Hey everybody,
Just an update that I got my visa back on October 5, 2023 and everything went well with the process besides the lack of information during the process. Here are some details from my experience.
Travel:
I traveled from Canada to SP on Sep 16, in time for the medical exam at noon on Sep 18. Two days before traveling I was notified my medical exam was split into three: 11:30 am my son, 12:00 pm my wife and 12:30 pm myself.
Medical Exam:
When we got to the doctor's office, there was paperwork, I presented 4 pictures each and the doctor saw us together after an hour of wait and triage. Exam went quick with a basic vision exam, "listen to your heart" and medical questions. I think the main objective is for him to assemble our case int the US immigration computer system to generate a PDF that gets sent to you after all is complete. He sent us to Fleury for Lab work. R$800 for each of us.
Lab Work (and vaccines):
For myself: I couldn't prove some of my vaccines, so had to take Tdap (I only had Td beore), MMR (couldn't prove I had it before), and Flu (mine was from December last year and it was unacceptable). For my wife: MMR (couldn't prove she had it before), and Flu. My son: Covid (he had two kids shots, and it was a surprise he had to take the third dose) and Flu. His covid shot had to be at SUS as Fleury didn't have any.
My wife and I had to get blood work and x-ray and my son the tuberculosis blood work (R$500) and in total it was another R$ 2,000 for lab work.
In between time:
I traveled to my hometown for another week in Brazil to wait for the interview in Rio.
Interview in Rio:
The day before the interview we had to go to CASV at 7:00 am to collect fingerprints and take a picture. Even though there are a lot of people, it usually takes only 2 min per person with lots of staff. It took us about an hour and a half to get it all done. You can have cell phones (turned off).
The interview was on a Friday at 7:20 am. We arrived at 7:00 am and went to the wrong line (the long one). Go directly to the Immigrant visa line, there were only about 10 families there. No cell phones allowed inside (there are people holding your phone for R$10 each, apparently people get their phones back).
When you get there, you go upstairs. After you arrive, make sure to organize the documents (passport, birth certificate and marriage license) in the order they ask you. After they give you a sheet on how to organize the documents, you will have a seat again. They will call you to one of the windows to sort documents and ask you basic questions. You have a seat again. The consul will then call you (and your family) for the interview. The interview is not as formal as I expected, you basically stand at a different window. He asks you a few more questions as he enters some info on the computer. He asked me one question about my brief. It took us less than 10 min of interview and about 2 and a half hours total. He said he was missing one medical exam from my wife, but we were approved. He then gave us a paper saying we were approved. Done.
Waiting for passport:
My family returned to Canada and I went back to my hometown on Sunday. On Tuesday I got a notification that my passports were shipped via Sedex and to be delivered on Thursday. I checked online and NVC changed the status to ISSUED. The passports arrived Thursday at 6:30pm. THE END.