lock2515

Morning/Afternoon

I'm due to fly into the states next week after having my I 130 visa approved. I understand I will have to go through an immigration process when I initially land in the U.S showing my visa pack etc.

I was just wondering how long people previously experienced this would take as my initial point of landing in the U.S is New York but have a connecting flight two hours later to Columbia?

Thanks in advance, any advice is greatly appreciated

civilservant

If you're talking JFK, then rearrange that connecting flight right now!

I would recommend at such a busy POE not one second less than 4 hours between flights - if another flight or 2 gets in just before you you could easily be over an hour just waiting to be seen.

Noorah101

My foreign fiance and I arrived at JFK with a connecting flight to LAX 3 hours later, and just barely made it. That was back in 2004, but I don't think much has changed.

I agree with civilservant, a longer layover is better.

Rene

lock2515

Thanks, its LaGuardia airport in New York I'll be arriving in.

GeoffM

The additional process may be as quick as 15 minutes or as long as hours. At LAX international terminal, for example, there was just one officer dealing with new immigrants (separate processing area, but not secondary). I got lucky with only one other person there; my wife and kids had to wait nearly an hour as there were around a dozen immigrants in front. Two hours is theoretically possible but realistically way too soon. I wouldn't do it for an international arrival even as a US Citizen.

S Folinsky

Last time I looked, there were no immigration facilities at LGA. The only international flights were from Canada which have preflight inspection in Canada.

civilservant

I read the same when I was looking at the airport information after the OP posted earlier.

So OP is the intention to be inspected outside of the US?

rpjs

FWIW when we immigrated through JFK eight and a half years ago, my secondary inspection for my IV lasted about 5 minutes and we were through before our luggage hit the carousel! Quite possibly we were very lucky and of course much will have changed since then.

Rete

Since there is no immigration secondary at LaGuardia where is your flight originating from? Ireland? Or do you have a stop over in Canada?

Twinkle0927