mam521

I see many people starting to see approvals and issuances of their visas...congrats! I know you're just trying to get to the next step and have plenty of USCIS trauma, but if you are considering citizenship in the future, start yourself a spreadsheet and begin tracking all of your travel. You'll need it in the future for that application - anything to make the PTSD less!! Good luck! 🍀

You can apply now from the US for it. I suspect because you didn't keep it renewed, it's start from scratch.

When I did mine last year, the Houston officers were very strict about signing it in front of them. I'd just hold off and do it there.

Not to be discouraging, but many people end up meeting citizenship 3 year requirement, filing for citizenship and requesting a combo interview because the I-751 interviews are often very slow.

Montreal is slow. You'll be in the queue for a while considering you only filed in July. It's one of the reasons the CR1 is often recommended, especially dealing with Montreal. If you have the option to extend the lease at least 6 months to keep your rent in check, I'd consider that. Don't give up your place until your visa is issued. You don't know how long approval will be, how long interview scheduling will be or if you'll land in a long AP. The consulate never recommends making plans until a visa is issued. The other advantage is a lease agreement is a reasonable tie to Canada, in case you want to visit the US. Crashing at your parent's place is not.

https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/profile.php?id=463738 As with everything immigration related, you have to take a number and wait your turn. Your number hasn't come up yet, so the consulate hasn't requested your case from NVC. Number holders earlier in the queue are having their cases sent. Some consulates are quick, others take months before an interview is scheduled. Hang tight, your time will come.

As a PR, you might be forced to import it because you won't technically be returning to Canada. Most states have rules about it when you become a resident, too. Do I think you'll get stopped? Unlikely but insurance becomes an issue. Can't import without the compliance letter. Toyota has flat out stopped issuing them and Mercedes seems to as well. This is why many people just opt to sell and buy something stateside. I've done both - my truck was easy to import at the time because it was compliant and Chrysler Canada had no issues issuing the letter. Our Jetta - we sold because it didn't have active TPMS so changing the dash cluster and computer just weren't worth it. Sold it, took the cash and used it as a nice down payment on a Passat and negotiated the rate down so I could build a credit history in the US.

Disagree. In the North, when it's dark, it's dark. When it's light (in winter)...it's negligible and the sun barely makes it off of the horizon. Sunrise at 8:30am versus 9:30am when the sun sets at 3pm versus 4pm makes little difference. Once summer hits, if the sun comes up at 4:30am or 5:30am and sets at 10:30pm or 11:30pm makes no difference. It never failed - when I was working in the oilpatch, I'd inevitably have to drive the frozen tundra from Rainbow Lake, AB to High Level, AB in the "morning" and the sun would sit on that horizon, too low for the vehicle visor to block anything. It sucked! We're on the handing things in on time struggle bus ourselves with Kid2. So many wasted marks and so much unnecessary stress from falling behind. Sometimes, I wanna pull the Homer Simpson on Bart and shake the living bejezuz out of him!

Receiving the package in a mail room versus a CO opening and acknowledging receipt of the contents are 2 different kettle of fish in the USCIS world. Hang onto your tracking info and hold tight. While I understand how unnerving it can be, 4 days is nothing to write home about yet.

Good luck! Hopefully PC are quick with your application and you'll get everything back within 3 weeks!

Nope. It's documents that technically could be printed off of the web or replaced by the government. It's of no value to Passport Canada so they don't give a hoot if they get lost. Sucks for us if they do...

Just put them in and be transparent. You don't want anything to cause delays in your application approval, or worse yet, turn up during AP that might seem suspicious, even though it rarely is. Just list and move on. If you're honest, they won't think much of it.

This is a classic read!

I've climbed Delicate Arch no less than 8 times. I love it there, but we haven't been in some time because it's been overrun with pretend glampers. We used to take our students on a field trip there for work. Ran 4 bootcamps a year, 3 field trips were Utah, 1 was California. Covid killed the field trips, unfortunately. Somehow training people became a cost, rather than an investment.

How's Miu with the ridiculous time change? I know I was awoken by a Siamese cat at the "new" time of 5:00am, trying to tell me it was breakfast time. She will storm your head and bite your nose if you attempt to ignore her, too. If you try to lock her out of the room, she hollers at the top of her lungs so the entire street can hear her. Alas, having grown up in Canadia in a province where the time remains unchanged, I can say with certainty that I despise standard time, too!

@Albert2 please fill out your timeline https://www.visajourney.com/timeline/profile.php?id=463054

If you've applied under the 3 year rule, yes, your application is potentially in jeopardy. Pull your application, wait until you qualify under the 5 year rule and reapply. You don't want to create unnecessary flags and call into question obtaining citizenship at all by trying to do it under the 3 year rule.

We've renewed more than one from the US and never paid brokerage fees with FedEx.

Is the mother a citizen?

Spousal and fiancé visas take nearly the same amount of time through Montreal. No other consulate in Canada manages these visa types. Your partner would wait 18-24 months to get a K1 visa to enter the US, get married and file paperwork. Then, she has to wait for however long it's going to take for work authorization and travel authorization, should she want to travel outside of the US. She has to wait for her greencard to process on top of it all. Then, 2 years later, the removal of conditions would begin. It's a long process and an expensive process. I'd wager a guess your fiancé works in Canada. Are you prepared to become a single income and her lose out on X number of months of experience in her trade? Is she going to be happy, stuck with no opportunity to work or travel, fully dependent on you? For many people who come from countries similar to the US, this is extremely challenging and puts a lot of strain on the relationship. On the other hand, your partner waits 18-24 months to get a CR-1 to enter the US. She is immediately a permanent resident with the right to work, travel freely and have her SSN and driver's licence. Yes, you have to remove conditions in 2 years, but she begins her life with you like "normal". She can retain far more of her independence and the qualities you love about her without her being 100% your dependent. It's honestly a better scenario. If you search the forum, you'll find a lot of K-1's who'll have said they wished they would have done a CR-1 because it is a big headache.

Side, unrelated note: B&W photos are typically for 2 reasons: 1. if a photographer actually shoots in B&W on film, it gives a beautiful, grainy vintage look. Less common these days and typically takes a high end photographer and some film processing and development that people don't want to pay for these days. or (and more commonly) 2. B&W is a way to salvage a badly shot photo. Can't get the colours correct? Convert to B&W. Shot on the wrong settings? Adjust and convert to B&W. So, B&W isn't "going back 100 years" and can be a preferred option. But, then there's the OP's situation where the scan was in B&W

If push comes to shove, the oath ceremony can be rescheduled. I've not heard of an expedited oath ceremony, just a rescheduled one. Good luck!

It is not that unusual to see North African country applicants go through an extensive administrative processing. As @etrangais has mentioned, the background check will be completed. If your partner has a name that is common or similar to other people, this also slows AP down, in addition to any of the other potential red flag items (large age gap, vast religious differences, previous applications, etc).

BYD = Buy Your Dreams. China encourages you to BYD! Once upon a time, leaded fuels were cheaper than unleaded fuels. Manufacturers introduced engines with catalytic converters and told people they couldn't put leaded fuel in them. People went "screw that, I'm not paying more because you said so" and put leaded fuel in these vehicles. So, manufacturers made the nozzle holes where the fuel nozzle slotted in smaller and made unleaded fuel nozzles smaller. People drilled out the hole to make the leaded nozzle fit. Finally, they dropped the price of unleaded fuel to be cheaper than that of leaded fuel. I'm sure there was an apparent hit taken for it, but people put the unleaded fuel in their engines with catalytic converters and we saw atmospheric lead values drop. The intention was whole hearted and good because lead is harmful to one's health, but very few people are willing to pay more for something when they don't see the value and I would wager with the amount of misinformation out there, it's even more extreme. Investment into recycling and separation isn't lucrative and building a new landfill appears easier (in reality, it's not). As it is, EV's are heavily subsidized by government. Most "alternate energy" is. Until there's incentive to "do it right" as Mike Holmes would say, no one is going to take that plunge and do it. Virtue signaling, at best. Money is in mining and refinement, so until that changes, that will be the path forward. Look at single use plastics. You have plenty of corn based, industrial compostable options which are pretty damned close to petroleum based plastics in terms of consumer use and feel, but where are the composting facilities? They don't exist. Unless the government steps in and builds them.

The headline is a bit misleading considering the conclusion was modern used cars, in general, are prohibitively expensive to repair, especially when you rely on the dealer. I don't disagree per se; we are the technological junk epoch for sure and it is extremely disappointing to see the lack of ability not only to repair things, but the skillsets necessary to do so. I grew up with carbureted engines where my uncles and my brother would rebuild and modify on weekends. No dependence on dealerships, code scanners and software to tell you it's junk! We just traded in our truck a couple of weeks ago because the airbag suspension was starting to fail and it was going to cost $4k+ to replace (yes, replace. It would seem that troubleshooting for these systems isn't a thing, it's just replace) or $2-3k to convert to a standard shock suspension. As for the batteries - it's like any "sustainable" energy "solution"...the manufacturers have had YEARS to figure out recycling and disposal, but unless the government funds it, they refuse to put the resources in to make it happen. California's aging solar panels are a huge problem now as they are reaching end of life and instead of being recycled, they are hitting landfills. Tesla's first EV came to market in 2008. There's still limited EV battery recycling, especially considering that's 18 years worth of time to sort the process out and build the facilities. Just like relationships, it's fine to be excited about the wedding, but you have to remember the marriage comes after and that's the hard part.