The dreaded DS-5535 thread for Montreal. Post here and support each other (PART 2)

[Tikitch 21]

22 hours ago, emergence said:

Interesting. I still somewhat doubt this based on how some officers explain the DS-5535 - “The system flagged you”, more or less. It was clear from how the officer interacted with my fiancé that he had been flagged beforehand and that the interview was more or less a formality at that point. He barely asked any questions. 
 

I would love to get in touch with the higher ups at the state department to get some answers, but I’m sure that’s functionally impossible.

See I was the opposite. I was approved by the consular offer and told in max 2 weeks ill have my visa, then I got home and received the DS535 a few hours later.. The emotional rollercoaster....I have no words.

[LAMA9 118]

14 minutes ago, Tiabeanie said:

That might be dependent on where you live because in my spouse's case it only took them 2.5 weeks to receive their police record from the RCMP.

Very true - usually 3 weeks tops if using Canadian Fingerprinting Company in Toronto.  

[Tikitch 21]

I was requesting info to get my passport back while my application is in AP and that's what the officer said:

Also note carefully again everything it says, including:  “Along with your passport, you will receive a letter indicating the latest date you have to resume your application without the need to pay a visa application fee again. “

 

Does this mean my visa will be paused because I asked for my passport back?How does this make sense???

[throwitaway 189]

1 hour ago, Tikitch said:

I was requesting info to get my passport back while my application is in AP and that's what the officer said:

Also note carefully again everything it says, including:  “Along with your passport, you will receive a letter indicating the latest date you have to resume your application without the need to pay a visa application fee again. “

 

Does this mean my visa will be paused because I asked for my passport back?How does this make sense???

I don’t think it will be paused, they’re waiting for the relevant agencies to return an opinion on you and it’s not like those agencies have your physical passport.

 

If you’re really concerned you can get a white temp passport. Tell Passport Canada the duration of your upcoming work trips and that your passport is in the possession of a foreign embassy. 

[emergence 47]

2 minutes ago, throwitaway said:

I don’t think it will be paused, they’re waiting for the relevant agencies to return an opinion on you and it’s not like those agencies have your physical passport.

 

If you’re really concerned you can get a white temp passport. Tell Passport Canada the duration of your upcoming work trips and that your passport is in the possession of a foreign embassy. 

It would be worth asking the consulate about that language. It certainly seems possible that they could get clearance from the relevant 3 letter agencies but deprioritize actually issuing the visa if they don’t have your passport in hand. Many people who have filed WoM have gotten nearly immediate replies, which seems to imply that the consulate already has the necessary clearances and just hadn’t finished processing the case on their side. 

[Tikitch 21]

12 minutes ago, emergence said:

It would be worth asking the consulate about that language. It certainly seems possible that they could get clearance from the relevant 3 letter agencies but deprioritize actually issuing the visa if they don’t have your passport in hand. Many people who have filed WoM have gotten nearly immediate replies, which seems to imply that the consulate already has the necessary clearances and just hadn’t finished processing the case on their side. 

Deprioritize is one thing, but they're saying "resume" the application, which I think is more concerning? I really dont know..  I really want to applaud everyone for their strength during this process. I'm personally really starting to lose it. 

but on the upside, that's some info my lawyer shared from an immigration conference he attended:

1. The State Dept. rep. claimed “within 60 days” the AP situation will get better. The ex-Consular Officer yesterday also said they are now trying to better track AP cases to get them done faster.

 

Hope so for all of us here! I've personally decided to ask for my passport back and my husband and I will be figuring out where else we can live in the meantime... We've been married for almost 2 years now and we still haven't been able to live together. 

 

 

 

[Mary184 5]

Hello everyone,

 

for those of you who were invited for the second medical, what did you do if your medical file was not opened? Did you keep emailing the consulate to open it? Doctor office says they can just do tests and upload results or email them … but is this a concern and can it cause the results getting lost?

[PNWUnited 15]

After additional documents were submitted (more specifically after receiving a 221g only post interview), when the status changes from "refused" to "Application Received- Your case is open and ready for your interview, fingerprints, and required documents. If you already had your interview, please check your status after two business days", can the application linger in this stage for a while just like every other step does? The status changed on the 29th but surprise, surprise, there are no updates today yet. It also has the "application received" status now when I look it up under nonimmigrant visa. 

 

From previous posts it seemed like this status is supposed to be quite brief, but nothing seems to be straightforward. Anyone have any recent experience on this? 

[PZibran325 112]

59 minutes ago, PNWUnited said:

After additional documents were submitted (more specifically after receiving a 221g only post interview), when the status changes from "refused" to "Application Received- Your case is open and ready for your interview, fingerprints, and required documents. If you already had your interview, please check your status after two business days", can the application linger in this stage for a while just like every other step does? The status changed on the 29th but surprise, surprise, there are no updates today yet. It also has the "application received" status now when I look it up under nonimmigrant visa. 

 

From previous posts it seemed like this status is supposed to be quite brief, but nothing seems to be straightforward. Anyone have any recent experience on this? 

It looks like they're saying that if you've already had your interview to check the status after two business days. Has it been 2 business days yet? If not, I'd see what it changes to on the third business day. 

[BatmanFlow 481]

So my congressperson got a response that embassy was waiting for documents and how it goes to third party location etc. 

this was a week after documents were sent. 
she will follow up again this week. 
 

Every part of this process is so slow. How long does it take to take the packet of documents and drive it to the embassy?!

[kryptonite 43]

17 minutes ago, BatmanFlow said:

So my congressperson got a response that embassy was waiting for documents and how it goes to third party location etc. 

this was a week after documents were sent. 
she will follow up again this week. 
 

Every part of this process is so slow. How long does it take to take the packet of documents and drive it to the embassy?!

How was your experience in contacting your congressperson? What state is it if you don’t mind me asking? My case doesn’t require me to submit any documents and I still haven’t heard back after 4 weeks from my interview date. Thinking I might reach out to my congressperson.

[BatmanFlow 481]

Just now, kryptonite said:

How was your experience in contacting your congressperson? What state is it if you don’t mind me asking? My case doesn’t require me to submit any documents and I still haven’t heard back after 4 weeks from my interview date. Thinking I might reach out to my congressperson.

They aren’t a lot of help in general cause they can’t do much anyways. You get assigned a case worker and that case worker reaches out to embassy. 
but what does help is that embassy definitely reviews your case and gives the congressperson an actual response rather than copy paste stuff we get when we email embassy directly. 
 

for me I asked to actually speak with congressperson and I got a one on one meeting with him. He promised to write a letter on my moms behalf and send it to embassy. this took like 2-3 months to actually happen. But before they even sent the letter, my moms DS 5535 cleared. 
but once they sent the letter the embassy looked at the case and finally sent the email asking for documents, like passport medical again. From Clearing 5535 to sending me email about documents it took embassy 28 days. And it only happened cause congresspersons letter went to them. So in that case it did help. 
 

 Now since they have the documents I’m emailing my congressperson to follow up with embassy since the AP is, almost, done and they need process the documents we sent. I believe in this stage congressperson contact is helping. 

in conclusion I think you should get your congressperson involved and push for a meeting with him or her. They might say 4 weeks isn’t too long but worth a shot. 
my moms 5535 cleared after a year. 
 

I'm in California 

[kryptonite 43]

17 minutes ago, BatmanFlow said:

They aren’t a lot of help in general cause they can’t do much anyways. You get assigned a case worker and that case worker reaches out to embassy. 
but what does help is that embassy definitely reviews your case and gives the congressperson an actual response rather than copy paste stuff we get when we email embassy directly. 
 

for me I asked to actually speak with congressperson and I got a one on one meeting with him. He promised to write a letter on my moms behalf and send it to embassy. this took like 2-3 months to actually happen. But before they even sent the letter, my moms DS 5535 cleared. 
but once they sent the letter the embassy looked at the case and finally sent the email asking for documents, like passport medical again. From Clearing 5535 to sending me email about documents it took embassy 28 days. And it only happened cause congresspersons letter went to them. So in that case it did help. 
 

 Now since they have the documents I’m emailing my congressperson to follow up with embassy since the AP is, almost, done and they need process the documents we sent. I believe in this stage congressperson contact is helping. 

in conclusion I think you should get your congressperson involved and push for a meeting with him or her. They might say 4 weeks isn’t too long but worth a shot. 
my moms 5535 cleared after a year. 
 

I'm in California 

Thanks for the response! I might follow up after a week or so to allow for some more time for them to do their processing. 

[LAMA9 118]

6 hours ago, Tikitch said:

Deprioritize is one thing, but they're saying "resume" the application, which I think is more concerning? I really dont know..  I really want to applaud everyone for their strength during this process. I'm personally really starting to lose it. 

but on the upside, that's some info my lawyer shared from an immigration conference he attended:

1. The State Dept. rep. claimed “within 60 days” the AP situation will get better. The ex-Consular Officer yesterday also said they are now trying to better track AP cases to get them done faster.

 

Hope so for all of us here! I've personally decided to ask for my passport back and my husband and I will be figuring out where else we can live in the meantime... We've been married for almost 2 years now and we still haven't been able to live together. 

 

 

 

Thanks for the intel.  AP cases (simply missing or incomplete documents, medical hasn't arrived or RFEs) are one thing but DS-5535 is a whole other ballgame.  Did they specifically comment on the DS-5535 case wait to improve?  

It seems there is now a mix on this thread of just 221g APs and DS-5535 cases, which can make it confusing as to what people's circumstances are.  Waiting 30 days in DS-5535 is nothing and you can expect months to go (dare I say could be a year or longer).  We tried the congressman and senator route while  a few months into DS-5535 and it went absolutely no where.  They got the same canned response we did and they don't hold any jurisdiction over federal department of state to get them to move any faster on "security issue vetting" which DS-5535 is. (all of us criminal Canadians).  

Whichever camp you are in (AP or DS-5535) I wish you best of luck!  My DS-5535 cleared last month after 11 months and 3 ish months after filing a WOM. 

[PNWUnited 15]

1 hour ago, BatmanFlow said:

So my congressperson got a response that embassy was waiting for documents and how it goes to third party location etc. 

this was a week after documents were sent. 
she will follow up again this week. 
 

Every part of this process is so slow. How long does it take to take the packet of documents and drive it to the embassy?!

When the documents arrive to the mail processing location, they only get picked up on Mondays and Thursdays- so depending on the time they arrive, it may add a few extra days to actually get picked up. My document arrived at the facility on the Friday before Canadian Thanksgiving, so it unfortunately added an additional week before it even got picked up. Even after that, it took 6 weeks and 5 days for the status to change to "application received" (so 7.5 weeks from the time it arrived at the mail facility), which I assume is when they finally manage to look at the document. The process is certainly painfully slow