I wanted to share my passport stamping experience at Newark INS. My appointment was for Wednesday but I decided to go on monday because I had an important meeting scheduled for wednesday. I read on the board somewhere that you could get it stamped on any day.
I started from South jersey around 6:00 am and reached Newark 7:45. Took exit 13 A - 1& 9 North - McCarthur Hwy - left of E.kinney street and parked in the paking lot next to the INS buliding. If you go any other day other than your appointment day you need to stand in the non-appointment line which starts at the right of the small park opposite the building. It was a long line with about 150 people in it ( Around 8:00 AM). DONOT go and stand in any other line. You will only be wasting time. It took us about 2 hours to get into the building. We were given a blue slip and asked to go to room 200. When we went to the room there , we saw a huge line. Fortunatly a women announced that any one with approval letters can form a seperate line. We did and when we went upto the counter , The women grumbled that the appointment was for Wed. but did not say anything after I gave my explaination. She however said that there was a huge line infront of us and would take 4 hours and wanted to know if we still wanted to go ahead. We said yes and she gave us the tokens and asked us to go to room 1022. It said on the token to watch diplay C but there is no display C. Our number was 312 and the number on the display was 347. It goes to 399 and then starts from 301. We knew we were in for a long wait. We went down to cafeteria and had lunch and came back up and finally around 3:00 PM our number came up. She asked why we showed up today but did not say much. Took our signatues and finger prints and also the EAD , I-94 and advance parole documents and stamped our passports.
BOTTOM LINE : Unless you have a compelling reason , Go on your appointment day. You will get the stamping done but will take you a good 8 hours.
Hope this helps. The forums here have been very useful and I thank you all.
God bless!!
I started from South jersey around 6:00 am and reached Newark 7:45. Took exit 13 A - 1& 9 North - McCarthur Hwy - left of E.kinney street and parked in the paking lot next to the INS buliding. If you go any other day other than your appointment day you need to stand in the non-appointment line which starts at the right of the small park opposite the building. It was a long line with about 150 people in it ( Around 8:00 AM). DONOT go and stand in any other line. You will only be wasting time. It took us about 2 hours to get into the building. We were given a blue slip and asked to go to room 200. When we went to the room there , we saw a huge line. Fortunatly a women announced that any one with approval letters can form a seperate line. We did and when we went upto the counter , The women grumbled that the appointment was for Wed. but did not say anything after I gave my explaination. She however said that there was a huge line infront of us and would take 4 hours and wanted to know if we still wanted to go ahead. We said yes and she gave us the tokens and asked us to go to room 1022. It said on the token to watch diplay C but there is no display C. Our number was 312 and the number on the display was 347. It goes to 399 and then starts from 301. We knew we were in for a long wait. We went down to cafeteria and had lunch and came back up and finally around 3:00 PM our number came up. She asked why we showed up today but did not say much. Took our signatues and finger prints and also the EAD , I-94 and advance parole documents and stamped our passports.
BOTTOM LINE : Unless you have a compelling reason , Go on your appointment day. You will get the stamping done but will take you a good 8 hours.
Hope this helps. The forums here have been very useful and I thank you all.
God bless!!