Montreal embassy EB-2 interview wait time-Part 2

[monk_yatso 15]

10 minutes ago, dt12 said:

EB2-NIW ROW PD 7/2023. My I140 PD should be fixed right?

Your PD isn’t current and most possibly will take a year to be current. What’s wrong remaining in the queue as it’ll take a long time to get IL. Meanwhile try to balance your family issues, if you wanna move to US with other visas, you can always adjust i485 there. 

[Coco_2023 14]

My interview was completed but as expected I received the DS-5535 instead and officially went into the "black hole" AP! Here are my notes:

• There are changing tables in the 2 washrooms, they are clean
• Do not block the 2 enterance of the building at the street since they belong to RBC branch inside the building
• The security team who are local resources won't let anybody to enter even if it is raining outside and you are with your young kids, unless they call you...we waited outside for 20 mins after our appointment time since it was busy
• In /out took 2.5 hours
• The officers are all told to be nice and patient though almost all are junior since the first officer insisted that I had to give her my labor certification although I told her I was eb2-niw and that I ran my own startup firm so asked the officer to consult with their admin and so then the admin officer apologized and told the junior officer that I was right

The 2nd officer asked me the following questions before handing me a paper that had "hey we are out of visa by end of Sept...", and "DS-5535" checked off :
- Why America?
- At what age did you move to Canada? (Me: I was 11, the officer: what was your parents' job at the time? Me: university professor)
- Why now?
- Why do you think you are nationally important?
- What motivated you to study and work in the AI field?
- How many employees do you currently have?  Why do you have american employees working for your company in Canada?   What is their education level and background? (Me: I don't know off the top of my head but you can contact my HR manager and get your answers if my employees agree to share their personal info)
- Why do you plan to extent your firm into the US while you alredy have your customers in Canada?
- Why did you apply for EB-5 thru investment and cancelled it?

At the end of I offered the officer to take my resume since I already knew it would be asked for those who studied in TAL list but the officer said it was not required but then an hour later I got an email asking my resume to be emailed back!!

I guess I am being "punished" for things I never had any control over...

[Froozion 168]

Our status has just been updated to 'refused' even though we were told we were approved on the 9th.....

[monk_yatso 15]

12 minutes ago, Froozion said:

Our status has just been updated to 'refused' even though we were told we were approved on the 9th.....

It should change by 1st week of October most possibly. Sometimes junior officers just perform random status change, irrespective to the actual necessity. 

[AA-H 33]

1 hour ago, monk_yatso said:

It should change by 1st week of October most possibly. Sometimes junior officers just perform random status change, irrespective to the actual necessity. 

My case was also updated this evening, but it still shows as READY. I'm not sure what's happening in the background. My interview was on September 6th and the previous update was on the 13th.

[monk_yatso 15]

7 minutes ago, AA-H said:

My case was also updated this evening, but it still shows as READY. I'm not sure what's happening in the background. My interview was on September 6th and the previous update was on the 13th.

Until they issue your visa, occasionally they’ll login perform some routine checks. Back in 2017 I had the same situation with my F1 student visa.  

[sunnylank 6]

12 hours ago, AA-H said:

My case was also updated this evening, but it still shows as READY. I'm not sure what's happening in the background. My interview was on September 6th and the previous update was on the 13th.

I am seeing a very similar update. I see that my case was updated on Sep 26th but it is still showing as READY. The previous update after my Sep 6th interview was on 9/13.

[canadian85 24]

15 hours ago, Coco_2023 said:

My interview was completed but as expected I received the DS-5535 instead and officially went into the "black hole" AP! Here are my notes:

• There are changing tables in the 2 washrooms, they are clean
• Do not block the 2 enterance of the building at the street since they belong to RBC branch inside the building
• The security team who are local resources won't let anybody to enter even if it is raining outside and you are with your young kids, unless they call you...we waited outside for 20 mins after our appointment time since it was busy
• In /out took 2.5 hours
• The officers are all told to be nice and patient though almost all are junior since the first officer insisted that I had to give her my labor certification although I told her I was eb2-niw and that I ran my own startup firm so asked the officer to consult with their admin and so then the admin officer apologized and told the junior officer that I was right

The 2nd officer asked me the following questions before handing me a paper that had "hey we are out of visa by end of Sept...", and "DS-5535" checked off :
- Why America?
- At what age did you move to Canada? (Me: I was 11, the officer: what was your parents' job at the time? Me: university professor)
- Why now?
- Why do you think you are nationally important?
- What motivated you to study and work in the AI field?
- How many employees do you currently have?  Why do you have american employees working for your company in Canada?   What is their education level and background? (Me: I don't know off the top of my head but you can contact my HR manager and get your answers if my employees agree to share their personal info)
- Why do you plan to extent your firm into the US while you alredy have your customers in Canada?
- Why did you apply for EB-5 thru investment and cancelled it?

At the end of I offered the officer to take my resume since I already knew it would be asked for those who studied in TAL list but the officer said it was not required but then an hour later I got an email asking my resume to be emailed back!!

I guess I am being "punished" for things I never had any control over...

Thanks for sharing your experience.  Was your AP given to you just because they ran out of visas or is there something else that triggered an AP?

[monk_yatso 15]

16 hours ago, Coco_2023 said:

My interview was completed but as expected I received the DS-5535 instead and officially went into the "black hole" AP! Here are my notes:

• There are changing tables in the 2 washrooms, they are clean
• Do not block the 2 enterance of the building at the street since they belong to RBC branch inside the building
• The security team who are local resources won't let anybody to enter even if it is raining outside and you are with your young kids, unless they call you...we waited outside for 20 mins after our appointment time since it was busy
• In /out took 2.5 hours
• The officers are all told to be nice and patient though almost all are junior since the first officer insisted that I had to give her my labor certification although I told her I was eb2-niw and that I ran my own startup firm so asked the officer to consult with their admin and so then the admin officer apologized and told the junior officer that I was right

The 2nd officer asked me the following questions before handing me a paper that had "hey we are out of visa by end of Sept...", and "DS-5535" checked off :
- Why America?
- At what age did you move to Canada? (Me: I was 11, the officer: what was your parents' job at the time? Me: university professor)
- Why now?
- Why do you think you are nationally important?
- What motivated you to study and work in the AI field?
- How many employees do you currently have?  Why do you have american employees working for your company in Canada?   What is their education level and background? (Me: I don't know off the top of my head but you can contact my HR manager and get your answers if my employees agree to share their personal info)
- Why do you plan to extent your firm into the US while you alredy have your customers in Canada?
- Why did you apply for EB-5 thru investment and cancelled it?

At the end of I offered the officer to take my resume since I already knew it would be asked for those who studied in TAL list but the officer said it was not required but then an hour later I got an email asking my resume to be emailed back!!

I guess I am being "punished" for things I never had any control over...

NiW is a super strong petition. They won’t be able to deny you. It’s just a matter of time

[Coco_2023 14]

25 minutes ago, canadian85 said:

Thanks for sharing your experience.  Was your AP given to you just because they ran out of visas or is there something else that triggered an AP?

 

I actually got double AP'd since I received ds-5535 and also asked to send my latest resume later that has all my studies, papers I published, my phd dissertation, etc. And my job history without any gaps.

 

Resume is asked for those in TAL

 

So I asked the officer if the country I was born (Iran) was the reason that I received ds-5535 since I never served in military neither in Canada nor anywhere else, so she said "yeah, and that your field of study and work is AI and robotics" 

 

Looks like they see people who studied AI as a security threat. I got all my degrees—from high school to my PhD—in Canada though!

 

[mam521 2,062]

16 hours ago, Froozion said:

Our status has just been updated to 'refused' even though we were told we were approved on the 9th.....

Refused is normal.  They will be completing regular AP checks and preparing to issue your visa on Tuesday when the FY begins.  

[MazdaAhura 4]

Hello everyone,

Is it possible for Montreal to change the interview date/time? I received a new confirmation email, and Montreal changed my appointment by one day.

[Froozion 168]

13 minutes ago, MazdaAhura said:

Hello everyone,

Is it possible for Montreal to change the interview date/time? I received a new confirmation email, and Montreal changed my appointment by one day.

Someone in the ir/cr1 also got a similar letter this morning of a date change. I dont know what it means and which date is the real one. Best to email them.

[canadian85 24]

16 minutes ago, Froozion said:

Someone in the ir/cr1 also got a similar letter this morning of a date change. I dont know what it means and which date is the real one. Best to email them.

Do you know if these are new letters or previously sent letter for interviews in October

Edited September 27 by canadian85

[Froozion 168]

Just now, canadian85 said:

Do you know are these new letters or previously sent letter for interviews in October

These are not the November dates. These are people that received letters in August for October dates but montreal have changed the dates of some of them.