engineroom

curious about something, since my wife and I are traveling together to the US for the first time since we got married.

me - US citizen (born)
her- Jamaican citizen, travels on B1/B2 for visiting and business

both of us reside in Jamaica full time

can we use the US Citizen line together at MIA immigration?

I am already planning to bring a certified copy of our marriage certificate.

Any thoughts- thanx, searches didn't turn up this exact scenario.

j-weezy

Yes I think you can if you're married and traveling together. Ever since I passed the age of dependency, I still went with my mother in the Australian citizen line when going to Australia and she'd go with me in the US line when we re-entered the states...

huts

My wife is a US citizen and I have an L1 visa, so we have a similar situation. We've asked at a couple of entry points and the story seems to be that if you are married to a US citizen you are entitled to go through the US citizen line together. However, at some entry points not all of the entry stations in the US citizen sections have the cameras and fingerprint machines for people entering on a visa, so at those places you have to go through the non-citizen line.

I've never entered the US at MIA, so I don't know how it works there, but at most entry points they have an immigration officer directing traffic before you enter the queue, it might be worth asking them if you can go through the citizen line.

My native land of Australia is much more friendly and welcoming, they clearly spell out on the signs that the citizen lines are for Australian citizens and their families.

KosraeTV

We use US Citizens Line. Live overseas.

ME: US Citizen
Wife: Non US Citizen
Children: Dual Citizen
Nanny: Non US Citizen

Entry... Guam, Honolulu, Houston, Newark

Generally... the agent up front direcing folks will tell you to go ahead and use the US citizen line and after a while we stopped asking and just go to the US lines and never have we had a question or comment about the wife or nanny enter with me. Hope this helps.

BTW... I carry copies of everything, marriage, live birth abroad etc... and never have had to use them.

21H21J

My wife has a US passport and I a UK passport and we live in the UK. We use the US citizen line and have had no problems at BOS, ORD, DEN, SFO and LAX. My wife gets a "Welcome home" comment quite often from the immigration officers.

Coming back to the UK we use the non UK/EEC line, although we've been told we can use the UK/EEC line. The one time we did use UK/EEC line the officer didn't have the rubber stamp at their station and made us wait until the other 100+ passengers behind us had gone through before asking to borrow rubber stamp from her colleague. A typical welcome home from LHR

Redhead

Get IRIS. It will make entering the UK take about 3 seconds. Both EU and Non EU citizens can use it if you take at least 4 trips a year

notam2

A spouse of a US citizen may have difficulty using a B1/B2 visa because of the presumption that he/she is moving to the US as opposed to 'just visiting'. You might want to look into getting her a K visa....

engineroom

my understanding of a K visa is that it is if you are planning to migrate to the US- we are not planning to do so

GUWonder

Generally at US airport passport control checkpoints, the DHS-CBP employees will allow you to use the same line or even recommend that you use the same US citizen line. MIA may be a different animal -- it often is -- but for the other dozen or so US airports where I have US associates with foreign spouses who are not in the US to reside, they process on the same customs form and together at the pasport control desk ... although the foreign spouse is subjected to the finger print and camera nonsense.

GUWonder

Generally that has not been a problem for my US associates with foreign spouses where the couple or at least the foreign citizen spouse do not reside in the US and the foreign spouse is employed abroad.

21H21J

Thanks, unfortunately the LHR T3 enrollment room will be closed when we are next in LHR. I have to remember for our next flight.