The dreaded DS-5535 thread for Montreal. Post here and support each other (split)

[hkn1 32]

13 hours ago, Danii said:

Hey, sorry that you have to join this group too why are there so many of us, I wonder what changed at Montreal besides the fact that they've hired more staff. I received the next day but only after I sent two semi angry emails about how I haven't received the questionnaire yet. It may have made a difference, maybe not, but doesn't hurt to try. While you're waiting, find the form online and type out all the answers in a word doc. They're going to send you the form as text in the email body, so you can just copy paste your answers in once they send it so you can send it back ASAP. They may have some additional questions for you too.

 

All of us here had all our documents in order and had no problems during the interview, so it's really hard to know what triggered the refusal. It could be your background, your educational/work experience, or something else we haven't picked up on yet. 

Yep. I went multiple times and my husband stayed in Canada with me for 7 months. 

Thank you for your recommendation! I will start on my filling travel history in a word doc despite not having received the questionnaire email yet. Did you inquire about not receiving the email at montreal-IV-DV@state.gov address, or is there a different email address you correspond with, regarding your case activity? 

[Danii 312]

1 minute ago, hkn1 said:

Thank you for your recommendation! I will start on my filling travel history in a word doc despite not having received the questionnaire email yet. Did you inquire about not receiving the email at montreal-IV-DV@state.gov address, or is there a different email address you correspond with, regarding your case activity? 

No problem! Yes, that is the correct email. 

 

Edit; make sure to add your name/case number in the title of the email. Add "URGENT questionnaire not received" or something like that as well. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Danii

[Frankphoto 51]

1 hour ago, Frankphoto said:

Hi everyone,

 

My spouse had her interview on 11/8 and despite it going well, they asked "hey want your passport back?" oddly and then notified her that she would be emailed. We received the DS-5535 via email the next day

Does anyone know what information we should provide in terms of the travel details and source of funds? For ex. is it just a little paragraph "We went here for vacation, see the beach, and relax" or do they just want "business or pleasure"? 

Also for source of funds, do you think that saying "personal finances + spouse's finances" is sufficient, or have you all been supplying a lot more info, like CC numbers, bank accounts, etc.??? Its 15yrs of travel so honestly there are some trips where we can't remember, and many of these trips were financed via multiple sources (credit cards, family contributions, etc), I just want to make sure we submit the info correctly and in away that doesn't complicate things further

 

Thanks!

Additionally to these questions I am really wondering how all of you formatted your travel information? 

It is especially complicated for my wife, as she is a French citizen, who also lived in the Turks and Caicos (where we met), before moving to Montreal - so she has several 'countries of residence' and with all the travel it is dizzying to see what format makes sense- especially with mutli-destination trips. I am really just doing my best to ensure our form is easy to understand and as streamlined as possible 

[Danii 312]

36 minutes ago, Frankphoto said:

Additionally to these questions I am really wondering how all of you formatted your travel information? 

It is especially complicated for my wife, as she is a French citizen, who also lived in the Turks and Caicos (where we met), before moving to Montreal - so she has several 'countries of residence' and with all the travel it is dizzying to see what format makes sense- especially with mutli-destination trips. I am really just doing my best to ensure our form is easy to understand and as streamlined as possible 

I included country, all cities visited, day in/out, total number of days, place I stayed (hotel/someone's house etc) and tried to find the address. If I couldn't find the exact address, I would just note that there are no records. For funds I just put self/parents/petitioner. I think for funds they just wanna know if you paid yourself or if some organization/company did, so that should be enough info. It's hard to know exactly what to put cause there's no template on line. I think this should be okay. 

[From_CAN_2_US 1,100]

43 minutes ago, Frankphoto said:

Additionally to these questions I am really wondering how all of you formatted your travel information? 

It is especially complicated for my wife, as she is a French citizen, who also lived in the Turks and Caicos (where we met), before moving to Montreal - so she has several 'countries of residence' and with all the travel it is dizzying to see what format makes sense- especially with mutli-destination trips. I am really just doing my best to ensure our form is easy to understand and as streamlined as possible 

I understand your issue, as I am someone similar to your wife (lived in many countries in the past and travelled a lot). 
 

I have also had to detail out travels to excruciating detail in previous immigration applications such as my PR application for Canada.

 

I would put every time you crossed a country’s border as a trip. So while your wife was living in France, say she crossed the border to visit Germany and Switzerland. I would list that as two trips. The time she moved from France to Canada is one trip, and so on… I know it is very difficult. Figure out a logic on how to present it and be consistent with it. You will be ok. Make sure every country is mentioned though and the dates are as accurate as possible. You may need to dig through a lot of old emails/ passport stamps etc. 

If your wife moved to Canada as a PR, and has a a copy of her PR application, the info of all her trips for the 10 years prior would be documented there as well, and that would help.

 

Good luck!

[Danii 312]

3 hours ago, DrJanko10 said:

The sudden increase in DS-5535s could correlate with the amount of cases they are now processing each month. Before October, they were only taking 2 weeks worth of people from the spreadsheet, with a rare person being placed in AP and never a mention of a DS-5535 (or maybe there was, I just don't remember). As of October, they are taking 2-3 months worth of people from the spreadsheet, and we're just a fraction of the cases that they process. Statistically it makes sense, but just a theory.

 

Everything I have found online states that they "should" process this within 60 days, so it is a little reassuring that the CO told @DS5535 that it will take "1-2 months". Now we just have to wait and see whether it does or not. 

That makes sense, but I find it weird that I know of 4 people now who all got hit with DS5535 on the same day 🤔. I've only seen maybe 2-3 previous cases on Visajourney but their application ranges from 2017-2020. I know this is a small sample size, but still doesn't seem proportional...

 

I did join a FB group and the processing time varies so much. Saw a few people get it within 1-2 months, others at 4-6, and some at 1-3 years, all with very different cases/visa types. I hope you and @OG Fan get good news very soon.

[Frankphoto 51]

3 hours ago, From_CAN_2_US said:

I understand your issue, as I am someone similar to your wife (lived in many countries in the past and travelled a lot). 
 

I have also had to detail out travels to excruciating detail in previous immigration applications such as my PR application for Canada.

 

I would put every time you crossed a country’s border as a trip. So while your wife was living in France, say she crossed the border to visit Germany and Switzerland. I would list that as two trips. The time she moved from France to Canada is one trip, and so on… I know it is very difficult. Figure out a logic on how to present it and be consistent with it. You will be ok. Make sure every country is mentioned though and the dates are as accurate as possible. You may need to dig through a lot of old emails/ passport stamps etc. 

If your wife moved to Canada as a PR, and has a a copy of her PR application, the info of all her trips for the 10 years prior would be documented there as well, and that would help.

 

Good luck!

Thank you for that - yes it is very difficult, and quite a trial. I love how their estimate of how long this will take is 60 minutes... a cruel joke. 

At any rate, for those of you who received the questionnaire via email, are we to just send this back in the body of the email? It seems so informal after having to submit so many documents via portals and passwords and couriers, etc. . . 

 

[Danii 312]

7 minutes ago, Frankphoto said:

Thank you for that - yes it is very difficult, and quite a trial. I love how their estimate of how long this will take is 60 minutes... a cruel joke. 

At any rate, for those of you who received the questionnaire via email, are we to just send this back in the body of the email? It seems so informal after having to submit so many documents via portals and passwords and couriers, etc. . . 

 

It really is a cruel joke. I read their statement defending the 60 min, they said that most people will need even less time than that. Truly shows that they pulled this number out of their ... 

 

It is really informal/unprofessional of them to send it like that. I had to answer more questions, and they couldn't even word those sentences properly 😂 I just copy pasted the form in a word doc and then sent it to them as a word doc/PDF. 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Danii

[Frankphoto 51]

My wife, who works in the beauty & skincare industry (etiket spa & boutique in Montreal if you may know it), has taken several trips to the USA to attend events. Some of these events she was invited as a guest to the company and they provided her with lodging or helped pay for travel. In these cases do we need to specify what portions of the trip were covered by her vs. the company, and does it look unfavorable if she was able to stay at a place for free? she was never paid or compensated for her time there, these were essentially seminars. 

[From_CAN_2_US 1,100]

1 hour ago, Frankphoto said:

My wife, who works in the beauty & skincare industry (etiket spa & boutique in Montreal if you may know it), has taken several trips to the USA to attend events. Some of these events she was invited as a guest to the company and they provided her with lodging or helped pay for travel. In these cases do we need to specify what portions of the trip were covered by her vs. the company, and does it look unfavorable if she was able to stay at a place for free? she was never paid or compensated for her time there, these were essentially seminars. 

Oh gosh, that’s so complicated.

 

Personally I would break it down best I can, but succinctly. I wouldn’t hide anything just because it “looks bad.” Be honest with all the information. That said, I don’t think it looks bad at all that her lodging was paid for by some other company. I think (speculating) what they are looking for is ties for anything that could possibly link to terrorism. Such as funding by a Govt body or some company that produces weapons etc…

 

Btw, we have been seeing a lot of the people being slammed with the DS-5535 are from STEM sciences

. What is your wive’s educational background? Is it in STEM? 

Edited November 11, 2021 by From_CAN_2_US

[Frankphoto 51]

My wife just emailed her responses today (interview was on 11/8/21) so I hope that we will receive some sort of confirmation soon and can start checking the updated status. 

 

 

[deep2ca 77]

1 hour ago, Frankphoto said:

My wife just emailed her responses today (interview was on 11/8/21) so I hope that we will receive some sort of confirmation soon and can start checking the updated status. 

 

 

Keep us updated, my interview was on Oct 25th, I received the DS-5535 on Oct 26th, Nov 2nd I sent it back to them, Nov 11th I sent a follow up email because I had not received any confirmation. Still no response.  

[ice-qube 648]

6 minutes ago, deep2ca said:

Keep us updated, my interview was on Oct 25th, I received the DS-5535 on Oct 26th, Nov 2nd I sent it back to them, Nov 11th I sent a follow up email because I had not received any confirmation. Still no response.  

I too had the interview on Oct 25, and responded to DS-5535 on Oct 28. I don’t really think they will respond with a confirmation. I am guessing they just log that it has a reply in the system and then eventually someone goes and looks into the file.

[OG Fan 21]

Good news everyone! I just got an email saying they released my passport and it's being shipped over. That email didn't say anything about being approved/denied, it just simply said they released my passport and gave a tracking number so I was still a little worried.

I also got another 'appointment confirmation' email but with my same Sept 27th date, so I was confused but I noticed they changed my passport pickup location to downtown Toronto so I'm guessing that was an automated email that failed to highlight what exactly was updated.

 

We checked the CEAC status checker (https://ceac.state.gov/ceacstattracker/status.aspx) and it said it was issued Nov 10th!

 

Hopefully I'll be picking up my passport next week sometime

 

So to summarize: Visa interview Sept 27th > Sent DS-5535 Sept 28th > Nov 10-12th (~45 days) visa issued and notified about shipping.

 

Good luck to everyone waiting, hopefully you'll get yours soon too. I'll keep updating if anything changes

 

 

[ice-qube 648]

Just now, OG Fan said:

Good news everyone! I just got an email saying they released my passport and it's being shipped over. That email didn't say anything about being approved/denied, it just simply said they released my passport and gave a tracking number so I was still a little worried.

I also got another 'appointment confirmation' email but with my same Sept 27th date, so I was confused but I noticed they changed my passport pickup location to downtown Toronto so I'm guessing that was an automated email that failed to highlight what exactly was updated.

 

We checked the CEAC status checker (https://ceac.state.gov/ceacstattracker/status.aspx) and it said it was issued Nov 10th!

 

Hopefully I'll be picking up my passport next week sometime

 

So to summarize: Visa interview Sept 27th > Sent DS-5535 Sept 28th > Nov 10-12th (~45 days) visa issued and notified about shipping.

 

Good luck to everyone waiting, hopefully you'll get yours soon too. I'll keep updating if anything changes

 

 

Very good news for you, congrats! Hope that we all can have similar results.