Cancelled interview Montreal IR1

[Tbeck 26]

Anyone else have their interview cancelled at The US Embassy in Montreal? My interview was supposed to be March 30 2020 at 930 am .. I am in the dark about my documents as my Background check expires July 12 and My medical expires August 21st (ish). I can’t update my medical because the office isn’t open to them now and neither is the police station to update background checks.  I find this so completely unfair to not be given any update giving peace of mind. The money that has been invested and most of all the emotional investment.   Anyone hear anything at all??? Grasping at straws here 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Tbeck

[Sticks 10]

We had out interview cancelled also, It was spouse to be on March 25th. Haven't heard anything from them since, and every time I call they just say to wait and check there website, I also feel that the lack on information is unfair and stressful. But hopefully they do open soon since the cases in Canada are going down daily.

[Zelna 24]

My interview was supposed to be March 27th. I feel the same and their website never really has specific updates from what I can see. I check every two days. I also asked an immigration lawyer and she seemed to think that the consulate probably won't start reopening and re-scheduling interviews until the US/Canada border opens and the global health advisory level lowers 🥺😰 

It is heart breaking to have been so close to permanently being with my husband and then it being up in the air with no end in sight

[jacketconfident 12]

@Zelna Ugh, I'm so sorry. It really is unnecessarily cruel of even the career employees of the State Department to fail to come up with a solution. For instance, even if they really think that in-person interviews are very important for security reasons (questionable), if they really wanted to have visas processed, they could come up with a solution. Put up plexiglass between the consular officials and interviewees and make the groups of interviewees called in much smaller, or rent out a larger space temporarily just for interviews. It's telling that the State Department has no interest or appetite for creative solutions.

 

 I'm curious what your immigration attorney's reasoning was, though, about the health advisory and the land border. Consider:

•  A few consular posts have, apparently, started rescheduling cancelled IR1/CR1 interviews, especially for people who have already taken their medical exam. There is still a health advisory in effect for all of those places.
• Why designate the IR1/CR1 categories as "mission critical" if you couldn't process those visas because of a global Level 4 health advisory? Like, what was the point of doing that unless embassies are allowed to work on them?
• Some of the consular posts that have started rescheduling interviews (Paris, perhaps Naples?) are still subject to the 14-day travel ban from the US. Granted, those bans don't apply to spouses of US citizens ... but then again, spouses of US citizens can fly into the US from Canada, and maybe they can even drive over the border if relocating to the US is considered essential travel. 

My current, pessimistic guess is that all consular posts could, relative to State Department internal guidelines, process spousal immigrant visas right now -- at least for those interviews, like yours, that were already scheduled. If a given consulate hasn't started rescheduling them, it's either because (a) they can't, because consular staff fled the country for the US (an unwise move in hindsight!) or (b) they won't, because they are very hidebound to their current office layout and practices which require a lot of people working and waiting in small space, which they cannot now do. 

 

Ultimately, your attorney's explanation (health advisory/borders) and my explanation (inertia/bureaucracy/risk aversion) probably end up in the same place: there won't be interviews out of the Montreal consulate for a very long time.

[Zelna 24]

7 hours ago, jacketconfident said:

@Zelna Ugh, I'm so sorry. It really is unnecessarily cruel of even the career employees of the State Department to fail to come up with a solution. For instance, even if they really think that in-person interviews are very important for security reasons (questionable), if they really wanted to have visas processed, they could come up with a solution. Put up plexiglass between the consular officials and interviewees and make the groups of interviewees called in much smaller, or rent out a larger space temporarily just for interviews. It's telling that the State Department has no interest or appetite for creative solutions.

 

 I'm curious what your immigration attorney's reasoning was, though, about the health advisory and the land border. Consider:

•  A few consular posts have, apparently, started rescheduling cancelled IR1/CR1 interviews, especially for people who have already taken their medical exam. There is still a health advisory in effect for all of those places.
• Why designate the IR1/CR1 categories as "mission critical" if you couldn't process those visas because of a global Level 4 health advisory? Like, what was the point of doing that unless embassies are allowed to work on them?
• Some of the consular posts that have started rescheduling interviews (Paris, perhaps Naples?) are still subject to the 14-day travel ban from the US. Granted, those bans don't apply to spouses of US citizens ... but then again, spouses of US citizens can fly into the US from Canada, and maybe they can even drive over the border if relocating to the US is considered essential travel. 

My current, pessimistic guess is that all consular posts could, relative to State Department internal guidelines, process spousal immigrant visas right now -- at least for those interviews, like yours, that were already scheduled. If a given consulate hasn't started rescheduling them, it's either because (a) they can't, because consular staff fled the country for the US (an unwise move in hindsight!) or (b) they won't, because they are very hidebound to their current office layout and practices which require a lot of people working and waiting in small space, which they cannot now do. 

 

Ultimately, your attorney's explanation (health advisory/borders) and my explanation (inertia/bureaucracy/risk aversion) probably end up in the same place: there won't be interviews out of the Montreal consulate for a very long time.

I honestly have no idea. I was thinking the same things as you. I was extremely frustrated when I found out USCIS were waiving some green card interviews. Couldn't they do that for us on a case to case basis or at least to a teleconference interview, since pretty much all the paperwork is already submitted electronically🤷 

 

I am so frustrated. With how everything is I may not be able to see my husband off when he deploys or be there potentially when he returns. Everything is up in the air with no specific information on sight 😕 (sorry about the rant, so frustrated) 

[Sticks 10]

10 hours ago, jacketconfident said:

@Zelna Ugh, I'm so sorry. It really is unnecessarily cruel of even the career employees of the State Department to fail to come up with a solution. For instance, even if they really think that in-person interviews are very important for security reasons (questionable), if they really wanted to have visas processed, they could come up with a solution. Put up plexiglass between the consular officials and interviewees and make the groups of interviewees called in much smaller, or rent out a larger space temporarily just for interviews. It's telling that the State Department has no interest or appetite for creative solutions.

 

 I'm curious what your immigration attorney's reasoning was, though, about the health advisory and the land border. Consider:

•  A few consular posts have, apparently, started rescheduling cancelled IR1/CR1 interviews, especially for people who have already taken their medical exam. There is still a health advisory in effect for all of those places.
• Why designate the IR1/CR1 categories as "mission critical" if you couldn't process those visas because of a global Level 4 health advisory? Like, what was the point of doing that unless embassies are allowed to work on them?
• Some of the consular posts that have started rescheduling interviews (Paris, perhaps Naples?) are still subject to the 14-day travel ban from the US. Granted, those bans don't apply to spouses of US citizens ... but then again, spouses of US citizens can fly into the US from Canada, and maybe they can even drive over the border if relocating to the US is considered essential travel. 

My current, pessimistic guess is that all consular posts could, relative to State Department internal guidelines, process spousal immigrant visas right now -- at least for those interviews, like yours, that were already scheduled. If a given consulate hasn't started rescheduling them, it's either because (a) they can't, because consular staff fled the country for the US (an unwise move in hindsight!) or (b) they won't, because they are very hidebound to their current office layout and practices which require a lot of people working and waiting in small space, which they cannot now do. 

 

Ultimately, your attorney's explanation (health advisory/borders) and my explanation (inertia/bureaucracy/risk aversion) probably end up in the same place: there won't be interviews out of the Montreal consulate for a very long time.

I agree if they really wanted to, they could safely conduct in person interviews without any contact what so ever. But I also agree that they have no interest in doing that or care to do that. Feels like an abandonment to couples who want nothing more then to be together and live out there lives together.

[Airline Pilot 37]

There seems to be no plan or any attempt at one. Typical bureaucracy at work. My wife is waiting for an interview to be scheduled which listening to you here is even more depressing. Our paperwork just was sent from the NVC to the consulate in March. So reading your situations it could be next year before anything happens. It’s frustrating, seeing she already lived in the US and voluntarily surrendered her green card when we moved to Canada for us both to work. When that ended it was beyond maddening to have to go through this all over again. Especially since she has already lived in the USA, has a SSAN and a US Military Spouse ID card. This is a completely broken system in my opinion. 
 

I hope you all hear something soon because the waiting without answers is just horrendous. 

Edited June 30, 2020 by Airline Pilot

[Romans13 130]

6 minutes ago, Airline Pilot said:

There seems to be no plan or any attempt at one. Typical bureaucracy at work. My wife is waiting for an interview to be scheduled which listening to you here is even more depressing. Our paperwork just was sent from the NVC to the consulate in March. So reading your situations it could be next year before anything happens. It’s frustrating, seeing she already lived in the US and voluntarily surrendered her green card when we moved to Canada for us both to work. When that ended it was beyond maddening to have to go through this all over again. Especially since she has already lived in the USA, has a SSAN and a US Military Spouse ID card. This is a completely broken system in my opinion. 
 

I hope you all hear something soon because the waiting without answers is just horrendous. 

When was your DQ? Just wondering if our paperwork is perhaps at MTL, because we too were just waiting for the interview letter. Our DQ was 29 Dec 2019. 

[jacketconfident 12]

@Airline Pilot Yes, it's a horrendous system. If I had known two years ago when I started this process that it would take so long, I think we would have done it differently. And of course, it's all the worse that they are not giving us the faintest idea of the reasons for the delay and when they expect to be able to interview again. 

[jacketconfident 12]

@Romans13 Shouldn't you be able to find this in CEAC? It should say whether your case is at NVC or MTL. 

[Airline Pilot 37]

20 minutes ago, Romans13 said:

When was your DQ? Just wondering if our paperwork is perhaps at MTL, because we too were just waiting for the interview letter. Our DQ was 29 Dec 2019. 

Ours was 10 Dec when the NVC got everything. 

[Airline Pilot 37]

The fact the the NVC in NH mails your paperwork to the consulate for them to wade through the stack to assign an interview is beyond my comprehension. Right now best case for us it appears will be 2 years apart. Again for someone who has already lived in the US before and only went back to Canada because I took a job there. To add more aggravation to this. The company I currently work for has multiple H1 visa employees that I have seen bring their spouses from arranged marriages in 90 days is even more upsetting. 

[Lemonslice 4,626]

1 hour ago, Airline Pilot said:

There seems to be no plan or any attempt at one. Typical bureaucracy at work. My wife is waiting for an interview to be scheduled which listening to you here is even more depressing. Our paperwork just was sent from the NVC to the consulate in March. So reading your situations it could be next year before anything happens. It’s frustrating, seeing she already lived in the US and voluntarily surrendered her green card when we moved to Canada for us both to work. When that ended it was beyond maddening to have to go through this all over again. Especially since she has already lived in the USA, has a SSAN and a US Military Spouse ID card. This is a completely broken system in my opinion. 
 

I hope you all hear something soon because the waiting without answers is just horrendous. 

Would she qualify for a TN visa?

[Romans13 130]

6 hours ago, Airline Pilot said:

Ours was 10 Dec when the NVC got everything. 

Ok. Seems like according to ceac website; ours is still at nvc, albeit we were DQ late Dec. 

[Ptitchou 117]

7 hours ago, Romans13 said:

Ok. Seems like according to ceac website; ours is still at nvc, albeit we were DQ late Dec. 

Ugh, that's disheartening. We got DQ in May and our case is still at NVC. This gives me very little hope that I'll even get scheduled for this year at all.