cdngirl3

I am looking for recommendations for a Canadian bank to switch my Canadian accounts over to (from my current Canadian bank which is no longer an option), that will eventually make transferring funds to the USA as easy as possible. (The catch is that I have already immigrated to the USA so I'm not sure which ones will also let me open an account while not being a resident of Canada. I am able to travel back to Canada to open it in person.) Thanks for any advice!

Just curious if anyone knows of a weather app (for Android) that shows the temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit at the same time. Just thinking it would help me learn Fahrenheit while still allowing me to check the weather in Celsius (which is what I'm used to  ). Thanks!

19 hours ago, mam521 said:

Someone recently was turned around at the border when activating their green card and attempting not to import their car.  If you search the forum, you'll likely find it.  She ended up turning around, selling the car in Canada and renting a Uhaul to come across the border with her stuff.  

Would you be able to link to this post? I'd love to read about her experience but I've searched and couldn't find it. I did, however, find a post about someone doing this successfully:

17 hours ago, mam521 said:

Someone recently was turned around at the border when activating their green card and attempting not to import their car.  If you search the forum, you'll likely find it.  She ended up turning around, selling the car in Canada and renting a Uhaul to come across the border with her stuff.  

Thanks for this info! I kind of thought that might happen, so I was surprised when I phoned the border and they said it was fine. Don't think it's worth trying, though, based on this other person's experience.

Hi, just wondering if anyone has (temporarily) driven their Canadian car across the US border while immigrating to the USA, without importing it? (I won't have time to meet all the FMVSS standards before I immigrate so was hoping to import it at a later date, but would like to still use it to drive my stuff across - just wondering if this is possible? The border seemed to indicate this was fine, but was just wondering if anyone had actually done this?) Thanks!

On 9/20/2021 at 12:23 PM, YYZ&MIA said:

I just received an IL letter for October 28. I have been waiting since May. No expediting, just waiting. Did anyone else get one? All I can say is be patient, they seem to be scheduling more interviews per month based on the spread sheet from the Montreal forum. 

Congrats!!!

Just wondering, does anyone know if TPMS is required for all vehicles imported to the US or just cars made after a certain year? (I've seen passing remarks about it only being required for cars made in 2007/2008 or later? Does anyone know if this is true?)

18 hours ago, dee&vee said:

Hi how did you submit an expedite request? Is there an email address for it? 

We sent an email to the Immigrant Visa division of the Montreal Consulate (Montreal-IV-DV@state.gov). We put "Expedite Request" in the subject line, along with our case number (we also included that in the body of the email).

On 8/29/2021 at 8:50 PM, chanel167 said:

Congratulations!!! When is your interview booked for? and when were you DQ? 

We had our interview this week. Our DQ was July 2020.

On 8/21/2021 at 10:22 AM, YYZ&MIA said:

@cdngirl3 Congratulations and thank you for updating us! Did you get the letter AFTER contacting them specifically or did you expedite? Who did you speak with and how long after did you hear from them? Any information would be useful. I also contemplated contacting them as we seem to have been forgotten otherwise 😟 

I highly recommend contacting the consulate (I'm not sure if our approach is how you should contact them, but we weren't sure what to do). I think us 'reschedulers' are probably being left forgotten in a pile somewhere because they are so busy and backlogged. We submitted an expedite request outlining our current challenging circumstances, the errors that had been made by USCIS in our case, the fact that we had contacted both the NVC and Consulate in advance to try prevent having our interview scheduled close to my due date but got it scheduled then anyways, and that it says on the Consular Operations website that they are currently scheduling July and Aug 2020 DQ dates (ours was beginning of July). Our expedite was denied (within a week of sending it). Shortly afterwards, however, they reached out to us via email saying that they were planning to reschedule our interview. I'm sure it must have been because someone saw our expedite request and had compassion on our situation. Hope that helps and that you are able to get an interview soon, as well! 

Hi,

Did anyone who went through the Montreal Consulate have their status on CEAC say "Issued" but with the following afterwards? "Your visa case is currently undergoing necessary administrative processing. This processing can take several weeks. As the officer told you in the interview, if further information is needed, you will be contacted. If your visa application is approved when administrative processing is finished, you will receive notification to collect the passport with the visa from the Loomis branch you selected when you booked your appointment."

If so, how long after this message did your visa arrive in the mail?

(My medical exam didn't arrive at the Montreal Consulate on time for my interview - it came the day after. So now I don't know when the 2-3 weeks of waiting mentioned by the consular officer starts - does anyone have experience with that, as well?)

Thanks!

On 8/16/2021 at 6:22 PM, chanel167 said:

Another month passed with no interview letter Did anyone here get one? 

Yes! We finally did! I think someone had compassion on our situation after we contacted them and explained our circumstances. We feel truly blessed to have an end to this long journey in sight!

Just for the record, I know it says online what I have to bring. However, what is online and what I have been told in person on the phone with the consulate seems to differ, so I am looking for personal experiences. Thanks!

Hello,

Has anyone gone for a CRBA (and passport) appointment at the Montreal consulate, with just one parent attending (the non-American parent)? Can you please tell me what documentation you needed to bring? I know we will need the DS-5507 and DS-3053 notarized in the US and signed by the American parent. However, online it seems to say that we will also need a COPY of the American parent's ID, but on the telephone I was told I would need to bring the American parent's ORIGINAL passport. Can anyone share their experience? It would be greatly appreciated  Thank you!

9 hours ago, YYZ&MIA said:

No updates... 😟 Like I said before, I fear that they just put us back to the back of the pile. I truly hope that is not the case but they clearly arent prioritizing us at the moment and its unknown how they handle rescheduling. Yup, its) going to be 3 years for us also and almost TWO years since Ive seen my wife. That is cruel.

I am so sorry. My husband was able to visit once in the last year - for the birth of our baby (but we didn't even think we would be able to get that to work until the very last minute). I don't understand why more compassion isn't shown to those of us in these sorts of situations.

Anyone have any updates? We tried contacting the Consulate and explaining our situation. They basically said only in an emergency could they schedule us "ahead of other applicants." It's frustrating, though because we aren't asking to be ahead of anyone else - we waited just as long as anyone else (longer, by now!). We just want our rightful place in line. People who DQ'd four months after us are getting interviews now. So if we had applied for our visa four months later we would be together sooner than we will be because we applied earlier. It doesn't make any sense. At this rate we'll be lucky if it takes us less than 3 years to be together. No one should have to spend the first 3 years of their marriage apart and no son should be kept from his father like this.

4 hours ago, YYZ&MIA said:

The person you are referring to is @Emilini . Maybe if she sees this, she will update us on what is going on with her rescheduling! It will be a year in September for me as well. I also suspect a generic response but emailing them wouldnt hurt! I have no idea what their process is for rescheduling people but I have a feeling that we are not their priority. 

We have been DQ for over a year too (and applied over 2 years ago). I even asked NVC in advance to delay scheduling our first appointment because I knew we couldn't make it in the time frame we would likely be getting the appointment, but they wouldn't   I really hope we get a new appointment soon! It's so hard when we can't even see each other for visits because of the border restrictions.

Is there anyone who has gotten a rescheduled appointment since the pandemic started?

1 minute ago, YYZ&MIA said:

I got the same message. I know that in the past years, based on past posts I found, after you missed your interview date, you could reschedule by logging onto the usvisa website where you register your appointment and pick the next available date from the calendar. However, that doesnt seem to be the case these days 😟. No calendar pops up and it just says There are no available appointments at the selected location. Please try again later. 
 

I was told in one of my emails from the Consulate (back in Feb I think) that they aren't using the online system to rebook interviews and that they would contact me when something comes available. (When I recently emailed again to see if they had started using the online system again, they now told me to register online, though, which I did, and I got the same message as you - that nothing was available. The same email also said to rest assured that they would contact me when something became available.) So I'm assuming they still aren't using the online system.

3 hours ago, YYZ&MIA said:

Not yet. Are you also waiting for a new interview date? When was your initial interview date?

Yes I am. My initial interview date was in March, but I wasn't available to travel for an interview until now, so I don't know if they put me on a list (if they have one) already in March or just recently.

When was your initial interview date?

On 5/19/2021 at 1:26 PM, chanel167 said:

I requested a new interview date on April 15. I haven't received a new date yet, but it's looking like no one here has gotten an interview date for June yet  In the mean time I have gotten my Tdap booster and will be getting a new police report either today or tomorrow. I've seen some people say it takes a while to receive it due to Canada Post delays so I want to get that part out of the way! 

Did you get a new interview date yet?

On 5/13/2021 at 11:03 AM, YYZ&MIA said:

Hello everyone,

After many, many long months of waiting, we finally got our interview date but unfortunately I was not able to attend and have to reschedule. 
I am looking for people on here who are in the same boat, specifically those who recently had to reschedule their consular appointment IR-1/ CR-1 Spouse Visa Interview at the Montreal Consulate in Canada. 
I looked all over VJ forums and in general but I wasnt able to find many people who went through the rescheduling process (especially in the past year) that can share their experience, such as how long they waited for a new date etc. so Id like to fill that gap in and also get some information.

Looking forward to hear from yall!

I am in the same boat  Did you get a new interview date yet? (I'm wondering how long until I will get a new appointment.)

On 2/19/2021 at 12:55 PM, helloeverybody said:

Hi everyone do I need to take my Petitioners original Birth certificate or is a photocopy good?

Did you find an answer to this? I am wondering the same. (On the Montreal Consulate info page it says: "Your original birth certificate and that of your petitioner if applicable, English translation, and a photocopy." - but I'm not sure if that means the petitioner's has to be original?)

Hi, the list of items to bring to the spousal interview in Montreal lists:

• Your original birth certificate and that of your petitioner if applicable, English translation, and a photocopy.

Does this mean I need to bring my spouse's ORIGINAL birth certificate to my interview (in addition to my own)? Thanks!

I contacted the Montreal Consulate and they told me that they aren't using the online system to reschedule interviews at the moment (so I guess the waiting until past the interview date to reschedule online is not relevant right now). They told me they would contact me when another interview date becomes available, but advised me that it would likely be a few months.

13 hours ago, NikLR said:

so how you get a new interview date is that you will miss the interview and then you'll have to reschedule yourself.  Montreal needs to know you are doing this ahead of time.  

At what point did you try to delay things at the NVC? If you just didn't submit something you can delay for a year but it sounds like you just submitted everything when it came up.

It was probably close to a year ago now that we finally had the opportunity to submit our documents to NVC, which of course we did. I wasn't even pregnant yet at that point so we had no reason not to submit documents. I tried to delay scheduling the interview after we were DQ at NVC stage but before we had been assigned an interview.