Consulate Review: Montreal, Canada
Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
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| Event |
Description |
| Review Date : |
November 29, 2018 |
| Embassy Review : |
Our appointment was set for November 28, 2018 at 9:00AM. We arrived at around 8:20AM, leaving mostly everything including phones back at the hotel since they'll take any electronics that you have on you before being allowed to pass. Wallets and keys and even books were allowed so no worries there. There was no line-up outside the door. A lady directly to the right of the entrance to the embassy greeted us, checked my name for the interview, took both me and my spouse's passports, then stuck a sticker with my name to the back of my Canadian passport before handing both back to us. She also handed me a laminated sheet with a ticket number on it. The laminated sheet contained information on exactly what order they want to see the documents in for both the IR1/CR1 visa and K1 visa as well. At the time this review was written, the order was as such for CR1/IR1 visas:
- Laminated sheet with ticket number on it
- Original passport (they ask you to bring a photocopy as well in the interview letter but lady handed all photocopies back to me)
- 2 passport photos
- Medical exam (medisys gave me xray, vaccination records, and white envelope. SHe handed back the xray and vaccination records and told me to keep it for my own records)
- Original Birth certificate
- Original Marriage certificate
- Original Divorce certificate (for yourself, if applicable)
- Original Police certificate
- AOS Form (original & signed by spouse. Be careful that the signed date matches the form you submitted to NVC - I hadn't thought about it for ours since I had my spouse re-sign it since I had misplaced the original copy of the AOS form. In the end, it seemingly didn't matter since she said she'd just scan the copy I brought in person and stuck a pink "SCAN" post-it to it, but I probably would have logged back into CEAC to check the AOS form that had been submitted for good measure and put the original date if you need to redo the copy for whatever reason)
- IRS tax return for latest year (laminated sheet says "returns" but they only wanted to see the last year)
- If there is supplementary documentation for your petitioner that was part of the approved NVC package, they'll ask for it at the end even though it's not on the official checklist that they give you at the interview.
After that, we stood behind a glass door that says "STOP" before being motioned in by a guard inside to enter. He asked us to remove our jackets and empty everything in it into a basket, then put them through an airport-like scanner, along with the stack of documents I had brought for the interview. He did end up taking my fitness watch, which I forgot to leave behind. Once we passed through security, we went down a flight of stairs to a basement containing a photo booth for anyone who was missing passport photos for $10. There, we took an elevator with the only destination being the 19th floor where the embassy was located.
When you exit the elevator, you immediately walk into the waiting area where people are seated, with the left side being the area for non-immigrant visas, and the right being immigrant visas. I'd say about half of the immigrant visa applicants came with their significant others. As long as your significant other brings their American passport, they will be allowed into the embassy (according to the lady at the entrance of the embassy).
By the time we arrived, we were number 20, and they were calling out number 4. It took about 5-10 minutes for me to organize the list of documents but I had most of it in the order they had wanted ahead of time. They end up calling your name twice - first to check the documents on the list, and then the second for the actual interview. In terms of wait time, we sat down at about 8:25AM, and our number was called up at 9:20AM, 55 minutes later. With each individual, they take about 10-15 minutes and 3 out of the 4 windows available were open for business.
The embassy itself has a pretty view of downtown Montreal, but when I got up from my chair to appraise it, the security guard by the window gave me an unwelcome look which told me I ought to hurry up with my admiration. The physical setting inside is pretty basic with plastic chairs in the waiting area, the document checking windows to the left, one non immigrant visa window to the left, and a cashier window (and I believe American services) to the right. To get to the women's washroom, you have to walk down a small hallway past the immigrant visa applicants who are being interviewed which is a tad awkward to me. The walls inside are sage colored and the interior looks pretty dated and sterile. Standard office setting.
Watching the seconds on the clock directly in front of me tick was painfully slow, and by the time my number was called, I was a nerve wracked mess, mainly because I didn't know what would happen with my police certificate. Our IR1 application was approved by the NVC long before the new police privacy act report requirements were enacted on September 10, 2018, and we never received notification about this change. I found out about the new change 2 weeks prior to our interview date when doing the last document check and tried desperately to retrieve the new police certificate with no success partly because of the Canada Post strike, and partly because there simply wasn't enough time. So, I showed up to the interview with the old name check only police certificate and a reciept indicating I had done the new one, hoping it would be good enough.
The lady taking my documents at the window was formal, professional, and polite. She took the documents two at a time in the order I listed above (I tried to hand her the entire package in a binder clip and she told me to slow down). She opened the medical report in front of me, reviewed it, then stapled my passport photos in a plastic bag to it. She also handed me back my xray and vaccination records and told me to keep it for my records. When we got to the police certificate, she looked at the name check police certificate and asked me if I had something else to give her. I explained my situation and offered to show her the receipt for the new report, but she wasn't interested in looking at it and said that the interviewer would decide whether or not I would have to send the embassy the new one, which triggered all sorts of bad feelings for me. At the end, she had me scan my fingerprints in the electronic scanner they have at each window, and told me to wait for my number to be called again (same number as ticket number). I was still shaken up as I tried to explain to my spouse about what happened at the window and actually missed my number being called, literally before I even got to sit down, to which my spouse alerted me to. It was probably less than 2 minutes in between the first lady saying goodbye to me and my number being called a second time by the interviewing officer.
I went to the interview window (there were two operating, both for K1/CR1/IR1/any other cat I don't know of immigrant visas), and was greeted also formally and politely by the interviewing officer. There was a huge American flag directly behind her as we both stood to talk to each other through the window. I was asked to do a similar exercise to scan my fingerprints on a similar fingerprinting scanner (left hand first, then right hand, and two thumbs), but this time, it included swearing an oath of truth. The interview itself was very similar to others and these were the questions that were asked at mine:
1) Who is your petitioner and what is your relationship?
2) When did you meet your spouse?
3) Who visited whom first, when, and where did this visit take place?
4) Where does your spouse live now?
5) What does your spouse do for work?
6) Have you ever stayed in the United States for longer than 6 months? (I mentioned I stayed in the US for 5 months and she quickly moved onto the next question)
7) Have you ever had any troubles crossing the US border?
8) Do you have any history of committing any crimes?
In between answers, she was typing on her computer while sporadically checking the original documents the first lady had gathered from me and had subsequently passed to her. It looks like both officers compare the original document with the electronic version that they have on file and on the computer they look at. She was pretty quick about each document check, and when she got to the name check only police report which I was holding my breath for, she looked at it for a second and flipped it over to check the next document. There was some confusion about the supplementary documentation for my spouse, but it was cleared up very quickly. When I answered her last question, she took two white slips of paper under her desk and handed it to me, then said "congratulations, you're approved" to which I broke down violently to stifled sobs and tears of relief. She then looked at me sympathetically and said "I know... don't worry, all the instructions you need will be listed on the papers I just gave you so you don't need to remember anything. You can review it on instructions and the website on how to track your passport". In total, the interview with her lasted about 5 minutes. I was going to ask about potentially being able to pick up the passport at the embassy but in the moment, forgot to.
I'm sure people thought I was strange for crying and hugging my spouse as my voice broke saying we were approved, but I realized that the majority of people who were in our group were coming in for K1 visas since most walked out with the pink approval slip rather than the white one that I got. After 17 long, grueling, and very trying months, it was definitely a very emotional moment for us.
All in all, it was a painless experience at the embassy at least in terms of tedium. I'm assuming from what others have shared that the "ISSUED - undergoing administrative processing" status that I now see on the CEAC status tracker gets changed soon, or at least I hope so for my own sanity. I'm also not sure what is going to happen to my passport with the aftermath of the Canada Post strike and its unfortunate timing, but I'm crossing my fingers that it too gets resolved quickly. Our entire appointment from start to finish lasted for 1 hour and 25 minutes in total. |
| Rating : |
Good |
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Kellyh on 2018-11-29 said:
ver 5.0