Montreal embassy EB-2 interview wait time-Part 2

[TheMaverick 50]

Is there a pattern to when in the month (beginning, mid, end)does NVC send invites? 

[Coco_2023 14]

5 hours ago, Froozion said:

One month progress. Apr 2022-may 2022

 

Gee, this means that I'm looking at roughly a year from now to get an interview...and another 4-11 months for DS-5535😦

Edited January 10 by Coco_2023

[Froozion 168]

19 hours ago, TheMaverick said:

Is there a pattern to when in the month (beginning, mid, end)does NVC send invites? 

It used to be at the start of the month around 6th. Or near the end. 28th. 

 

However there's been nobody since may in this group. So its much harder to track. 

 

 

[Froozion 168]

19 hours ago, Coco_2023 said:

 

Gee, this means that I'm looking at roughly a year from now to get an interview...and another 4-11 months for DS-5535😦

Yes. This time last year they were doing 100+ eb interviews per month. Last month they did like 15. I dont know why they stopped clearing out the back log. 

[Beatles27 0]

hey guys, this may sound like a post on Reddit, but bear with me, please.

 

When I moved out of the States to Canada and filed for Consular Processing vs my original intention of an AOS(adjustment of status), I never imagined the lengthy wait times to get an interview at Montreal for my case EB2, DQ Jan 27th, 2023.  My attorney was so optimistic in 2023, that he said the wait time to get an interview was less than 4months, lol. Now we are in January 2024, and the processing speed at MTL(if accurately tracked), appears to be May-2022. At this rate, I'm wondering if I should move back to the States from Toronto, Canada, and continue AOS as my priority date of Jan 5th, 2011 has been current for a while(though it retrogressed the majority of 2023). Any thoughts, I'm fighting my mind, and to add to my joy or stress levels, my wife is pregnant at 3 months, in her first trimester now. We are unable to make up our minds on whether to stay back for a full year or move now and do an AOS.

[TheMaverick 50]

4 hours ago, Beatles27 said:

hey guys, this may sound like a post on Reddit, but bear with me, please.

 

When I moved out of the States to Canada and filed for Consular Processing vs my original intention of an AOS(adjustment of status), I never imagined the lengthy wait times to get an interview at Montreal for my case EB2, DQ Jan 27th, 2023.  My attorney was so optimistic in 2023, that he said the wait time to get an interview was less than 4months, lol. Now we are in January 2024, and the processing speed at MTL(if accurately tracked), appears to be May-2022. At this rate, I'm wondering if I should move back to the States from Toronto, Canada, and continue AOS as my priority date of Jan 5th, 2011 has been current for a while(though it retrogressed the majority of 2023). Any thoughts, I'm fighting my mind, and to add to my joy or stress levels, my wife is pregnant at 3 months, in her first trimester now. We are unable to make up our minds on whether to stay back for a full year or move now and do an AOS.

My advice to anyone would be if you have any other option exercise it rather than waiting for Montreal. You need to understand that even when you get the interview call the number of folks getting 221G and DS-5535 is really high. Once you get into DS-5535 it could easily be another 8-16 months to get out of it. If you have any visa that has dual intent(H1 or L1) then AOS should be the way to go. I think they were on April 2022 for approx 4 months. Now they moved to May 2022 and god knows how many months they need to move from May 2022

[Lkkclub123 23]

13 hours ago, TheMaverick said:

My advice to anyone would be if you have any other option exercise it rather than waiting for Montreal. You need to understand that even when you get the interview call the number of folks getting 221G and DS-5535 is really high. Once you get into DS-5535 it could easily be another 8-16 months to get out of it. If you have any visa that has dual intent(H1 or L1) then AOS should be the way to go. I think they were on April 2022 for approx 4 months. Now they moved to May 2022 and god knows how many months they need to move from May 2022

totally agree

[Froozion 168]

20 hours ago, TheMaverick said:

My advice to anyone would be if you have any other option exercise it rather than waiting for Montreal. You need to understand that even when you get the interview call the number of folks getting 221G and DS-5535 is really high. Once you get into DS-5535 it could easily be another 8-16 months to get out of it. If you have any visa that has dual intent(H1 or L1) then AOS should be the way to go. I think they were on April 2022 for approx 4 months. Now they moved to May 2022 and god knows how many months they need to move from May 2022

Any other option is better than waiting on montreal at this point. It could easily be over a year still if they continue at their current pace. 

[Beatles27 0]

Thanks, @TheMaverick - Does everyone get 221G even if documentartily complete and we have the necessary police clearance documents? I'm hearing about the DS-5335 for the first time, I'm from a country that carries low risk, and and have had FBI checks done multiple times for job-specific tasks, and for immigration purposes in the past, as recently as 2019. I know the risk of getting either of the Administrative Processing questions is maybe at random, but I'm not sure what the odds are, just curious. 

[Lkkclub123 23]

45 minutes ago, Froozion said:

Any other option is better than waiting on montreal at this point. It could easily be over a year still if they continue at their current pace. 

I'm from a country friendly to the United States,I was very very lucky and only waited 13 months. The data I saw before was that the wait was eight to nine hundred days. After I received my green card through an interview at the end of May, no one here seemed to have received an interview letter. Look now  The number of people who pass the EB category at the Montreal Consulate every month is only one-tenth of the previous number, and there is no sign of improvement at all. I would also suggest that if there is a choice, it would be a better idea to choose other consulates for interviews.

[AP_since_May2023 37]

10 hours ago, Beatles27 said:

Thanks, @TheMaverick - Does everyone get 221G even if documentartily complete and we have the necessary police clearance documents? I'm hearing about the DS-5335 for the first time, I'm from a country that carries low risk, and and have had FBI checks done multiple times for job-specific tasks, and for immigration purposes in the past, as recently as 2019. I know the risk of getting either of the Administrative Processing questions is maybe at random, but I'm not sure what the odds are, just curious. 

 

I am from a country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world and very friendly to the US, and yet I received DS-5535. My suggestion is to avoid Consular Processing at all cost if possible.

[TheMaverick 50]

22 hours ago, Beatles27 said:

Thanks, @TheMaverick - Does everyone get 221G even if documentartily complete and we have the necessary police clearance documents? I'm hearing about the DS-5335 for the first time, I'm from a country that carries low risk, and and have had FBI checks done multiple times for job-specific tasks, and for immigration purposes in the past, as recently as 2019. I know the risk of getting either of the Administrative Processing questions is maybe at random, but I'm not sure what the odds are, just curious. 

So this is what I can presume is happening. Montreal has not been able to keep up with the post pandemic backlog. To keep their books clean, they have prioritized immediate family and have put everything else on the non priority list. However, the demand for immediate family visa is so high, they fell back to 221G and DS5535. Once a person is in DS5535, they are basically off the reporting hook of Montreal. The monthly statistics only tell how many interviews they conducted. There is no reporting on how many immigrant visas were issued on a monthly basis(probably there is some annual report not sure about that). There is a VJ post on DS5535 which I closely monitor(The dreaded DS-5535 thread for Montreal. Post here and support each other (PART 2). There are lot of folks from low risk country(example: born and studied in Canada) still getting the DS5535. There was someone who get admin processing because they had a US visitor visa on an older passport(prior to getting Canadian Citizenship). There are also folks who were born in Iran and moved to Europe at the age of 3. Not sure if they have some internal policy on count of IV issued per month. There was someone saying 1 in 3 are getting tagged for additional processing(not sure if that is a fact because there is no data to back that up).I follow that post because I have a bad feeling that I will move from one wait queue to another wait queue. My country of chargeability is from the middle east and going by what I have read that make me a likely candidate for admin processing

[Froozion 168]

3 hours ago, TheMaverick said:

So this is what I can presume is happening. Montreal has not been able to keep up with the post pandemic backlog. To keep their books clean, they have prioritized immediate family and have put everything else on the non priority list. However, the demand for immediate family visa is so high, they fell back to 221G and DS5535. Once a person is in DS5535, they are basically off the reporting hook of Montreal. The monthly statistics only tell how many interviews they conducted. There is no reporting on how many immigrant visas were issued on a monthly basis(probably there is some annual report not sure about that). There is a VJ post on DS5535 which I closely monitor(The dreaded DS-5535 thread for Montreal. Post here and support each other (PART 2). There are lot of folks from low risk country(example: born and studied in Canada) still getting the DS5535. There was someone who get admin processing because they had a US visitor visa on an older passport(prior to getting Canadian Citizenship). There are also folks who were born in Iran and moved to Europe at the age of 3. Not sure if they have some internal policy on count of IV issued per month. There was someone saying 1 in 3 are getting tagged for additional processing(not sure if that is a fact because there is no data to back that up).I follow that post because I have a bad feeling that I will move from one wait queue to another wait queue. My country of chargeability is from the middle east and going by what I have read that make me a likely candidate for admin processing

I agree. 

 

Last year from january- may they were clearing over 100 people from eb per month. I had assumed it may have been due to less immediate family applying around Thanksgiving and Christmas and was hoping to see the same trend this year. But still no interviews at all. 

 

If they keep doing only 10-15 eb interviews it will take over 5 years before they reach my date. (Assuming there is usually about 60 eb visas per month) 

 

I dont understand why they just do first in first out for all groups and stop continuing to prioritize family over all else. 

[appleblossom 2,513]

On 1/14/2024 at 1:14 PM, Beatles27 said:

At this rate, I'm wondering if I should move back to the States from Toronto, Canada, and continue AOS as my priority date of Jan 5th, 2011 has been current for a while(though it retrogressed the majority of 2023). Any thoughts, I'm fighting my mind, and to add to my joy or stress levels, my wife is pregnant at 3 months, in her first trimester now. We are unable to make up our minds on whether to stay back for a full year or move now and do an AOS.

 

You've not said what visa you plan to move to the US on? You can't enter as a visitor and then try to stay, that would be immigration fraud. 

 

I sympathise, but I don't think you have any option but to stay in Canada and wait it out. 

 

Good luck. 

Edited January 16 by appleblossom

[EternalWait 77]

On 1/14/2024 at 1:14 PM, Beatles27 said:

hey guys, this may sound like a post on Reddit, but bear with me, please.

 

When I moved out of the States to Canada and filed for Consular Processing vs my original intention of an AOS(adjustment of status), I never imagined the lengthy wait times to get an interview at Montreal for my case EB2, DQ Jan 27th, 2023.  My attorney was so optimistic in 2023, that he said the wait time to get an interview was less than 4months, lol. Now we are in January 2024, and the processing speed at MTL(if accurately tracked), appears to be May-2022. At this rate, I'm wondering if I should move back to the States from Toronto, Canada, and continue AOS as my priority date of Jan 5th, 2011 has been current for a while(though it retrogressed the majority of 2023). Any thoughts, I'm fighting my mind, and to add to my joy or stress levels, my wife is pregnant at 3 months, in her first trimester now. We are unable to make up our minds on whether to stay back for a full year or move now and do an AOS.

If there's nothing in Canada for you that forces you to stay, and eventually you want to move to the States, then I'd suggest you move to the States, even if it is with a nonimmigrant visa, so long as that visa allows you to continue the work in your field of expertise.

When you are getting interviewed for the visa, ensure to prove your genuine nonimmigrant intent and point out that you have filed for consular processing, hence you will return to Canada once you are called for interview.

There is a chance your visa application gets rejected, but I know people who have been able to obtain nonimmigrant visa while being in the consular processing phase of their immigrant visa application (some even post-interview, in their administrative processing, although they got lucky there!).

Once you enter the US, you will at least be able to live in the US until MTL calls you for interview.

 

In fact, if a long enough time has passed and you believe that you can no longer wait for MTL, you can file for AOS. Simply because you entered with a nonimmigrant visa does not mean you can never file for AOS. If that were the case, pretty much everyone in the US that obtained a greencard would be caught for fraud. The test is whether enough time has passed that would justify a change of the original intent. For example, consider the many students in the US who are on a nonimmigrant F1 visa finishing their PhD and file for AOS around their fourth or fifth year of study. Did they commit fraud? You would say no, because even though their original intent was that of a nonimmigrant, enough time has passed that makes sense for them to change their intent. But then what is enough? Four years? what about three or two or one ? Who determines the exact definition of "enough"? 

The answer is the government and in this case, the USCIS . The USCIS has long had the 30-60 day guidance in place, and more recently replaced it with a 90 day. Basically if the applicant files for AOS less than 90days of declaring nonimmigrant intent, there's a presumption of immigration fraud, which the applicant must overcome (by for example providing evidence that their situation has changed). If it's more than 90 days, then the guidance leaves it to the officer whether to not do anything or to ask for more evidence from the applicant to justify their change of intent. Here is a reference on that, but a quick google can give you more info of course:

https://www.lawfirm4immigrants.com/the-90-day-rule-explained/

 

Again, to be absolutely clear, you will need to enter the US with an intent to return to Canada for consular processing, so your nonimmigration intent must be genuine. If a long enough time has passed that you believe warrants a change of intent, and that you have enough evidence for it, then AOS is a legitimate option to explore. But do contact lawyers, esp. those who are more familiar with cases that file AOS for family applicants that are more likely to be in a similar situation.