Successful Stamping in Tijuana-Aug 4

[ambatiuday]

Thanks for all the help and information in this Forum. I want to update few points to the information of what we already have in this forum.

 

·         I am a Full-time employee and this is my 7 year extension. I have done my first stamping in Canada. (This will answer the question for the people who has doubt in selecting the location).

 

·         I and my colleague drove from LA to the border on Sunday and parked my car in the Border parking station. My ASC appointment was on Monday and Interview is on Tuesday.

 

·         We have checked in hotel Real Del as most of them mentioned in this forum. However this hotel sucks. They made us to change 3 rooms as we had trouble with AC, water and internet. The internet is super slow and gets disconnected every 10 min. This happened all the four days of our stay.

 

·         I met three other people who came for stamping and all of them got their Visa. They all are Fulltime employees. Their experience with the hotel is same as mine when compared to what they had earlier. I think management has changed.

 

·         There are few more hotels,(Marriot ,Hyatt,Luceria ). I think Lucerina would be best if you spend few more dollars. Hyatt is new and three months old. They all are close to ASC.

 

·         Do we need a Mexican Visa? ( Yes we need it if your H1b stamping is expired) While I was crossing the border. The Mex police checked the Visa and gave me an I-94 type document. What I found is that if you don’t have Visa, they are informing us to get the Visa on your next travel.

 

·         The ASC appointment was at 1.00 PM but we went there at 12.00PM and they let us in .We came out in 10 minutes. Please don’t carry any electronics as most of them suggested earlier.

 

·         Next day Visa Interview.  The VO asked me basic questions. Is this the same company as your first Visa? What is your role? What does your company do? Where did u study? He asked my employment verification letter and he kept it. That’s it and he told me Visa approved.

 

·         Please don’t carry any electronics .I had a trouble with my company batch clip. The security told me to go out. I have discarded the clip and again I went through security check process. One of our forum friend mentioned the same but somehow I forgot..

 

·         After our interview we came back to our hotel and in the evening I was checking DS-160 status. It was showing issued and for my friend it was showing as Administrative Processing.

 

·         He was scared as it was showing issued for everyone except hm. His status was updated next morning at 11.00. So please don’t worry if its showing admin processing after your Visa is approved. I think the system takes time to get updated. This admin processing is different from the other admin processing.

 

·         Coming to the border crossing, this is a pain full process. I have read all the suggestions’ in the forum regarding the sentry line and I-94 but still got confused.

 

·         So here is the tip. Please don’t stand in the line. Please walk all the way to the Main gate where you will be seeing two US security officers. Show them you’re Visa and ask them where you need to stand. That’s it. He will show you I-94 line. Please don’t waste time. Also carry an umbrella or at least a Cap. Yesterday it was too hot. 

 

·         The whole I-94 process took about 3-3.5 hours. The immigration officer’s asked me where do you work and the address .Those guys are pain in ***. He took my I-797 and was reading the whole document. He took around 25 minutes for each of us.