Could bad Global Entry interview affect I-130?

[impecunious 0]

So a little background first... I married my wife, a Mexican citizen, here in the US back in March of this year. We immediately turned in our I-130 paperwork after that, and about two weeks ago we (finally) received our I-797 approval. My hopeful guess is that we only have another couple of months before my wife gets her interview scheduled with the US embassy in Mexico City and she can finally move up here as a fully-fledged resident.

My wife and I have flown back and forth to see each other countless times over the past 3 years. Not once has she had a serious problem with the CBP officers when she lands in the US (usually at Chicago's O'Hare), and she's been traveling to the US anyway for some time on a B1/B2 visa. Since March, she's acknowledged on at least a few occasions when asked directly that yes, she's visiting her husband and that she has an I-130 pending. In one case, when we both flew together through Washington Dulles for our honeymoon in September, the CBP officer that handled us actually thanked us for doing things "the right way" and being patient while we live in two separate countries as husband & wife while her I-130 got slowly but surely processed.

So because of all this travel, I had the bright idea recently that my wife should apply for Global Entry (the program where certain people can skip the immigration lines when they fly into the US). I submitted my wife's application for her, it was approved in a matter of days, and this past Wednesday we had her Global Entry interview at O'Hare just a few hours after she had landed to see me for the Thanksgiving holiday.

This turned out to be an absolute disaster.

As the interview started, my wife handed over her various documents and mentioned that we were married and that we had a visa petition pending that was recently approved (we provided a copy of the I-797 approval itself). The CBP officer immediately became suspicious & confrontational, like nothing I ever would have expected, and said that he was "absolutely not going to approve" her Global Entry application and now simply needed to decide if he was going to "walk her back across" the immigration line and send her back to Mexico right then and there. This happened within all of about 60 seconds of the interview start, and we were both absolutely floored. What in the world did we do wrong?, we thought. When I asked for an explanation, he said something to the effect that my wife was somehow violating her B1/B2 visa by attempting to adjust her status with our pending permanent visa application.

The officer left us for about 10 minutes, came back and looked up stuff on his computer, quizzed my wife on various things repeatedly, left us again for another 10 minutes, and then came back a final time. He ignored any comments that I made during this time, and when I did ask a direct question about whether we had actually done something wrong, he said, "That's what I'm trying to figure out." He finally took her fingerprints & her picture, and said that he ultimately couldn't process her Global Entry application and would have a supervisor make a decision on it. And then he bid us goodbye... with no more threat of sending my wife back home that day, no explanation of what exactly she had violated, and no apology for scaring the ####### out of her. When I got the decision rejection email about an hour later, the only explanation was that my wife "appeared to have violated the terms of (her) NIV B1/B2 visa."

In a few months time when the dust around our permanent visa settles (and I won't risk jeopardizing things by complaining), I intend to write to the Global Entry ombudsman and ask them to reconsider this application given this bizarre and seemingly very unfair experience. However, my concern right now is twofold: (1) Could this Global Entry interview & the officer's decision somehow have an impact on our pending visa application with the Department of State?; and (2) Could my wife (and I, indirectly) have truly "violated" some aspect of her B1/B2 visa, or is this officer just completely out in left field? For this latter question, I assume my wife has the right to travel here on her B1/B2 while a permanent visa petition is pending, so I have zero idea what in the world this officer could be referring to.

Thanks in advance.

[Boiler 44,225]

There is no right to travel, she can certainly seek entry.

Sounds like the issue may have been the frequency of her visits.

[Ryan H 3,801]

(1) Could this Global Entry interview & the officer's decision somehow have an impact on our pending visa application with the Department of State?;

No

[impecunious 0]

Sounds like the issue may have been the frequency of her visits.

I'm not so sure. The officer definitely didn't mention the frequency of her visits at all, and he had already jumped to conclusions about my wife long before he took a look at her previous visits on the computer.

[Boiler 44,225]

It is a guessing game as to what arose his suspicions.

Does not really matter now.

[NikLR 13,226]

I've had a certain CBP officer tell me I wasn't allowed to cross the border when I had the pending I-130 and visa application (I was heading to the interview in 3 days.) I told her I'd always been upfront about our pending application and the officers had allowed me through, to which she was like, okay then, not a problem and dropped the subject.

CBP.... left hand doesn't talk to right hand and neither talks to the brain.

[TBoneTX 43,915]

CBP.... left hand doesn't talk to right hand and neither talks to the brain.

Speaking as a regular member, I think that this line merits enshrinement among the All-Time Immortal VJ Quotes.

[NikLR 13,226]

LOL thanks Tbone

[ricky and elaine 8]

My understanding of this as stated in global entry you cannot apply for it when you have a non-immigrant visa. It states B1/B2 as a exclusion for applying.