GitmeOuttaHere

OMG I am so frustrated at the doctors at my local clinic...

I went in and told them I wanted a Tetanus shot and an antibody titers test so it can show that I have had all my vacs when I was a kid, as I had no proof but I know they were done.

They asked me why I wanted them and I told them it was for an IV and the doctor tried telling me I needed 3 or 4 additional shots as well (TB test, HIV, Syphilis, Hep A/B/C)

They were also trying to talk me into a chest x-ray too and I had to flat out tell them NO!....

I already checked the panel physicians website and spoke to the medical peeps in T.o. so I knew I did not need all of that. I finally settled with them and told them that as long as I am not going to have to pay anything out of pocket they could do whatever they think they need to...So I did end up getting TB test, and a full diagnostic screening for antibodies.

Went back today for the results and they tell me that I do not have any antibodies for Hep B according to the results so now they want me to get that too..

We were actually going back today to have our kids get their Hep B shots anyway and I was just about to give the ok for it for myself but then they were out of the vaccine for the kids so we have to go back and get them done anyway so we put mine on hold too....Fortunately..... because I checked the website when I got home it says that Hep B is not required for my age bracket. I called the pharmacy and told them to cancel the script for my Hep B which saved me $100 since it is not covered.

I think the doctor at the clinic I am going to is just doing anything he can to rack up and bill as much as he can on each one of our health cards.

Does anybody know what the mortgage companies in the US require as far as length of employment in order to secure a mortgage...

Although our credit is excellent here and we will have at least 20% to put down pending the sale of our home, we both need to find employment when we get to our destination since we are both leaving our (crappy) jobs here in Canada. I hardly doubt we are going to be looked on very favorably walking in to a bank and dropping a down payment on them but having no sustainable income.

Right now we are considering a short term lease or rental until we can establish the rest.

So since I am going on an IR-1 I can come and go after I get my passport back with my visa in it without actually doing my poe just like I do now, and then save my visa for when I want to poe?? If so that is great news.

Hey Flames nice to see you around..."You probably remember me cuz I was the one last year saying how it would be easier for us to just load up and pretend we were going of to shop and just decided to stay....lol

Glad we decided to do things the right way, as we are almost done.

I am going to have the IR-1...Once I get my passport back after the interview can I still go back and forth for a while without making it a permanent POE? I thought it would be considered my POE the very next time I enter the US and I would have to wait until I get my green card until I could come back to Canada?

Initially I would like to be able to keep making our normal weekly shopping trips over before we actually load up the u-haul and be gone for good.

Or is it up to the discretion of the CBP I assume?

Wow, I totally feel for you. I am unsure about the whole entry thing after getting a visa too. And I do understand how "convenient" it is in a border city because we go over almost every weekend. As for timelines you could take a look at mine if you like. We got our interview appt via email last Friday and it is scheduled for June 20th. I called T.O. for the medical on Monday morning and finally they returned my call today. We have our medicals set for June 11th.

Now the fun begins...Listing the house by this weekend, making plans to go to TX and stay about a week to find a place to rent. Then come back and do these appointments. Hope the house sells fast too.

My wife is the USC, but also holds CDN citizenship and up until now she has never had US residency, so we have to find somewhere to call home in the US before we get to MTL.

It almost seems like it has been harder for us as we have NO ONE in the US to help with any of this.

I am not going to risk it..As long as our interview goes fine I will wait until we are ready to POE and enter the US at that time. I can always send the wife over by herself to do our weekly shopping and gas.

Finally got a call back from the office today after leaving 2 messages yesterday and one today.

Have the appt set for the 11th so it only 9 days before my interview date.

Going to try some Poutine and I have also heard that we have to try a "Beaver Tail"??

Was trying to find something close, but finally decided on L'appartment over on Sherbrooke. May be a bit of a walk, but should be fine for us.

Just registered for DHL. Thanks for all your help!!

Any recommendations on a hotel close by to stay at? 6 weeks from now we are going to be going thru this process. We are going up the day before and staying the night.

I just wanted to add my 2cents here and say that with all the data and ####### that is required and all the checks and balances that they should have in place (for background checks and stuff) throughout this whole process, I would hope that (in my case anyway) this should be as easy as getting a rubber stamp. I can understand the need for the interview and the grilling that some people may get because obviously some do try and do this just for citizenship....but honestly having been married 20 yrs to my usc wife and dragging the kids with us, selling our home and leaving our jobs here...This is not something we have taken lightly, but are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to start a new life South of the border. In my case we have no skeletons in the closet, and we have jumped through all the necessary hoops to get to the interview stage of this game. It really should be a simple process at this stage and some J-hole who is having a bad day better not mess it up for us.

Other than our immediate family, we have kept our intentions on the down low with our employers and even our neighbors are going to freak when they find out we are selling the house and leaving. Our jobs here aren't what we consider career establishing/management type/pulling in big dough type of jobs. So yeah my boss can suck it

Got our email on Friday. Our Interview date is set for June 20th @ 9am.

Finally reaching the finish line

I am so stoked....Just got our email with our interview date today!!!

June 20th is the day for us. It is going to be so worth it!!

I am going to update my timeline now.

they do have KD here but it is called Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. but it tastes different. I have gotten used to it though. also Heinz Ketchup tastes different but I have been buying Hunts NO HFCS ketchup which tastes pretty good..

the only things I really miss are McCain frozen cakes (I was shocked when I found out that they don't sell have them down here), pizza pops, alphagetti, cheese whiz (the stuff they call cheese whiz down here is gross ) coffee crisps, Mr Big Bars, All Dressed chips and white freezies that taste like cream soda..

OMG the white ones are my fave!!!! Will try and bring a case with us when we go.

To the first question - you should have a residence established there. At least that is my understanding. Fortunately my husband and I already have a place and he is currently living in it. LOL, he won't unpack and so the place a somewhat of a shambles until I'm there to fix it Teeheehee. But yes, you need to have a permanent address there before the interview.

As far as the rest is concerned - others more knowledgeable will have to answer you.

Good luck. Talk about LAUNCHING a new life. You guys are doing it is spades!!!!

Yep, it seems very different for us because my wife's parents are both Canadian, but were actually living and working in the US back when she was born.... so as odd as it is, she is the only one that is a USC and yet we have all been living here in Can. for 40 years now.....I hear everyone on here complaining about how hard it is to be apart and waiting to finally get a visa, and all though I do sympathize. It seems even more of a feat to try and do what we are doing since all she has is US citizenship, but she has no US Job, or residency as of yet because we have had it all in Canada. Almost like both of us are beneficiaries even though she is actually the petitioner. So we are literally taking up our roots and selling everything and we are BOTH starting a new life in the US. Can't wait to move and get out of here.

I would not panic, maybe they just need to confirm some info with you or something? Hang in there!!

How was it in T.O.?

We have 3 medicals that we are going to have to have done (spouse and our 2 kids) not sure if we should spend a long weekend and go to Toronto and have them done or go further East and do them in MTL.

LOL...Got this same email last week too....I guess this refers to both of us since we are both living and working here in Canada

The "For Sale" sign is going up this coming weekend either way, as I would prefer to go to MTL with the place at least listed if not already sold by then anyway.

Kinda sucks though, how do you not plan on moving 1500 miles away without having at least made arrangements to rent somewhere?? We are wanting to go down and check out some places and make plans to start renting in July hopefully. What do they do at interview time when they ask where we are going to be living when we get to our destination? Do we say "I don't know because you advised us not to make travel arrangements"?

Also...say we go to the interview and get approved and then get all our documents and stuff from dhl a few days later...Do you have to do a PoE the very next time you enter the US, or can we wait on doing our actual poe, but continue to go back and forth like we do on our current canadian passports for a few times. Does getting approval "flag" something in the system so that the cbp will wonder why you are trying to enter without doing a poe?

Once I get over with my USC wife am I "stuck" there for a certain period of time where I can not come back to Canada??

OMG where do they not have Goober....I find it on both sides of the border here.

Should I plan on taking a stockpile of KD with me?? I didn't realize that they don't have that in the USA. Not that I eat it much anyway. Maybe I could bring it and sell it for a profit...lol

In all seriousness, I am glad someone brought this up because we never gave any thought whatsoever to what food stuffs we might be missing.

Reminds me to bring a few cases of Vernors with me since we can get it here on both sides of the border, but my friends out West in Alberta don't have it and can't get it. lol

Congrats!!

It took me some time to figure out how to use this as the site seems not to match the directions. I took a screen shot of what worked for me today so that others may not have to spend all the time to have to glean the information from this thread.

1. It is now track by shipper's reference

Thank you so much for posting a screen shot.

I am not 100% sure it is ours, but we got the email from NVC saying that they have all the documents necessary to complete our case and we will be contacted when an interview date is scheduled.

Tried the date we received the email and the search turned up nothing, but tried again with 1 day before we received the email and found only 2 cases, 1 going to MTL and the other to BC....So I can only hope that the one heading to MTL is ours. AS of right now we are still waiting for an interview date to be scheduled.

My stuff is on its way to Montreal from the NVC. Just waiting to see what our interview date will be.

Not sure if my updates will help but here goes.

1. Country USC resides in: Canada

2. Is there a USCIS field office in this country / Is DCF still possible? No

3. When did you file the I-130: End of Oct 2011

4. How long had you been living abroad: 40 years (been married for 20)

5. Do you reside in the country legally? Yes (also have a "Canadian born abroad" birth certificate.

6. What is the reason for your residence: My Canadian parents moved back to Canada when I was 2.

7. Did you list your foreign address on all forms in I-130 package? Yes

8. Did you send I-130 package from abroad? No, (live close to the border so we went over opened a US bank account and mailed it from the US.

9. Did you include evidence of your residence abroad in the I-130 package? No.

10. Did you mention the fact you reside abroad in the cover letter or write a letter describing your current situation and the evolution of your relationship with your spouse (mentioning your residence abroad)? No

11. Has your case been "auto-expedited"? How long between NOA1 and NOA2? See my timeline. I think it was 17 days between receiving NOA 1 & 2

All that being said, we intentionally slowed the process down....

We signed up for EP and did everything via email, and purposely did not send certain sets of documents in until we wanted to.

You will notice large gaps of time in my timeline where we held off on paying AoS fees and sending in the DS-260, and I-864. We do not actually want to do our PoE until July at the earliest. Since our case was sitting at NVC in late Dec/Early January we purposely skewed our timeline so that we did not have to be going to Montreal in February or March.

I guess the good news in all of it is that today we got our email from NVC saying that "All documentation necessary to complete the NVC's processing of your case has been received"

also says as soon as an interview date has been scheduled we will be notified.

Is this what they consider a case complete at NVC? I assume so. I will update my TL as soon as we get our interview date.

I priced out a 10' truck from Uhaul from Southern Ontario to Minnesota (about a 12 hour drive) and it was going to cost me 1200 bucks! I am still unsure what I am going to do. I am pretty sure you get penalized big time for picking up in one country and dropping off in another. Because just for kicks I checked what it would be to pick up the same truck in Detroit and it was 550. I am considering getting my fiance to pick one up in Detroit when he flies in to see me and bring it across, load it up and bring it back in MN. Not sure if that is asking for trouble or not though.

We are wondering about doing the same thing. It would be very easy for us to make the 20 min trip across the bridge and grab a Uhaul instead of driving one directly from Windsor. I haven't checked with our local uhaul dealers yet, but I am sure there is probably some larger fees when trying to uhaul "internationally" I am not sure how the CBP would handle it on either side, maybe I should call them and ask.

Unfortunately there is no "pod" service in our area

We are at the NVC waiting stage now and are hoping to get an interview date soon.

The last thing they requested from us that we had not sent was my sponsors pay stub to prove employment, which seems odd to me because her job will end when this is all done and we will both be trying to find work when we get to the US.

She has a US bank account with a decent amount of cash in it(and so far that is all we have as far as domicile is concerned), we have sent our mortgage and house appraisal documents to them already, as we are intending to sell our home and move once my visa is approved.

We are planning on moving 1500 miles away from where we live now down to the Southwest US. So at this point it has been difficult getting motivated to spend the time and money flying across country just to check out a place and rent it before we have even had our interview scheduled. My wife has applied for the licenses required to do her type of work in the state we want to move to...should that not show enough intent? Hopefully we will get an interview scheduled soon.

So far myself I have had good luck with the NVC.

We sent our 260's in about a month ago, and got back a response withing one week that they could not process it and further because we did not send our I-864.

We purposely had not sent it in at that time and were holding it for a while.

Sent our I-864w's for our kids in mid April...no problems, also sent our I-864 and 5 days later got back a checklist saying that we did not send in the I-864...

Go figure in all the prepping of our documents, and having 9 different attachments to add to our email to the NVC, I forgot to actually attach the I-864.

Resent in just the I-864 this past weekend...If things keep up as they have been we will probably hear something by this coming weekend. Would love to start May with a Case Cleared from NVC.

This time we got a response in 3 days and they requested a pay stub from my sponsor as proof of current employment.....So we sent that in and hope to hear from them again soon.

Seems strange for them to request a stub when her job will be ending when this is all done anyway since we are moving to the US and both our jobs are currently in Canada.