Email order bride - POE

[w0ndering 1]

I saw this on netflix. one thing concerned me. A man was waiting for his woman to arrive at the airport and they showed standing there, they switched a different couple, going back to showing him waiting. Finally after 3 hours she came out. they said customs was asking her questions. What can they ask for so long, and why? K-1 is not where there would be so much suspicion.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

the only people guaranteed entry are US Citizens. Valid visa holders can be denied at POE, for any number of reasons (fraud, smuggling, criminal activity).

What is striking is that you call this woman an email order bride. The law doesn't allow for this; you have to have met in person at least once. So surely this woman is not in fact an email order bride if you have met her. But you still call her that? Telling.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Customs and Immigration can take a while. Sometimes the delay is because there are many other people also being processed through immigration at the same time such as several international flights landing within a few minutes of each other. Each flight may have several hundred passengers, many of whom will not be returning US citizens or residents, so all of their paperwork will be checked, and if there are any suspicious people, immigration's resources may focus on dealing with them while others are waiting.

Sometimes there are questions about baggage and luggage that need to be sorted out, especially if someone is moving from another country and the paperwork isn't completed properly, or there are items that are not allowed to enter the US. This takes time, and people are left waiting.

Sometimes there are concerns and questions about the visa holder themselves especially if they act suspicious or overly nervous or something sends up a red flag so they get questioned and perhaps have to wait while documents are checked and such.

Even if there are no problems, processing a K-1 takes time. I crossed at a land border and had to wait while people ahead of me were processed. My visa itself took about 30 minutes to complete so it was nearly an hour after arriving at the border that I was on my way. While there will be more immigration officers to process someone through immigration at an international airport, there will also be a lot more people to be processed.

So, while 3 hours is long, it can still happen even if there are no problems at all, just because of the volume of arrivals going through immigration.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Kathryn41

[w0ndering 1]

i dont have permission to edit my post. but this was a woman from RU, not Iran, or some place where they need to be concerned about a muslim coming here and... doing whatever. Just some RU woman coming to be with a man and get married.

[JohnR! 5,495]

K-1 holders are sent to secondary inspection for further processing, therefore depending on how many other persons were in the room waiting to be interviewed, the wait could have been a good couple of hours. Consider that before this person went to secondary inspection, she may have been waiting for her turn, in line, with other non-US citiizens for quite a while already. The non-US citizens/residents is normally the line with the longer waiting time.

It is inlikely that one person was interviewed for three hours, so my guess is that Nextlix didn't quite tell the entire story. Under normal circumstances, on a busy day, it would not be completely unfathomable that someone shouldl take three hours to go through immigration, secondary and customs.

Waiting time will vary according to airport, day of the week and time of the day. The more international flights you have arriving at one airport concurrently, the longer the wait at immigration.

[w0ndering 1]

the only people guaranteed entry are US Citizens. Valid visa holders can be denied at POE, for any number of reasons (fraud, smuggling, criminal activity).

What is striking is that you call this woman an email order bride. The law doesn't allow for this; you have to have met in person at least once. So surely this woman is not in fact an email order bride if you have met her. But you still call her that? Telling.

no... I did not call her anything. I said, wrote that I SAW THIS ON NETFLIX.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/galleries/episode-e-mail-order-bride/at/3979_inside_email_order_bride-05_04700300-7861/

wow...

[Abby & Andre 27]

I watched this the other day! It is a documentary called Email Order Bride and basically men pick a woman they're interested in from profiles on a website, then they travel there to meet staying several weeks or months deciding if they want to marry or plan another visit to come back. The guy that was left waiting for hours was worried she had kept his thousands of dollars and wasn't going to show, but she ended up coming through the gate. They got married almost near the end of the 90 days. The other guy stayed in Russia for several weeks but decided not to marry the woman from the profile he picked. It was an interesting look into the International Marriage Broker process.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

What is striking is that you call this woman an email order bride. The law doesn't allow for this; you have to have met in person at least once. So surely this woman is not in fact an email order bride if you have met her. But you still call her that? Telling.

I was assuming 'email order bride' referred to the title of the show he saw listed on netflix. While an inappropriate term, it is unfortunately, becoming more common to refer to internet initiated relationships as 'email order brides' in contrast to the more familiar 'mail order bride' designation referring to women met through international dating sites The entertainment media these days doesn't seem overly concerned with social propriety but just with gaining financial and viewer support and the use of emotionally coloured descriptions like this helps fill those coffers.

[Girl from Celebes 588]

I saw this on netflix. one thing concerned me. A man was waiting for his woman to arrive at the airport and they showed standing there, they switched a different couple, going back to showing him waiting. Finally after 3 hours she came out. they said customs was asking her questions. What can they ask for so long, and why? K-1 is not where there would be so much suspicion.

They would ask any kind of visas holders when they suspect something. There are a lot people had been through the situation before. Most of times they would give hard time but eventually they will let the visa holders in.

[Neonred 3,461]

I entered the US with my K-1 fiancee at Atlanta. Stayed with her the whole time and it took over 3 hours. When they finally got to her they only asked one or two questions. My observation was they were slow and very inefficient as well as under staffed. Just the way it is in some POEs some of the time.

A lot of people complained, but they said 3 to 4 hours were a normal processing time for ATL.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Neonred

[MacUK 983]

i dont have permission to edit my post. but this was a woman from RU, not Iran, or some place where they need to be concerned about a muslim coming here and... doing whatever. Just some RU woman coming to be with a man and get married.

There's plenty of people in the world who aren't Iranian or muslim who go places to do 'whatever'

I'm pretty sure the border check everyone entering the country, not just those demographics the public think of as terrorists or criminals.

[*Snowdrop* 603]

i dont have permission to edit my post. but this was a woman from RU, not Iran, or some place where they need to be concerned about a muslim coming here and... doing whatever. Just some RU woman coming to be with a man and get married.

Most of the time the wait has nothing to do which which country you are from. I am from the UK and came through on a CR1 visa. I had to wait in secondary for nearly two hours simply because there were so many people in the queue before me. And that was after an hour waiting to get to the first desk in the POE.

So my husband was waiting for at least three hours for me to come through. The actual questioning took 5 mins at the first desk, and about ten minutes at the second desk and about 2 mins for customs.

The rest of the time was just waiting in a queue.

[Boiler 43,749]

First time I have come across Email as opposed to Mail Order.

Does not seem unreasonable description. Google translate would be very useful.

I remember talking to someone whose Grandmother was a Mail Order Bride, came over in 1917, she died in the Flu Pandemic a few years later. That must have been much more scary.

I have not been stuck in Secondary for 3 hours, but it is quite interesting where you are close enough to see/hear some of the issues they have to deal with.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

no... I did not call her anything. I said, wrote that I SAW THIS ON NETFLIX.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/galleries/episode-e-mail-order-bride/at/3979_inside_email_order_bride-05_04700300-7861/

wow...

It wasn't clear from your post that this was the name of a show. I thought you just saw an immigration scene on it. My apologies.

[cdneh 3,112]

I came on a K1, and was not sent to secondary. I know 3 other people from NZ who didn't either. So not all K1's are subject to it.