Simply as a bystander, I want to say thank you to B747-437B for providing good, clear information on this thread.

It always pains me when I see questions about immigration - very serious stuff indeed - answered by people of the clueless "don't worry - it'll be alright" persuasion, potentially leading the OP down a very dangerous path.

It's ok to have an opinion, and it's ok to guess things, but in issues such as immigration I think its only right that responders overtly state that they are guessing or that their response is based on nothing more than their own brand of "common sense" rather than leaving this as implied. Peoples lives can be impacted irreversibly by this stuff, so it's just too important to mess around with.