I'm getting ready to book plane tickets. My anticipation is arrival at Newark on the afternoon of the 27th.

Both for the purposes of booking the connecting flight, and for obvious curiosity, can I ask what people's experience of actual arrival is? Is it as simple as going in as a tourist - i.e. you get to the gate, give them your visa, and off you go (I don't expect it to be like this), or is it a full-on taken-to-one-side-and-interviewed-for-hours job... Or somewhere in between?


Basically, I'm still quite vague on what the process is, between:

1) getting off the plane from the transatlantic flight from the UK,

and,

2) getting on the plane for the interstate flight home.


If anyone can shed any light on what I should be expecting to take place - and crucially, how LONG it will take, because I need to book a connecting flight, and my two options at the moment are two hours after my transatlantic flight and SIX hours after the flight. I don't know if two hours is too long or six hours too little!

Thanks in advance,
Simon

Alistair

Simon&Vik

I arrived at Newark last month on a K1, but I would assume you will be treated in a similar way. I arrived on a Continental flight, so at Terminal C (from my experience of arriving on a visa waiver at Newark the different terminals could be quite different).

The process was amazingly simple. I handed the passport over as usual, and the officer just put the passport, and the envelope from the embassy, into a plastic wallet and told me to go see the man walking behind the desks. I handed the wallet to him, and he took me to a room at the side. I waited for perhaps 10 minutes (at most) and they gave me my passport back along with the EAD application form, telling me to send it as soon as we got married. The only questions were basically conversation - when are you getting married, where did you meet. They didn't seem to be grilling me or noting my answers.

I got to the luggage carousel before my bags (I fly a lot, so I have priority tags and my bags were among the first t appear).

My only question was what to put on the customs form - I didn't know whether I was supposed to put the value of the stuff I had brought, which would be well over the $100 limit. I left it blank and the immigration people told me to leave it like that. Customs didn't seem worried about it and just waved me through.

I hope that helps.

No EAD stamp, by the way.

Simon&Vik

We're K3 anyway and wouldn't get one anywhere.

Glad your experience went so smoothly!
About how long was it btwn your flight landing and your connection taking off?

CaliforniaBride

You can read about mdaitc's experience and mine here:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...hreadid=206742

Try doing a search for POE (point of entry) experiences.

Hope that helps.

CB

SirSteveUK

I went through Newark in August as a K3-smooth process except that they did NOT take the mysterious brown envelope.

CaliforniaBride

Somebody else had that experience, can't remember who. Folinskyinla posted on what they had to do to rectify the situation. Apparently these errors are not unheard of.

Just wondering, what did you do?

CB

CaliforniaBride

Found it.....

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...hreadid=207219

Regards

CB

cindyabs

Thought was that we take it to the local office, Atlanta.

Alistair

I didn't have a connecting flight, but I was out of the airport within 20 minutes of the aeroplane door opening! Unless you have a very short connection, you should be fine. One point to note though is that you should get to the front of the passport queue - run if you have to! I have been caught at the end of a 2 hour line at Newark a couple of times...

purvi

hi,
i arrived at newark on CR1 ( spouse visa) on 6th feb afternoon on terminal B.
The procedure was very smooth, i was taken in an office inside and asked to sign at 2 places and fingerprints were taken, my passport was stamped with the conditional green card,
i guess it took me around 15- 20 mins.
Tho it took quite some time for my baggage to arrive,
customs was smooth too,
i think it also depends on what time u r arriving, i came on friday afternoon, not many flights and so it was faster,
all the best