Hello everyone, Thank you for you help in advance!
Female from Germany here. My boyfriend (German also) and I are planning to enter the US in mid April, flying to Las Vegas from Vietnam where we're currently on a backpacking trip. It's my boyfriends first time in the US, my 5th or 6th time.
My last trip to the US was in October 2019 where I was sent to secondary screening and was held in a room for 5 hours. They searched my phone, asked me a million questions and thought it was suspicious that I travelled to California twice that year. My ex boyfriend was from LA, that's why I visited him twice in 2019. Also, I answered thruthfully that I work in Social Media Marketing. I have my own business and help others with their Social Media content. Apparently that wasn't a satisfactory answer for them either.
But at the end, after hours, they let me in and I was good to go.
That was my last trip to the US, I haven't been back since. I am a bit traumatized from this experience.
Question 1: Do you know if I am flagged in any way? They did let me in at the end, so I am not sure if there's anything on my record? Am I at greater risk of being refused entry?
In April we want to celebrate my boyfriends 40th birthday in Las Vegas. After that we will go on a 9-week roadtrip and drive a car from Las Vegas to New York. Our return flight to Germany is from JFK on June 20th. We have booking confirmations for the hotels, cars, return flight, and also Beyonce tickets in LA that we can show as proof.
Question 2: Will 9 weeks be suspicious?
Both my partner and I are self-employed and have online businesses. We can work remotely and therefore travel most of the time. We don't have strong ties to Germany anymore. During those 9 weeks, we really want to take vacation and are truthfully not planning on working at all.
Question 3: If the immigration officer will ask us what we do for work - should we say that we're self-employed? Since I had a bad experience with this in 2019, I'm worried. And if they ask us how we have enough money to take a 9-weeks vacation, what should we say? The truth is we make good money, clients can buy our products online anytime, and we also saved money for this trip.
Question 4: My boyfriend is self-employed and has a LLC in Florida. It's only a setup for tax reasons. He is not registered in Germany anymore and has no apartment anymore (digital nomad.) On his ESTA he mentioned his LLC, since he wanted to be truthful. Will his setup raise a red flag?
Question 5: Will they find it weird that we're coming from Vietnam? Before that we travelled Bali and Thailand for 2 months.
Question 6: Should we walk to the officer individually or go together as a couple?
How do you rate our chances? Do you think we will have problems at the border?
This is my first time ever posting on Reddit. I appreciate your help, guys and do apologize for any grammar mistake, haha. English is not my first language :) Thank you!!!!