bigbigblake

I found the 3 day metro passes to be a great deal.

It covers the 747 bus from YUL to the first exit, right on the metro station. Take the metro to near dr seidens office, cant remember the exit, then back to your hotel. Metro to interview, back to hotel, metro to 747, back to airport.

I hope you dont expect the medical results from Dr Seidens office the same day. We had to wait 4 days for ours. And barely got it the day before the interview.

EDIT: read further. My medical was supposed to be done on wed, but they delayed it a full day. Make sure you call them before heading to pick it up

So. More weird followup. As I said earlier we got welcome letters for 2 out of 3 people in family. Then we got a duplicate set of welcome letters. We opened these up and found that the third welcome letter, for my daughter that was missing was not an actual welcome letter. It was an appointment for THIS week at USCIS in downtown Ft Worth. Not even the office right next to where I work. Im a bit aggravated about that.

This letter states that my daughter must come in to have her biometrics done. She is 11 years old, and was told at both the Embassy in Montreal and the POE that she was to young to have biometrics done and they should not be required. Then we get told they are required and forced to come in.

My wife is really pissed off as we have to take her out of school for a day (appointment is at noon) with an hour of traffic + construction each way.

Shortly after getting this letter, my wife and my other daughter both got there Green Cards.

A few days later all three of them got there SSN cards.

Oh the other very nice thing was that we received our 10 year greencards, and do not have to deal with the 2 year greencards and renewals. So I am happy about that.

In other news we finally got our Welcome letters yesterday.

We got 3 receipts that they had gotten our package on Aug 4th. These had a mailing date of Aug 9th. Then we had 2 Welcome letters in the mail, mailed August 9th. Our third case, youngest child, did not receive a welcome letter at all. But plugging in her case number claims she is in the same boat as us, so I am not terribly worried.

I have no idea why it took them so long to mail the letters (Aug 9th-Aug 13th) when the Texas service center is literally 15 minutes from me.

Oh well. We also went to the Social Security office last Wed to inquire about getting SSN's. Sadly they were not in the system yet.

The technical length of time you are "supposed" to wait before applying for an SSN is 21 business days and not 10. They said its to account for the slower POE's and paper pushers.

Just thought I would share!

I don't believe the whole "its easier to get into Canada" routine.

The first time I went to visit my future wife I got pulled into secondary and questioned for a long time. They gave me an entry visa and told me I had to be out of the country in 14 days.

If they intend to keep visiting I would highly recommend against overstaying past the 180 days. Canadians are considered Duration of Stay but border control wont give a ######. If you don't have tons of proofs that you arn't going to do it, I doubt you will get back in.

However if they are in the process of immigrating, the Duration of Stay does not count against you and you are not automatically banned 10 years based on the current memos at Montreal.

This is just our experience with it. The Interviewer didn't care at all that my wife had been in US for over 2 years before returning to Canada.

However, when we reached the border, the first person at the car booth began to question us about it, even though we had the US visa in hand. She made a bit of a fuss regarding it, and she most definitely would have been denied crossing without a visa in hand.

K3 is a dependent of a K1.

Its K1 or IR1 (married first)

ok i have a question, does anybody know how long it takes to get a US passport? we need to get one for my husband, he has never had one before.. we are thinking of going to Canada next month..

they say 4 to 6 weeks on their site but i am hoping it is quicker... wish we would have taken care of this sooner...

Google is your friend. And ready your wallets:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/hurry/hurry_831.html

DOS people are idiots. Dont trust anything they say till you get the e-mail from DHL saying its been picked up and the one saying its ready for you to pick up.

Its better to just ignore DOS in my opinion. Every rep will tell you something different and none of it will be related to your case.

Nah, I read on your blog about the checkmark being ignored, so I figured it would just be easier to walk into the local office that's only 15 minutes away and order the SSN's.

We POE'd through Pembina North Dakota on Wed the 27th. Thats 9 business days so far. 13 normal days.

We are going to attempt to obtain a SSN card on the 11th, hoping thats been enough time.

We have not received our welcome letter yet, so cant register for tracking at all.

Its been a bit longer then it took you Saylin, but every part of yours seemed to go a bit faster then the average it seems.

We are about to move out of our apartment in 2 weeks.

I know I need to update addresses with USCIS. Does this just involve calling the number for USCIS even though I dont have an active case number from welcome letter yet?

Thanks,

Once you are approved, you will wait X days for them to process your visa.

Once the visa is processed you get an e-mail from DHL itself saying it was picked up.

In this e-mail it has a link to sign up for the delivery to your door, (with an added fee).

You must register with DHL prior to having your interview by following the steps online.

Did you do this already and select your local office? if not do it!

How long past POE does it take to receive your green card for most people?

Do you get a USCIS notification/text message regarding it?

If she is from Canada, then the process is a bit different then what others are saying.

Canadians are not under Visa Waiver program and are not restricted by the 90 day visit. You will get ###### for being in the country over 180 days, but it does not necessarily result in a 10 year ban!

http://shusterman.com/unlawfulpresence-canadians.html

http://immigrate2us.net/forum/showthread.php?44337-Canadians-overstay-and-the-3-10-year-bar&highlight=canada+unlawful+presence

My wife came into the US, Married me (no it wasn't planned), and stayed 2 years.

She then went back to Canada, Applied for Spousal Visa, and got approved with no issues at all.

We didn't need proof of anything from the 2 year visit at all.

Im glad to hear they fixed there X-ray machine. It was broken on our visit. We had to to head way down the street to a wierd place to do our x-rays. It was like a 40 minute walk, but luckily we had our bus passes.

We headed straight down I-29, an early stop in Fargo for sleep, lunch in Sioux Falls the next day and then headed for the floods in Omaha. Was not a pleasant drive home, especially once we reached the 100 degree temperature and the air conditioning in the truck went out.

We POE'ed at the Pembina crossing in North Dakota on Wed. It was about an hour to get processed, but no harassment or anything and they knew what they were doing. A long drive from Winnipeg to Texas and the air conditioning broke in the truck on the way back, totally awesome!

Wish everyone else luck, but im gonna enjoy having my wife here for a bit and probably stop following the threads for a bit!

Yeah as an update ours was picked up by DHL on Friday, so all is in plan. Driving my truck up tomorrow after work.

Please visit http://usvisa-info.com/en-CA/selfservice/us_courier_information and follow instructions for “IV Applicant Needing to Register for DHL”. You need to register for the DHL courier services, for us to return your passport to you after the interview. If you have any further inquiries about the courier services, please visit http://usvisa-info.com/en-CA/selfservice/us_service_options

This is the instructions for IR visa. Dunno which you are right now. They are similar though

I am just speculating here. From the previous posts we know that you can get the "do not open" package re-wrapped at most consulates with a fee. So i assume that if you get a replacement passport then you can send it in and pay whatever charge and they will give you a new one.

I hope its that easy.

They only asked me for my 2010 tax transcripts.

They didnt verify originals on anything else. Just that and my AOS original signed papers.

This will teach me to never bother calling again.

I called DOS at 4:30 PM right before they closed and asked about my case.

The lady told me that my cases were on Administrative processing and not even completed. I said oh really. Thats not what the other people said, she puts me on hold and comes back saying. Yes you most definitely are.

So now Im worried. Wait about 3 hours, and my wife gets e-mails that DHL has picked up our passports.

GG DOS. I really would say its not worth talking to them at all.

Sounds like something is wrong. My interview was July 19 and I am picking my Visa up right now in Alberta. It took them 48 hours to print it and 24 hours to deliver it.

I don't know where you would call but I'm thinking you should start calling someone...

Good Luck!

Triple post ftw. Ive been calling daily. DOS doesn't help sadly.

Cant figure out why people are moving so quick compared to us.

That makes no sense to me. They must not keep anything in order there. Congrats on your visas though!

So I have been nagging the DOS since we are on a tight schedule for moving.

According to both the DOS and the Montreal-IV e-mail, our visas our approved, with no AP processing. They are in queue to be printed and mailed.

We were approved at interview July 15th.

Visas confirmed approved on July 20th.

How long does it normally take to print and mail the visa's?

I have next week off to help her move, which means they HAVE to arrive by Friday DHL to Winnipeg. If I have to cancel this trip, then it will delay me another week since I cant get off work the following week which just kinda sucks!

DOS also sucks to talk to. I like them even less then NVC because its a different story every person. One guy named Matt told me that the DOS cant even check our cases. Twice. Third time i just hung up on him and called back!