Montreal Interview Yesterday

Keith&Helen · May 17, 2012

I had my interview yesterday and I was approved!

As all the other people have shared, the interview is probably the easiest part of the entire process as long as you are prepared. There are already a number of reviews posted here on the forum which provide very helpful and detailed information, I felt that I was way better prepared than most of the people there yesterday simply because I did a lot of search on this site and asked a whole bunch of questions. So thanks to you all!

My husband and I arrived at 6:30am, first in line. There were only a few of people that came before 7am, the group yesterday was somewhat laid back, unlike what I've read from other people's experience. We told two ladies in line that their big purses and cell phones would not be allowed, they may get turned away. There is a coffee shop down the street that charges $5 to store things, that's where they went.

The security guard opened the door at 7:30am, called people to form a line to the left of the door. After we went in, a guy checked our DHL confirmation, he mainly asked for the reference number, wrote it on a sticker and put it on the back of my passport. He had a list of the interviewees in his hand. Some people did not have that information and were turned away, they came back with the information much later.

My husband and I seemed to be the only people that knew about the elevator 'rule' and all that, there was nobody greeting us by the elevator and we just walked to the ticket window and got a ticket 'C1' based on the instructions given by the security guard. (it caused a lot of confusion later on as we observed, nobody seemed to know where to go for a ticket, my husband became the office guide since we sat pretty close to the elevator.)

About 8:15, they started calling people to 1 of the 5 windows where you submit the original documents, the lady that handled mine was very very nice, she made a new file folder with my name name (I got a new passport under my married name) and also updated my file in the system. The documents submitted are:

- passport

- two photos

- original birth certificate

- original police letter(s)

- original marriage certificate

- original I-864

I can't remember if the D-260 confirmation letter was asked for.....

About 10 minutes later, I was called to go to the interview window. I took/read an oath and the officer started to ask me some questions, she had a very causal way that I wasn't even convinced that it was the actual interview, I thought maybe she was reviewing my documents again before handing them over to an immigration officer! It's almost funny!

The first question was 'Tell me about your husband', I told her that we met on a hike, she goes 'awww....a hike....' and she asked me what type of visa I was on while living in the US, where I worked. Then she asked how my husband and I kept in touch, she was almost upset for me when I told her that it was tricky for me to enter the US while applying for an immigration visa, she said "the border officer gave you a hard time crossing the border?!"...again that's why it was hard for me to believe it was an actual interview because of the way she communicated with me. Lastly, she asked me what my husband does and checked his income before telling me I have been approved.

We waited there for a little while to support a lady we met when waiting outside, just wanted to make sure she had someone to listen to when she gets out from the interview. Unfortunately, she did not get approved due to an overstay in the past. I feel bad for her since she and her husband have not seen each other for 17 months and we really hope things will work out for her soon. We told her that this website, hopefully she'll get some good advice here.

Good luck to you all on your interview! Be prepared and do some homework especially if your case has some complexity.