Montreal embassy EB-2 interview wait time

[Van24 13]

15 minutes ago, raisins said:

New statistics were released for visas issued in May, and the EB category was the lightest we've seen this year. Only 12 employment based visas issued in Montreal. 😟

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/MonthlyIVIssuances/MAY-2021-IV-Issuances-by-Post-and-Visa-Class.pdf

It's even less considering that 50% of those were given to families of main applicants. 

[Pasand 5]

Just wanted to give you guys a quick update on my progress: I got the notification of my rescheduled interview on Jul 6th which was a short email with no attachments. on Jul 14th I received another confirmation with more details regarding the documents needed, fees, ... but still no attachments. last week I took new photos and a new medical exam. apparently the medical exam results will be directly emailed to the office.

[VA21202 109]

2 hours ago, Pasand said:

Just wanted to give you guys a quick update on my progress: I got the notification of my rescheduled interview on Jul 6th which was a short email with no attachments. on Jul 14th I received another confirmation with more details regarding the documents needed, fees, ... but still no attachments. last week I took new photos and a new medical exam. apparently the medical exam results will be directly emailed to the office.

Awesome! Thanks Pasand, appreciate the updates!

[Pasand 5]

a quick question: do you know if the police certificate from RCMP expires in one year (or two)?

[Stephenc111 30]

1 hour ago, Pasand said:

a quick question: do you know if the police certificate from RCMP expires in one year (or two)?

One year. 
 

my son just did another ine recently, since his turn is coming soon

[viksaw 12]

1 hour ago, Stephenc111 said:

One year. 
 

my son just did another ine recently, since his turn is coming soon

 

@Pasand

 

Its 2 years now. NVC has recently updated their site with increased validity.

Civil Documents (state.gov)

 

Its worth emailing MTL and confirm though. People in IR1/CR1 threads have emailed MTL and they confirmed its 2 years.

Edited July 19, 2021 by viksaw
tagging person who asked question

[Leeching Spouse 87]

On 7/10/2021 at 8:27 PM, vancitycdn8 said:

Hi everyone, EB-1; DQ'ed March 1st, 2020. Still waiting for an interview. Hoping for Spring 2022...... who knows at this point! Just have to continue living life until the day comes I guess

Sorry I just joined this forum today. You received EB-1 approval already in 2020, and have been waiting for your Immigrant Visa Processing since March 2020???

[raisins 27]

23 hours ago, CanadianMD said:

Sorry I just joined this forum today. You received EB-1 approval already in 2020, and have been waiting for your Immigrant Visa Processing since March 2020???

Wild isn't it! Unfortunately there are people who've been waiting even longer! 

 

Please add your dates to the excel tracker, as it is the best indicator we have for tracking our interview dates: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14yZKxht6igwJPXPU0EehKmmN2hx1g3EchEuB5G0yNO4/view#gid=0

 

[Leeching Spouse 87]

6 minutes ago, raisins said:

Wild isn't it! Unfortunately there are people who've been waiting even longer! 

 

Please add your dates to the excel tracker, as it is the best indicator we have for tracking our interview dates: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14yZKxht6igwJPXPU0EehKmmN2hx1g3EchEuB5G0yNO4/view#gid=0

 

Yes what is going on?? I am submitting my I-140 next week via EB2 NIW, but am also considering submitting an application for EB1A because of the premium processing... I did not realize that the Consular Processing took so long!

[vancitycdn8 16]

On 7/21/2021 at 7:33 PM, CanadianMD said:

Sorry I just joined this forum today. You received EB-1 approval already in 2020, and have been waiting for your Immigrant Visa Processing since March 2020???

Yes that's correct! Waiting for the final interview. The Montreal Consulate is severely backlogged but even more so now due to COVID. Although they are working very hard to reduce it -- they have just rescheduled people who were DQ'ed between July - Sept 2019. So that means I have anywhere between 6-9 months to go until my interview in the best case scenario. Worst case is it could take even longer than that...

[Leeching Spouse 87]

3 hours ago, vancitycdn8 said:

Yes that's correct! Waiting for the final interview. The Montreal Consulate is severely backlogged but even more so now due to COVID. Although they are working very hard to reduce it -- they have just rescheduled people who were DQ'ed between July - Sept 2019. So that means I have anywhere between 6-9 months to go until my interview in the best case scenario. Worst case is it could take even longer than that...

This is absolutely insane. How can the process be so delayed that it puts families basically on hold for 2-3 years while awaiting their green cards.

 

I assume most of you have also received your EB2 through the NIW route? Since it is going to take so long, are any of you already in the US on a different visa? Perhaps H1B or O1 visa? I might start looking into this route if it is going to take so long.

[Stephenc111 30]

4 minutes ago, CanadianMD said:

This is absolutely insane. How can the process be so delayed that it puts families basically on hold for 2-3 years while awaiting their green cards.

 

I assume most of you have also received your EB2 through the NIW route? Since it is going to take so long, are any of you already in the US on a different visa? Perhaps H1B or O1 visa? I might start looking into this route if it is going to take so long.

[Stephenc111 30]

Just now, Stephenc111 said:

5 minutes ago, CanadianMD said:

This is absolutely insane. How can the process be so delayed that it puts families basically on hold for 2-3 years while awaiting their green cards.

 

I assume most of you have also received your EB2 through the NIW route? Since it is going to take so long, are any of you already in the US on a different visa? Perhaps H1B or O1 visa? I might start looking into this route if it is going to take so long.

I wonder about that myself. Which employer would wait 2-3 years and still keep the job offer for you?

 

in my case, I am in US and already have the GC. This is follow-to-join application for my son, which graduated from high school just now. Since I got the GC through EB, he is also in EB. Not family class. 

[topman 42]

@CanadianMD I had the same realization after joining this forum. This was before COVID when the wait was 6-8 months long for the MTL consulate but now the wait time has turned into years. It is unfortunate that we all have to pause our lives till we can get through the long tedious process.

 

I'm not sure about other folks employer situations but in my case, I'm working for a large global company with multiple subsidiaries. I'm currently working for the Canadian subsidiary while the new offer is for the US subsidiary. They are willing to wait because it's part of the same company.

[Leeching Spouse 87]

1 minute ago, topman said:

@CanadianMD I had the same realization after joining this forum. This was before COVID when the wait was 6-8 months long for the MTL consulate but now the wait time has turned into years. It is unfortunate that we all have to pause our lives till we can get through the long tedious process.

 

I'm not sure about other folks employer situations but in my case, I'm working for a large global company with multiple subsidiaries. I'm currently working for the Canadian subsidiary while the new offer is for the US subsidiary. They are willing to wait because it's part of the same company.

Yeah it is quite a revelation. My lawyers had advised me that it was taking 4-6 months pre-pandemic for the IVP, and convinced me to go through the EB2 NIW route. We had also thought that by now (1.5 years into the pandemic), the backlog would have improved.

 

However, I guess there's little incentive for these consulates to speed up their process since they are paid the same regardless of the backlog or number of applications that they process. In retrospect, I might not have gone down this path had I know it was going to take this long. I had originally intended to move over in July 2022 once my NIW is approved. However, from the looks of it I will likely have to obtain a different work visa from an employer instead...