Montreal embassy EB-2 interview wait time

[Van24 13]

7 hours ago, Pasand said:

hey all. I have another quick question:

Since I was in Canada, in order to land as a Canadian permanent resident I had to go to the US border. now if during the interview the officer asks me whether I've been ever turned around at the border, what should I say? does this PR land count? thank you

I saw the same question in Family IR-1/CR-1 forum.  They say it's okay:

 

[F2J_March 49]

20 hours ago, dskar said:

I don't know which date should be considered as their DQ date here since it's a "follow to join" case, but the following timeline might help:

- Sep 2018: DQ for the Principal applicant, EB-2

- Mar 2019: Interview in Montreal and PR at a US/CAN land border few days later. I opted for a C2-Commuter GC therefore only principal applicant was asked to submit a DS-260 and was called for an interview at MTL

- Feb 2021: Contacted the MTL consulate via email (montreal-iv-dv@state.gov) giving them my MTL case number and requested an IV interview date for the family. Received a prompt response within days mentioning Presidential Proclamations 10014 and 10052 (PP10014 and PP10052) and that visa issuance was suspended for now

- 6/28/2021: Received email from MTL asking to submit DS-260 for the family members online. They didn't ask me to submit IV application fee or upload any documents 

- 7/26/2021: Received interview appointment letter for family members for 8/25. Again no mention of uploading soft copies or pay fees online. Only asked me to bring in originals of everything plus one copy of each. IV Visa Application fee ($345 per person) will be collected at the time of interview 

 

I believe my case was prioritized for some reason. Just guessing but maybe because it's a "follow to join" and therefore fell under family reunion. Either way, it came as a pleasant surprise and now we have less than a month to go through visa prep steps (collect civil documents/police reports, have medical exam done etc.). It's going to be a hectic one month for sure but we are happy.

Hi @dskar: Thank you for detailed reply. I guess your case was already in MTL since you had your interview in MTL so it was easy for them find your case and schedule an interview for your family whereas in my case although its Follow to join, my case is still with NVC and not yet transferred to MTL. Whenever I send an inquiry in MTL, I get response saying that my case is still with NVC and I need to reach out to NVC for next steps. NVC schedules interview based on dq'd date and I am not sure if they prioritizes EB follow to join case.

 

[F2J_March 49]

14 hours ago, Pasand said:

hey all. I have another quick question:

Since I was in Canada, in order to land as a Canadian permanent resident I had to go to the US border. now if during the interview the officer asks me whether I've been ever turned around at the border, what should I say? does this PR land count? thank you

Hi @Pasand: Since you have canadian PR, May I ask you what is your country of chargeability for GC?

Edited July 28, 2021 by F2J_March
mistake

[dskar 15]

19 hours ago, Pasand said:

hey all. I have another quick question:

Since I was in Canada, in order to land as a Canadian permanent resident I had to go to the US border. now if during the interview the officer asks me whether I've been ever turned around at the border, what should I say? does this PR land count? thank you

@Pasand the question they ask is "have you ever been refused entry to the US" which is done in case someone is found inadmissible and denied entry to the US. You don't fall in that category

[dskar 15]

4 hours ago, F2J_March said:

Hi @dskar: Thank you for detailed reply. I guess your case was already in MTL since you had your interview in MTL so it was easy for them find your case and schedule an interview for your family whereas in my case although its Follow to join, my case is still with NVC and not yet transferred to MTL. Whenever I send an inquiry in MTL, I get response saying that my case is still with NVC and I need to reach out to NVC for next steps. NVC schedules interview based on dq'd date and I am not sure if they prioritizes EB follow to join case.

 

@F2J_March You are correct. But I don't think we can conclude that a "follow to join" case for family is any faster in case of CP vs. AOS. Even in your case (where principal applicant was granted PR via AOS), NVC is only waiting for a signal from MTL to send them the case file for your family - NVC is usually very quick to do so as soon as the priority date is current and/or an appointment is available. So that bottleneck again is in MTL where available interview slots are never enough to keep up with the number of IV applicants

[farzady 42]

Hello,

 

Did anyone receive status update from NVC?

[Sorrel 83]

14 hours ago, farzady said:

Hello,

 

Did anyone receive status update from NVC?

Same form letter as before!  We will let you know again in 60 days!  The upsetting part is that Charlie Oppenheim on his YouTube video said that there are 100,000 EB1 visa still available for this fiscal year and they are being transferred to EB2's.  Why is Montreal not trying to schedule these interviews?  Another frustrating month!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[VA21202 109]

Yup got the same old 60 day email from the NVC a few mins back. Last month the “6th” was the lucky day, fingers crossed on what’s in store for the 6th/later this month!

[dcisw 20]

Hi all, been following this forum for a few years and it’s been really helpful!  Thank you to everyone who shared!  I was poking around the consular website and found this in the Q&A section.  I think it’s new since I don’t recall seeing it before.

https://ca.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/consular-operations-updates/

• Q) How long will it take to schedule my immigrant visa appointment?   

• The U.S. Consulate General in Montreal is processing immigrant visas according to the Department’s tiered immigrant visa prioritization guidance, available here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/immigrant-visa-prioritization.html As Montreal processes very few Tier One cases, most new cases being scheduled are from Tier Two – spouses (IR1), children (IR2), parents (IR5), and fiancé(e)s (K) of U.S. citizens – as well as other mission critical categories such as medical professionals.  There are increased wait times for all services due to substantial backlogs.
• It is not possible to provide precise wait times for immigrant visa appointments, as facilities, staffing resources, and local conditions all affect capacity and scheduling. As of August 4, 2021, most IR1, IR2, and K visa cases scheduled for interview were documentarily qualified at the National Visa Center between in September 2020.  Most IR5 cases were documentarily qualified in December 2019.
• Montreal has rescheduled most Preference category applicants in Tiers Three and Four whose interviews were cancelled in March and April of 2020. In October 2021 we will start to schedule new Tier Three and Four cases that were documentarily qualified in approximately September 2019.

Edited August 7, 2021 by dcisw

[VA21202 109]

Thanks @dcisw! Looks new to me, I think this was the part that was updated yesterday. I think it’s the first time the Montreal Consulate has really acknowledged our existence haha, looks promising, wishing everyone the best! 

[neeuq 12]

3 hours ago, dcisw said:

Hi all, been following this forum for a few years and it’s been really helpful!  Thank you to everyone who shared!  I was poking around the consular website and found this in the Q&A section.  I think it’s new since I don’t recall seeing it before.

https://ca.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/consular-operations-updates/

• Q) How long will it take to schedule my immigrant visa appointment?   

• The U.S. Consulate General in Montreal is processing immigrant visas according to the Department’s tiered immigrant visa prioritization guidance, available here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/immigrant-visa-prioritization.html As Montreal processes very few Tier One cases, most new cases being scheduled are from Tier Two – spouses (IR1), children (IR2), parents (IR5), and fiancé(e)s (K) of U.S. citizens – as well as other mission critical categories such as medical professionals.  There are increased wait times for all services due to substantial backlogs.
• It is not possible to provide precise wait times for immigrant visa appointments, as facilities, staffing resources, and local conditions all affect capacity and scheduling. As of August 4, 2021, most IR1, IR2, and K visa cases scheduled for interview were documentarily qualified at the National Visa Center between in September 2020.  Most IR5 cases were documentarily qualified in December 2019.
• Montreal has rescheduled most Preference category applicants in Tiers Three and Four whose interviews were cancelled in March and April of 2020. In October 2021 we will start to schedule new Tier Three and Four cases that were documentarily qualified in approximately September 2019.

does anyone know how they schedule based on dq? will it be based on monthly DQ?  

in oct 2021, those that are sept 2019 DQs interviewed. 
nov 2021, those that are oct 2019 DQs interviewed.
dec 2021 = nov 2019 DQ and so forth..

 

is that how it usually works? 

[dcisw 20]

I’d imagine it goes by how many open slots they have and how many dq cases they can fit.  If there’s a lot of sept 2019 cases, it may take a few months to get thru them or if there aren’t that many then it’ll move quicker. 

[Van24 13]

Do I understand it correctly that they will send out a new batch of IL only on October for November Interviews? So there won't be any EB interviews scheduled in October? (

[VA21202 109]

2 hours ago, Van24 said:

Do I understand it correctly that they will send out a new batch of IL only on October for November Interviews? So there won't be any EB interviews scheduled in October? (

Could be. It’s also possible that the interviews they claim to have rescheduled from March/April might span between now and October and hence they can resume scheduling the other interviews in October. We heard about a couple of March 2020 interviews being re-scheduled to Aug a few weeks back here but that might be a very small chunk of the actual population that got letters.

Edited August 8, 2021 by VA21202

[Sorrel 83]

12 hours ago, VA21202 said:

Could be. It’s also possible that the interviews they claim to have rescheduled from March/April might span between now and October and hence they can resume scheduling the other interviews in October. We heard about a couple of March 2020 interviews being re-scheduled to Aug a few weeks back here but that might be a very small chunk of the actual population that got letters.

 

12 hours ago, VA21202 said:

Could be. It’s also possible that the interviews they claim to have rescheduled from March/April might span between now and October and hence they can resume scheduling the other interviews in October. We heard about a couple of March 2020 interviews being re-scheduled to Aug a few weeks back here but that might be a very small chunk of the actual population that got letters.

Will the Tier 3 Family based preferences take up most of the interview spots?  There are probably less DQ'ed EB applicants in Tier 4 and more spots available to be filled.