My Canadian passport expires in July 2008. I resisted getting it renewed before I filed for my K1 visa in April because with the Western Hemisphere Travel requirements there was a great deal of backlog happening at Passport Canada and I didn't believe I needed to renew my passport at the time. Since then, I've been approved for a K1 and currently have the visa in my passport. I plan on crossing over to the US in November or January 2008 and will be applying for AOS/AP/EAD within two months of my POE.
Next year I'll be attending two weddings in my hometown of Vancouver. One will be in March 2008 which I can cancel from if I don't receive my AP by then. The next is in August 2008, where I am a member of the bridal party and hope to get AP by then.
Passport Canada requests that a Canadian living in the US mail out their application for passport renewal to the Quebec office in Canada - that can take anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks right now. I am also allowed to apply in person at any Canadian office.
It has been suggested that I fly over to Vancouver when I have AP and renew my passport in person - a fellow VJ member who works at Passport Canada says that I can renew my passport under expedited passport processing.
I called an immigration officer at the US CBP at Vancouver International Airport, and he mentioned that AP was a separate document and not a stamp in the passport. If that's the case, my concern is whether the AP document is specific to the passport it's issued to, or whether it can cross between the old and the new passport.
If the AP document is specific to the passport, then my other alternative is to renew my passport through the mail as soon as I enter the United States. Since my passport will not be expired at that point, I will have to mail it to Quebec to get it cancelled, which means that I'll be sending the original K1 and I-94 at that point. I'd rather not send my passport through the mail for that reason since I know I'll need those documents in the future.
Any advice and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
