Argh! - Any US Immigration Experts Here?

[Psychobilly freakout]

Vegas has gone downhill lately dropping room rates to fill expanding room capacity to try and offset a falling demand from a struggling economy and filling itself up with chavs. Do as some of the hotel owners are, go to booming Macau instead

Cracking band from Vegas called Delta Bombers

 

[Gwylan]

If you go down the full visa route, allow plenty of time to fill in your form too - took me the best part of two hours to fill in the form, pay the money and book an appointment (you have to put in addresses for all your places of education and workplaces in last five years - that took some time on its own).
I have to go to Vegas for work next month so it was a matter of urgency for me - managed to get an 8.00 slot though, hope it's not too long. Don't forget that you can't take any devices to the embassy, so no phone, laptop, tablet, etc

Personally, I think you'd be all right ringing up and checking beforehand (although the embassy helpline costs about a £1 a minute): if you can get a letter like your brother, you should be OK.

But you can never plan these things; last time I went to NY, I got held in immigration for nearly three hours as my fingerprint flagged me as a wanted drug dealer. If you want to be on the safe side, get a visa

 

[scooter1]

Ive been twice, once a few months after 9/11. There were 8 of us in the party and it was apparent that every border guard knew we were going, as when I gave the guy my papers he said "So you're one of the eight are you?". We got the full treatment, but had everything in order and went through........ slowly.
Second time was just me and the missus, again all paperwork in order and I was fine. She got the full treatment, and was made to feel totally unwelcome, and said so(which probably didn't help)

Go to the Embassy, pay the money and get the paperwork. As has been mentioned, if you leave anything to chance you'll be on the next plane home at what ever the published fare is x 2(as I don't expect your missus will want to be there on her own)

 

[Mtoto]

Definitely get a visa, or at least go as far as the Embassy to find out if you need one. The potential downside of risking it is simply too great. Would you do a parachute jump if the risk of a faulty parachute was 1 in 10?
The form is a pain but if you get one of the 8.30 appointments and make sure you arrive at about 8.00 if you can, you should be towards the front of the queue. Also, there is a chemists called Gould Pharmacy just north of the Embassy which stores phones and bags - £3 for a phone and £6 for a bag. The waiting around inside is dull - don't forget a book/mag - but there nothing else for it.
To be fair, I was there last week & got in an out in barely an hour when I'd set aside most of the day, but that was a renewal and they already had my 10-print. My number seemed to get fast-tracked by about 40 slots and the final "interview" took about two minutes. If you've answered "no" to anything on the form, they are going to want a lot more detail. On the upside, a visa lasts for five years, so think of it as £20 a year and try to get in another trip or two if you can. And it *should* save you the worry of being taken aside and grilled when you finally get to the front of the immigration queue - it's a different form to fill in (make sure you get the white one) and the border guards tend to assume that the Embassy has done the hard work for them.

 

[Mtoto]

But you can never plan these things; last time I went to NY, I got held in immigration for nearly three hours as my fingerprint flagged me as a wanted drug dealer. If you want to be on the safe side, get a visa

I go once a year in October. Four years in a row a while back, I handed over my passport at check-in and suddenly everyone seemed to be taking evasive action. The first time it happened, the woman behind the counter visibly paled when she ran it through the machine, and started reaching around for a phone with her spare hand while keeping her eyes fixed on me. But one phone call to the Embassy's Emergency Line later, I was good to go.
I've no idea who they thought this tubby, balding middle-aged man actually might be, but I guess they must have caught/terminated him, as it's not happened for a while now.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Do not give US Immigration any reason to deny you entry because they will seriously mess you around.

In my experience there is generally no problem at all but a couple of years ago I witnessed a UK family with young children getting the full treatment at US immigration at Orlando airport. Just arrived off a long flight from the UK and the passengers had already been kept waiting for over an hour within sight of the immigration desks in very humid conditions. There was some sort of discrepancy with the family's paperwork and a rather unpleasant scene then unfolded in front of hundreds of very tired passengers. The family did not kick up a fuss although they looked fed up plus were being made an example of in front of hundreds of passengers. Yet it all seemed as if there was some innocent error in their paperwork but clearly needed to be resolved. Eventually a senior official arrived and the family was led away behind closed doors but with their children now very distressed.

Most of the US Immigration staff were polite but a handful were extremely unpleasant and overbearing when many Brits in the queues starting heckling them and filming the situation on their mobiles it started to descend into a nasty incident with many punters shouting 'we don't want to holiday here now, let us go home'. In response some US Immigration staff said some very stupid things about how Brits are not welcome. When many sensible punters including some genteel Grandmotherly types asked if the air conditioning could be turned on one official said 'no chance, if you can't behave then tough sh*t, we're in charge here'. That prompted another volley of comments. It felt like we entering some sort of banana republic. fortunately there must have been a shift change because all of a sudden a new group of officials arrived and the queue was processed a heck of a lot faster.

I'm sure they have to put up with several numpty UK tourists arriving with incomplete paperwork each day but allowing things to escalate so needlessly and then aggravating the situation was incompetent. I know they have to uphold 'homeland' security and have very strict rules within the immigration halls but there was a complete lack of empathy with hundreds of punters coming as tourists to probably the biggest family holiday destination in the World. It was as if the officials had been given a gun and a badge and then had their brains removed and trained in how to cause confrontation rather than diffuse it. I know the UK Border control staff can seem humourless (not sure I'd want to do their job) but at least you never get repeatedly abused.

If ever there was a story to back up my belief that a majority of Americans are both arrogant and stupid this is it !!!!! I have ZERO desire to visit their country given the horrendous stories like this and when there's so many more friendly and welcoming countries in the world to go to.

The closest I've got was the island of St Thomas. Our flight from Antigua had to land on another island just so the Americans could search every bit of our luggage before re-boarding and going to out destination. I've never met such a bunch of unintelligent, humourless, neckless dicktwats in my whole life !!!!!

 

[sam86]

OK, so my brother sent me a picture of the letter he received back from a Custom & Border Protection office.

"In researching your request regarding your denial to the United States on July 17, 2005*, I found the following.

You were not refused admission to the United States, only allowed to withdraw using form I-160A. Therefore you should be able to enter the United States for short visits under the Visa Waiver Program. There is a process where we refuse entry to applicants of visa waiver countries that requires we use form I-877 (sworn statement) and those subjects are then required a United States via to enter in the future. This is not the case for you, as you were allowed to withdraw at your request to Canada."​

So now I have two thoughts;

1) It sounds like it's all been blown out of proportion. I was never deported, or denied entry, to the United States. When applying for a Visa, these are the two closest options to my scenario. So if I did apply for a Visa claiming one of those two, it would in theory be a lie.

2) My brother, for whatever reason, did get taken through to an interview room, and was interviewed for over an hour. He claims his passport flagged something up on the system, but perhaps he was just one of the unlucky ones, because it does seem a lot of random people get interviewed? As his first response was the Canada issue, and he had a letter from the border control, this probably flagged further suspicion.

* I got the year wrong in my original post. I would have been 19 at the time, not 14. Not that I think this matters anymore in terms of going down the minor route.

 

[Badger]

If ever there was a story to back up my belief that a majority of Americans are both arrogant and stupid this is it !!!!! I have ZERO desire to visit their country given the horrendous stories like this and when there's so many more friendly and welcoming countries in the world to go to.

In my experience it does very much depend where and how you cross the border. On my first trip to the US I flew into LA and it was a horrible experience, I had to queue for well over an hour (this was after my flight had been delayed for TEN hours in Auckland so I wasn't in the best of moods). They seemed intent on make things as awkward as possible for everyone and were experts in making you feel guilty even though you had nothing to hide.

Boston, on the other hand, had much friendlier staff who must have not yet attended the "aggression and confrontation" training course. I have also crossed the border by train from Canada a couple of times and in both cases it couldn't have been easier, I'd highly recommend doing it that way.

 

[Springal]

Don't normally have problems with the US border, and normally find them very helpful. Probably do 3 trips a year, some even in quick succession through different hubs.

I wouldn't mess around, or consider lying on an ESTA. Maybe speak to the embassy like your brother did and suss it that way.

 

[sam86]

Reading more about it now I know we weren't denied entry, and successfully withdraw our application, it sounds like I'm perfectly fine to enter the United States, I just may have problems if I'm unluckily picked out from the crowd.

http://www.borderimmigrationlawyer.com/withdrawal-of-application-for/

A grant of permission to withdraw the application for admission is not an order of removal. The individual does not face a bar to returning to the U.S. and does not require permission to reapply for admission to the U.S. ​

 

[Mtoto]

If ever there was a story to back up my belief that a majority of Americans are both arrogant and stupid this is it !!!!! I have ZERO desire to visit their country given the horrendous stories like this and when there's so many more friendly and welcoming countries in the world to go to.

The closest I've got was the island of St Thomas. Our flight from Antigua had to land on another island just so the Americans could search every bit of our luggage before re-boarding and going to out destination. I've never met such a bunch of unintelligent, humourless, neckless dicktwats in my whole life !!!!!

Once you get past the border guards, nothing could be much further from the truth, but if you are prepared to judge an entire nation at second hand and on the basis of the 0.001pc of it which sits in immigration booths at the border, it's your loss, not theirs.

 

[Mtoto]

Reading more about it now I know we weren't denied entry, and successfully withdraw our application, it sounds like I'm perfectly fine to enter the United States, I just may have problems if I'm unluckily picked out from the crowd.

http://www.borderimmigrationlawyer.com/withdrawal-of-application-for/

A grant of permission to withdraw the application for admission is not an order of removal. The individual does not face a bar to returning to the U.S. and does not require permission to reapply for admission to the U.S. ​

You may also have problems if they ask you when something happened and you are wrong by five years...

 

[sam86]

You may also have problems if they ask you when something happened and you are wrong by five years...

Haha. Yes. True. I've been to Canada twice and got the years mixed up, that's all

 

[Cullip4]

I go about three times a year on the ESTA and have never had any problems, a couple of times I have been asked random questions, last time I was asked what was nearer Brighton, Portsmouth or Southampton? But they are just doing their jobs!

If you are polite and courteous to them they are normally the same with you!

 

[Beach Hut]

Never had any problems entering the USA and recently Junior got a 5 year education visa for there and this was all done very easily.

 

[CheeseRolls]

If ever there was a story to back up my belief that a majority of Americans are both arrogant and stupid this is it !!!!! I have ZERO desire to visit their country given the horrendous stories like this and when there's so many more friendly and welcoming countries in the world to go to.

The closest I've got was the island of St Thomas. Our flight from Antigua had to land on another island just so the Americans could search every bit of our luggage before re-boarding and going to out destination. I've never met such a bunch of unintelligent, humourless, neckless dicktwats in my whole life !!!!!

I would hazard a guess, it would only take one trip to make you change your mind.

 

[Seagull58]

OK, so my brother sent me a picture of the letter he received back from a Custom & Border Protection office.

"In researching your request regarding your denial to the United States on July 17, 2005*, I found the following.

You were not refused admission to the United States, only allowed to withdraw using form I-160A. Therefore you should be able to enter the United States for short visits under the Visa Waiver Program. There is a process where we refuse entry to applicants of visa waiver countries that requires we use form I-877 (sworn statement) and those subjects are then required a United States via to enter in the future. This is not the case for you, as you were allowed to withdraw at your request to Canada."​

So now I have two thoughts;

1) It sounds like it's all been blown out of proportion. I was never deported, or denied entry, to the United States. When applying for a Visa, these are the two closest options to my scenario. So if I did apply for a Visa claiming one of those two, it would in theory be a lie.

2) My brother, for whatever reason, did get taken through to an interview room, and was interviewed for over an hour. He claims his passport flagged something up on the system, but perhaps he was just one of the unlucky ones, because it does seem a lot of random people get interviewed? As his first response was the Canada issue, and he had a letter from the border control, this probably flagged further suspicion.

* I got the year wrong in my original post. I would have been 19 at the time, not 14. Not that I think this matters anymore in terms of going down the minor route.

Sounds like you won't need a visa but you will get pulled for secondary inspection. This will involve waiting for up to 45 minutes to be seen by an official who will spend 30 seconds asking questions and granting you entry. The immigration officials on the fornt desks have no choice other than to send you to secondary inspection if anything is flagged up. It happened to me at least 20 times after 911 (every time I entered the country through several different cities), even when immigration in Boston put a note in the system saying I was OK and not to bother any more they still did it on every subsequent occasion. One of them even said he could see the note but he had no option. Fortunately, I don't have to travel there on business any more and I have no desire to go again on holiday. It's just too aggravating getting through immigration.

 

[ofco8]

It is correct about the dollar situation. Myself and wife, and brother and wife were holidaying in Canada and wanted to travel across to Vermont, USA. We went out through Canadian immigration ok, drove about 100metres to USA border control and they asked us to pay for an entry visa in US Dollars (strange thinking about it now but never paid for one before, probably because we never had ESTA clearance as we hadn't envisaged visiting US before leaving UK?).
Anyway me and my brother had to walk back to Canadian border and change some Canadian dollars into US dollars and walk back to the US border control. Whilst doing that the two wives did all the paper work with the US border guards and have to say they were most friendly, laughing and cracking jokes.
Going back from US to Canada at midnight we went through both border controls without seeing anyone or being stopped etc.. However, this meant we could not hand back our temporary visas which would have meant we couldn't visit US again as their records would have shown we had never left. We sent the visas to US embassy in London and have visited a number of times since without any problems.
Can all get very complicated at times, you wouldn't think we were USA great friend and ally.

 

[sam86]

Sounds like you won't need a visa but you will get pulled for secondary inspection. This will involve waiting for up to 45 minutes to be seen by an official who will spend 30 seconds asking questions and granting you entry. The immigration officials on the fornt desks have no choice other than to send you to secondary inspection if anything is flagged up. It happened to me at least 20 times after 911 (every time I entered the country through several different cities), even when immigration in Boston put a note in the system saying I was OK and not to bother any more they still did it on every subsequent occasion. One of them even said he could see the note but he had no option. Fortunately, I don't have to travel there on business any more and I have no desire to go again on holiday. It's just too aggravating getting through immigration.

This is what I'm thinking will happen now I know we weren't denied entry.

As I have no connecting flight and we're in Vegas for 6 nights, I won't mind too much, as long as I get in eventually!

 

[The Oldman]

It is correct about the dollar situation. Myself and wife, and brother and wife were holidaying in Canada and wanted to travel across to Vermont, USA. We went out through Canadian immigration ok, drove about 100metres to USA border control and they asked us to pay for an entry visa in US Dollars (strange thinking about it now but never paid for one before, probably because we never had ESTA clearance as we hadn't envisaged visiting US before leaving UK?).
Anyway me and my brother had to walk back to Canadian border and change some Canadian dollars into US dollars and walk back to the US border control. Whilst doing that the two wives did all the paper work with the US border guards and have to say they were most friendly, laughing and cracking jokes.
Going back from US to Canada at midnight we went through both border controls without seeing anyone or being stopped etc.. However, this meant we could not hand back our temporary visas which would have meant we couldn't visit US again as their records would have shown we had never left. We sent the visas to US embassy in London and have visited a number of times since without any problems.
Can all get very complicated at times, you wouldn't think we were USA great friend and ally.

I have entered USA from Canada on numerous occasions and have always found the smaller border controls, especially into Vermont very friendly but the big interstate highway controls are another matter. The queues can be horrendous, 3 hours one time sitting in the car and then marched off for interrogation because they claimed I had already entered USA illegally. Another 3 hours later and they said their records were for another person. No apology, no nothing. However, USA is a great country and the majority of people I have met are very friendly. Would go back anytime.