Hi everyone,
Just want to share our activation experience at the LAX and our job hunting experience so far.
We got our GC approved on a glorious Sydney morning last December. Instead of doing an activation trip then go back to Australia, we dived head in and moved over in one go at the start of this month.
The activation process itself was quite simple. After 2.5 hours of queuing, we went through custom with our envelop and were told to wait for another officer to come and escort us to another area where he checked our paper work and updated our postal address. The checking process only took 15 minutes.
One thing I'd like to mention is to look out for one of those stickers that said "Expedite Connection" if you have to catch a connecting flight to your destination from LAX. There's someone from the airline handing the stickers out before you walk towards the custom area. We realised later that the people who got these stickers were in a different queue which moved slightly faster than the one we were in.
When we finally realised that there's an expedite queue, it was too late to change queues, so we queued for 2.5 hours or so and missed our connecting flight to JFK. No biggie, because Qantas put us on the next domestic flight, unfortunately we were told that the next flight was broken down and we got further delayed. As a result, we were waiting at the domestic gate for 7 hours for a flight to JFK. Other than this little mishap, everything was smooth and people were very friendly.
In terms of getting our SSN, I actually got mine within the first week we landed in NY. A lot faster than expected, probably just sheer luck!
Given our experience so far, I'd definitely recommend opening a US banking account before you arrive. We got a US bank account back in Australia through HSBC. That process took around 2 months or so given the back and forth and daily follow up phone call to their US team. Persistence is the key to get them to set up the bank account and mail out the ATM cards to us in Australia before our departure. But having a local bank account made it so much easier for us to set up everything else! Definitely worth doing!
Like all the experts on this forum mentioned, moving country is not for everyone. Leaving a familiar environment behind and waking up in a new surrounding can be very daunting. More so if you're doing this alone. Having said that, I'm extremely grateful to have moved here with my husband and gotten the GC through the DV lottery. I went to a few networking events where a lot of Aussies are on an E3 visa or ESTA looking for jobs and have encountered many difficulties. Even as green card holders and spelling this out on our resumes, we still encountered a lot of recruiters asking us questions about our GC status given that most of our professional experiences were based in Australia. We're extremely lucky to have been to a few interviews already, but the job hunting process is still a very unsettling experience where I constantly have doubts about myself and my decision to move to NY. However, we're still being optimistic about landing a job in the near future.
Thank you again for Mom, Britsimon, Susie, Emily and everyone on this forum for all your advice throughout the process! Knowing that someone out there has gone through the same experience is a comforting thought. Best of luck to all DV winners and to those who are ready to take this big step to move to an exciting chapter of your lives.
cheers,
Thea
sorry to hear about the troubles at LAX. Not fun after such a long flight! 