Any experience on 1st time using US passport?

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Polar Bear

Registered Users (C)
Colleague of mine told me this story: After he got his US Citizenship and passport, the 1st time he re-entered the States from overseas, the immigration officer at the airport told him that he was still showing as a GC holder on their computer. It seems like the system didn't update automatically. My colleague ended up spending 10-15 minutes at the immigration counter waiting for the officer to keyed in the information. Fortunatley, he still had enough time to catch the connecting flight afterwards.

Anyone had similar experience?
 
Polar Bear said:
Colleague of mine told me this story: After he got his US Citizenship and passport, the 1st time he re-entered the States from overseas, the immigration officer at the airport told him that he was still showing as a GC holder on their computer. It seems like the system didn't update automatically. My colleague ended up spending 10-15 minutes at the immigration counter waiting for the officer to keyed in the information. Fortunatley, he still had enough time to catch the connecting flight afterwards.

Anyone had similar experience?
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Nope...when I used my passport for the first time...did not have any issues. It is however nice to clear immigration and customs in under 2 minutes at the DFW airport...and the officer said welcome home! :D
 
fitness99 said:
Nope...when I used my passport for the first time...did not have any issues. It is however nice to clear immigration and customs in under 2 minutes at the DFW airport...and the officer said welcome home! :D
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yep.. the long is just way too long for the visa holders (unless they took the first / business class and they would get out the plane sooner).
 
First time I used my passport was a month after it was issued. I entered at JFJ and evrything was fine.
 
Thank you guys. I guess my colleague's situation was unique or maybe that's some kind of adnormal pehnomena at IAH (Houston airport).
 
Polar Bear said:
Thank you guys. I guess my colleague's situation was unique or maybe that's some kind of adnormal pehnomena at IAH (Houston airport).
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Actually, my daughter had a similar experience.
She took an oath on April 29, 2005. When we got back from overseas on June 24, 2005, the officer at LAX told her that she had to wait until they checked something out. They took her passport. There were a lot of people waiting, but I don't think any of them was a US citizen, since I did not see any other US passports on the shelf where they put the documents. We waited about half an hour before they called my daughter's name. The first thing she was asked was "where is your green card?". She said that she returned it at the oath ceremony. The officer then started asking her questions about the date and place of her oath ceremony. Getting all the data she needed, she still looked confused. So, I asked her what was the problem. She said that the system did not show that my daughter returned her green card. It had been 2 months since the oath. I have no idea how long it takes for them to update their system. The officer ended up entering something in the system (I guess that she did return her green card, although we had no proof), and gave my daughter's passport back to her.
 
Polar Bear said:
Thank you guys. I guess my colleague's situation was unique or maybe that's some kind of adnormal pehnomena at IAH (Houston airport).
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It happend to one of my friend I know while returing from Canada. The officer asked few questions like, When was your Oath? Did you return the GC? etc.
Upon verification, the officer updated the record in the system.
I think its a normal situation because sometime due to heavy workload USCIS can not update the record swiftly.
 
hm11 said:
It happend to one of my friend I know while returing from Canada. The officer asked few questions like, When was your Oath? Did you return the GC? etc.
Upon verification, the officer updated the record in the system.
I think its a normal situation because sometime due to heavy workload USCIS can not update the record swiftly.
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I have had my Passport 6 months now and last week I still had this problem. Granted, I came back to US from different airport each time (Newark, Detroit, Houston) Does it mean that their computers don't talk to each other? Well, if that's the case, that's great. :eek:
 
My wife and I had the same experience when we returned from abroad recently. My wife had her citizenship almost a year ago. She had no problem last november though.

I asked immigration inspector about this and was told it all depends on the agent. Some may just choose to ignore this and some like to make an issue out of it. I expressed my unhappiness about this extra check and delay, but received no guarantee that this won't happen again in the future.
 
similar experience

i experienced the same situation last week. Just got back from vacation abroad using my US passport for the first time.
I was asked to go to the custom/immigration office. The officer asked me immediately if I have returned my green card, when did you took the oath, how long you've been gone overseas. I can see that she is putting down information in her computer, and after few minutes later she returned my passport.
 
I got some answers when I called the local CBP office. A person who claimed to be a supervisor told me that UIC is in the process of uploading their data to CBP, which would take until March. After that, he doesn't expect the same problem occur again. Let's hope that's true.
 
I had no problems at LA about 3 weeks ago. Not even "how long you have been out of the country", just plain, "welcome home" and that's it.
 
Polar Bear said:
I got some answers when I called the local CBP office. A person who claimed to be a supervisor told me that UIC is in the process of uploading their data to CBP, which would take until March. After that, he doesn't expect the same problem occur again. Let's hope that's true.
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I am going to a trip tomorrow and return in the middle of march (more like the 3rd week of march)... i will see what kind of "treatment" I would get.
 
I started a thread on this a few weeks ago. The problem occurred to me again and this time I chewed off the ear of the supervisor in charge of the terminal in LAX. He was nice enough (himself a naturalized citizen). The reality is that if you've been naturalized between 2000-2005 the potential exists that this will happen to you. He has been promised that USCIS will fix the issue by March.

Frankly, what you need to do regardless of what USCIS does is request your TECS system file under FOIA.
 
I just returned from an oversea trip today. The LAX computer system seemed not working for 15 minutes or so. Everyone was waiting. When it came to my turn, I was asked if I did return the green card or not. I just said "I did". The officer then asked me "when did I start becoming a naturalized citizen?". I said "xx/xx" (i did not bother to say any more stuff). The officer then asked me to go to "queue 16" for verifying my immigration status (blah).

the other officer just asked me when I became a citizen, then she kept typing stuff. she did not ask me any more questions at all. She told me it was the system issue. I asked her when it would be fixed or would I get the similar issue again, she said they [i guess USCIS] should fix it soon but no promise if I would get the same issue again.

If I face the similar situation next time, I will talk to a supervisor (too bad, i was tired after 12 hrs flight and I just wanted to go home).

Anyhow, can someone point me the direction about where I could file a complain (or it is too late?)?
 
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