Frankphoto

1 minute ago, DamAk said:

That's wonderful news!!

Is it in administrative processing? They send the tracking number after it changes to final processing.

 

Also, do you live in a different time zone than Montreal by any chance? It's strange they updated it after 5pm otherwise lol.

I live in the same time zone (NYC) so yeah I'm not sure ha. It says issued, but yes the paragraph beneath says "your case is undergoing administrative processing... etc"- does it usually change to final processing pretty quickly or should we expect another week or so of waiting you think? 

We want to take it as good news but at this point after almost 3yrs we will wait to celebrate until she sets foot outside the airport!

Our case was updated today, but still refused- I wonder how long it takes to stamp a passport? Imaging C.O. hovering the stamp 1ft above and slowly lowering... 

3 hours ago, DS5535 said:

Literally the worst headache I've had in my life (up to date) nothing helps. Tylenol, tea, Vicksburg, nothing... I'm rooting for you guys.

 

@Frankphoto @Rosinasaur @deep2ca @BatmanFlow are yall still waiting? Everyone else from the original crew are issued right?

The consulate received my wife's passport on the 25th; I just checked the CEAC portal and status is still refused. Really hoping it will change soon and she will get that damn tracking #

Consulate received my wife's passport yesterday. Of course now it is the weekend, but still checking CEAC status again; for now still refused, last update Feb 2. Really hope to see some movement on this next week. 

1 minute ago, wa1756 said:

I tracked it everyday, the passport was dropped off in Toronto, now it is sitting in Richmond, BC. just cry for everyday !!!

Given that it is literally being sent to the consulate down the street, I'll be livid if it takes more than one day. My wife says the person working there said it would be there tomorrow. 

1 minute ago, From_CAN_2_US said:

Oh no… I hope you have tracking?

 

@Frankphoto Perhaps sending my UPS / Purolator is more prudent 

Yes we have tracking; I was under the impression we had to use this service. The instructions were very specific... 

39 minutes ago, wa1756 said:

I mailed our passport to Montreal, My wife passport is still stuck in Canada Post for more than two weeks, it is not be delivered, only waiting,  it is very frustrating, you should be more careful. 

Careful how though? My wife dropped her passport this morning at the montreal post office. Hoping it will not take two weeks... 

For those of you who mailed your passports, is it pretty straight-forward? Are there any other weird unexpected steps in preparation/mailing? 

I just thought I would add, I did reach out to my congresswoman's office. In my personal experience, I don't think it did squat. I reached out quite early- within 10 days of receiving our DS5535, I filled out the privacy form for my wife and submitted it online. I received an email confirmation for this. 

I called them a couple days later; the caseworker assigned to me was not in, so I spoke with someone else in the office- she did not handle immigration cases but was still extremely well-versed on the subject, which we discussed for a bit. Ultimately she told me they needed to wait at least 2 weeks before submitting an inquiry. My initial concern that I brought up was that I had not received any confirmation after sending my completed DS5535 via email, and also that there was no proper template/form to complete this form, making sure I had done it correctly, etc. 

Anyway, as you all know, we didn't hear squat from the consulate apart from those form responses. I called my congresswoman's office back 6 weeks after DS5535 submission- my caseworker was not in yet again; this was just before the holiday break. I spoked with the same woman and we discussed it for a while; ultimately I asked that she please at this point let my caseworker know that I would like an inquiry to be made requesting a specific status update on our case and to please email me once that has been done, to which she said no problem, we will do that for you. 

I never received any email confirmation or an inquiry being made. I called again 2 weeks into January and still couldn't get in touch with my f**king caseworker. At that point I just told the person on the phone not to bother, as I had read several bits in this forum about how their representatives were receiving the same emails that we were... at any rate, in my personal opinion, it seems pretty ineffective. The person who I could speak with on the phone from time to time even said that administrative processing cases are with the state department, so there's nothing they or the consulate can really do to get specific information about where things are with the processing. Just my experience. 

Also, for the spreadsheet, since we have received the email to return the passport, but the visa status remains the same, I wasn't sure how we should be updated? We received the passport email on Feb 10, just to make sure it's all accurate there. 

6 hours ago, hkn1 said:

Wow!! Looks promising indeed, given they are asking for her passport back! Congrats on the update and thank you for sharing. Hope it turns to ready/issued, soon!

Thank you- we just think it's odd that there seems to be no real standard procedure here. Don't others usually see a status change on the ceac portal, and not receive this sort of email until a week or two after? And us, maybe the other way around? 

At any rate, we are trying to take it as good news, but we can't help but be suspicious!! We are currently in France together but she will return to Montreal in a week or so to submit her passport. So for those of you who need to travel while in administrative processing, if they gave you back your passport, that seems totally fine at the very least. 

28 minutes ago, Federico said:

How many times you have been updated ?

I think around 5 times. 

Our case was updated today, but still refused. 

9 minutes ago, US2197 said:

Did they ask you for proof of marriage or anything? 

this honestly just depends on the mood of the border agent you are dealing with. She lucked out, but it's always a toss-up whenever my wife would come visit me. Sometimes whatever. Other times, they would treat her like a wanted criminal. 

3 hours ago, Federico said:

I am crazy checking CEAC almost every hour and nothing but one day it will show something different than “refused”.

right there with you.. 

For any of those who were recently approved, but the consulate didn't keep your passport, can you share how long it took for them to send the email with instructions to send the passport back? My wife has her passport, thankfully, as she is with family in France at the moment, but we were wondering if we get the good news, how much lead time she has to return. 

Just a minor quip that our case was now "last updated" to today 1/26, I guess because of the email. 

21 minutes ago, ice-qube said:

I just can't believe a spousal immigrant visa coming from Canada has taken more than 2.5 years. It is so incredibly frustrating now, because it seems like there is no end in sight. My medical expires on March 20.

It's really unbelievable, I can't believe even that is lost in delays...

My spouse is actually from France. Our situation is weird, since we met when both living in the Caribbean. I am now in NYC, she initially moved to Montreal to be as close as possible (work visa)- I proposed, and thus this nightmare began. At any rate France is not on the *** list with USA either so... 

I sent a public inquiry to the consulate (using their online form) on 1/19. I received the standard template reply today from OP03. 

My wife's case remains "refused", last updated 1/6/22, so it did not update due to this email. 

I will be calling my congresswoman's office today to speak to the caseworker who was assigned to me. I've been speaking with their office since November; obviously it has not yet made any dent. I didn't expect it to to be honest- I was hoping they could get some more detailed information about the status of where things are at. But that doesn't seem possible either. 

5 minutes ago, ice-qube said:

Ya I don't get what the delay is here. I am now at 90 days since DS-5535 submission. No updates or answers from email of two weeks ago. Is 13 weeks not a sufficient amount of time to do a security review on someone?

Totally share your frustration. For what it's worth, our timeline is similar to yours, we submitted our petition in June of 2019. 

I checked status today and has not been updated since Jan 6th

6 hours ago, ashleyt93 said:

Also was just thinking about what could’ve flagged my fiancé for a DS-5535, he had a Europe (Germany, UK, Czech Republic) trip with a couple of our friends from college and he only went for a total of 10 days. Do you think they could just want additional information on his travels there? He hasn’t gone to any other country besides visiting me in the US and he spent 4 years at university in the US with me. As far as his employment history, he is a programmer but hasn’t been employed since the beginning of the pandemic but did work for GardaWorld which is a security firm, but it’s a Canadian security firm so I can’t imagine that would be an issue from the US perspective because there are definitely GardaWorld locations in the US. Just trying to think of what could’ve possibly flagged him. 

You can read through all of our various theories, but they are just theories. We don't really know what triggers DS5535.

1 hour ago, ashleyt93 said:

Do you happen to know why you were given a 221g? Not sure if that helps in this situation

best if you start from scratch and read through all 40 pages of this forum; it is very informative and will help paint the picture best for you and answer all questions (well as much as can be answered, many of us are just as much in the dark about it). Bottomline, submit the DS5535 asap- do not hesitate. 

4 hours ago, DS5535 said:

@ice-qube I know I asked you to let me know about any updates but since I sent that message ive checked about 40 times.

 

I got updated today Jan 6, 2022 but still "Refused"

 

Did yours update?

same with my wife's case,  updated today but still refused.