Simon&Vik

From Simon:

Arrival in Newark was prefaced by the (no doubt) customary ooh-ing and ahh-ing at New York City just over the River. The WTC site still seems a gaping wound, even from a mile away. It's not the towers that seem missing from the scene, but something - a hole in the jungle of towers.

Arrival in Newark, expecting a lengthy queue, I took steps to move as quickly as possible, overtaking as many people from my plane as possible. This turned out to be wise, as the queue was substantial. I think the queue time was about 25 minutes, before being shuffled into smaller queues for individual customs officers.

My instructions had been to hand the customs officer at the POE my chest x-ray, my passport and a brown envelope provided and sealed by the US Embassy, London. The customs officer wasn't interested in the x-ray at all, and checked my passport. The envelope turned out to include all the paperwork filed by myself (in London - i.e. Packet 3) and by myself and Vik (in Indiana, five months earlier). All of it had a big fat APPROVED stamp in red - this was very satisfying. After the officer read ALL of it, he fingerprinted and photogreaphed me, welcomed me to America, and advised me to go to another office to finalize the immigration paperwork.

Led by a uniformed officer to this secondary office, and after another lengthy wait (fretting about the impending connecting flight) they handed me back my passport and a copy of the Employment Authorization Application form.

I should point out for readers going through the process, the document that they gave me at Newark was **years** out of date - last revised in 1998. My advice is to print the version on the INS's website, as this will always be the most recent version available.

Having ran - I do mean ran - through baggage connection and the terminal to catch my connection, I was seated on my connecting flight on time. On time, however, was not when Continental's flight left. Despite the fact that the plane was in no way ready to leave, they let us on board, and kept us sitting on the tarmac for two hours while fiddling around with one of the engines.

cutenurse300

Hi there,

Thanks so much for sharing your Newark POE experience as i have to go trough them in 5 days with my K1 visa.Did you got your EAD Stamp?How long did it took to go trough?

Simon&Vik

A) From what I understand, only New York gives the EAD Stamp.
B) We're K-3, and therefore not qualified to get the EAD upon entry.

How long did it took to go trough?

His layover was about 1.75 hrs, and he made it through in time to make his next plane. (Barely, but still made it... )