US Port of Entry: what to answer for "Are you traveling with anyone"

"Are you traveling with anyone?"

Is generally a question asked to individuals entering on a tourist visa. As a resident, the question doesn't really make sense, but sometimes these questions get asked. I used to get confused by how long are you staying when I was an expat.

As with any question by an immigration officer, answer truthfully. Something along the lines of I flew with my husband who has an H1B visa would start the conversation and allow the immigration officer to decide what to do. He might process you separately, or he might want to process you together. In the future, I would approach the desk together. If the IO wants to deal with you separately, they will tell you.

You may not have read the customs declaration form very carefully, or maybe you read it carefully but you don't live with your husband. The form's instructions specify that family members who live at the same address should submit a single form. This of course implies that you should approach the passport desk together, since otherwise one of you would be approaching without a customs form, and that isn't going to work well at all.

For this reason and for all the other reasons mentioned by other users, you should approach the passport desk together. If you do, you are unlikely to be asked whether you are traveling with anyone else.

We've always been asked by immigration officials to approach the counter together. My wife is a US citizen and I've been on visa waiver and green card, which would mean I would go to a different counter than her if we were travelling separately. It may vary by airport, but that's what's happened every time we've asked.

Usually when I traveled with my wife we approached both the immigration officer as we were traveling together and anything else would seem unusual to me.

N.B. We were both on VWP.

So, we recently traveled outside and re-entered US. And we approached the immigration officer together following the advice on this post :)

The officer asked questions pertaining to the trip and we answered them jointly. As for the documents, she checked mine and his separately since we are on different visas. And as for the, "are you traveling with anyone", needless to say, it didn't come up :)

Thanks everyone for your time :)