POE Experience in ATL
May 6th 2003, 3:27 am
#1
Forum Regular
Thread Starter
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 101
POE Experience in ATL
My husband is here on a K-3. We recently took a trip to Israel to visit. This was our experience:
When my husband first entered on his K-3 (in October), in Atlanta, he had his brown envelope ready to go. He tried to hand it to the customs officer, but she didn't have a clue what to do with it. She asked several people, and eventually they gave him the address of the local INS, and told us to bring it there. So, that's what we did. We went to the INS (luckily it's only 5 minutes away), and asked them what to do with the envelope. They didn't know, and gave us a number, with an estimated wait time of 6 1/2 hours. I called the INS help line, and they said that we needed to keep the envelope until the AOS interview. So, we left.
We decided to take the envelope with us on our trip, just in case. We went through customs, and the very nice lady chatted with us about the visa for a while, and the brown envelope came up. She opened it (which about gave us a heartattack, in case she wasn't supposed to), and sent us to the immigration office. A man picked up our file, and shouted "what the heck is this?!" He sat at his computer for a while, yelling some choice words, and kept walking in and out of the office, looking for someone who knew what to do with it. (we were sweating bullets at this point!). Finally, he called us up to the desk, and said that we were supposed to have given the envelope to the customs people the first time he came in on the visa...We said we tried, but they didn't know what to do with it. The guy started laughing, and said that none of them know what to do with these things!
So, it all turned out ok, but just for future reference, be prepared!!!
Megan
When my husband first entered on his K-3 (in October), in Atlanta, he had his brown envelope ready to go. He tried to hand it to the customs officer, but she didn't have a clue what to do with it. She asked several people, and eventually they gave him the address of the local INS, and told us to bring it there. So, that's what we did. We went to the INS (luckily it's only 5 minutes away), and asked them what to do with the envelope. They didn't know, and gave us a number, with an estimated wait time of 6 1/2 hours. I called the INS help line, and they said that we needed to keep the envelope until the AOS interview. So, we left.
We decided to take the envelope with us on our trip, just in case. We went through customs, and the very nice lady chatted with us about the visa for a while, and the brown envelope came up. She opened it (which about gave us a heartattack, in case she wasn't supposed to), and sent us to the immigration office. A man picked up our file, and shouted "what the heck is this?!" He sat at his computer for a while, yelling some choice words, and kept walking in and out of the office, looking for someone who knew what to do with it. (we were sweating bullets at this point!). Finally, he called us up to the desk, and said that we were supposed to have given the envelope to the customs people the first time he came in on the visa...We said we tried, but they didn't know what to do with it. The guy started laughing, and said that none of them know what to do with these things!
So, it all turned out ok, but just for future reference, be prepared!!!
Megan
May 6th 2003, 4:10 am
#2
Sursum corda
Joined: Sep 2002
Location: Richmond Hill, GA USA
Posts: 38,860
Re: POE Experience in ATL
Originally posted by Megan
My husband is here on a K-3. We recently took a trip to Israel to visit. This was our experience:
When my husband first entered on his K-3 (in October), in Atlanta, he had his brown envelope ready to go. He tried to hand it to the customs officer, but she didn't have a clue what to do with it. She asked several people, and eventually they gave him the address of the local INS, and told us to bring it there. So, that's what we did. We went to the INS (luckily it's only 5 minutes away), and asked them what to do with the envelope. They didn't know, and gave us a number, with an estimated wait time of 6 1/2 hours. I called the INS help line, and they said that we needed to keep the envelope until the AOS interview. So, we left.
We decided to take the envelope with us on our trip, just in case. We went through customs, and the very nice lady chatted with us about the visa for a while, and the brown envelope came up. She opened it (which about gave us a heartattack, in case
she wasn't supposed to), and sent us to the immigration office. A man picked up our file, and shouted "what the heck is this?!" He sat at his computer for a while, yelling some choice words, and kept walking in and out of the office, looking for someone who knew what to do with it. (we were sweating bullets at this point!). Finally, he called us up to the desk, and said that we were supposed to have given the envelope to the customs people the first time he came in on the visa...We said we tried, but they didn't know what to do with it. The guy started laughing, and said that none of them know what to do with these things!
So, it all turned out ok, but just for future reference, be prepared!!!
Megan
My husband is here on a K-3. We recently took a trip to Israel to visit. This was our experience:
When my husband first entered on his K-3 (in October), in Atlanta, he had his brown envelope ready to go. He tried to hand it to the customs officer, but she didn't have a clue what to do with it. She asked several people, and eventually they gave him the address of the local INS, and told us to bring it there. So, that's what we did. We went to the INS (luckily it's only 5 minutes away), and asked them what to do with the envelope. They didn't know, and gave us a number, with an estimated wait time of 6 1/2 hours. I called the INS help line, and they said that we needed to keep the envelope until the AOS interview. So, we left.
We decided to take the envelope with us on our trip, just in case. We went through customs, and the very nice lady chatted with us about the visa for a while, and the brown envelope came up. She opened it (which about gave us a heartattack, in case
she wasn't supposed to), and sent us to the immigration office. A man picked up our file, and shouted "what the heck is this?!" He sat at his computer for a while, yelling some choice words, and kept walking in and out of the office, looking for someone who knew what to do with it. (we were sweating bullets at this point!). Finally, he called us up to the desk, and said that we were supposed to have given the envelope to the customs people the first time he came in on the visa...We said we tried, but they didn't know what to do with it. The guy started laughing, and said that none of them know what to do with these things!
So, it all turned out ok, but just for future reference, be prepared!!!
Megan
It's always interesting how somehow "new" procedures info doesn't trickle down to the people that need to know. Course the K3 is coming up on it's second year so hopefully it will improve.
