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| Montreal, Canada |  Review on October 30, 2013: |
Evan11
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
Hey Gang,
Had our interview this morning and we were approved!
Stayed at the Travelodge, which was pretty grungy and felt like a low-budget dorm room, but I didn't in until about 11:45pm and was out at 6:15 the next morning, so I wasn't there long and it served its purpose. It was about a 10 minute walk to the consulate, but I walked past it and went to Tim Hortons first.
Everything was pretty straight forward and similar to anything anyone else has ever written. I got in line at about 6:45am, there was a fellow VJ'er already waiting, and within seconds another VJ'er showed up with her fiancee. We all hung out and chatted until just after 7:30am. At that point they opened the doors and let us in one by one. Got through security very quick, it's almost exactly like an airport, went down the stairs and into the basement, sat in the chairs next to the elevator. I had a magazine with me to read, but at that point I was so nervous/ excited that I could focus and just made small talk with the people waiting around. They let us into the elevator around 8am, so we only waited in the basement about 15-20 minutes. I wasn't the first one in the elevator, but nobody else went for the back left corner so I snagged it 
Got up to window 14, was first in line but they weren't quite ready for us, so we waited a few minutes. Eventually she called me up, I got C1, and went to the waiting area. Sat and waiting another five minutes and then they started calling numbers. Surprise surprise, they called C2 and C4 first. Waited about 3 minutes and then they called C1 and C3.
The first section is pretty straight forward. Asked me for all of the documents that I was required to bring with me, made some small talk and took fingerprints. They gave me a handout about how to report domestic violence in America, which I appreciated, but I'm not imagining will be a problem. Went back and sat down for a minute or two, then got up and wandered around and looked out the windows at the beautiful view. After about 3 minutes or so total, I was the first to be called for an interview.
The interviewer was very nice and apologized a lot for having to be so official and bureaucratic. Asked me the usual questions, where and when we met, what our jobs are, where we plan to live. We made small talk about New York City. As expected, the "difficult" part of the interview came when she looked over the financials. My wife and I didn't have a joint sponsor, and we're both actors in theatre, so on paper our income looks pretty meagre. I was prepared and whipped out employment letters and bank account statements. She looked through them and did some adding on her computer to check if we had enough to satisfy the poverty line requirements. She started to get really sketchy about it and I realized she had missed a sheet, so I pointed it out to here and she said "Ahhhh, thank you. Perfect" and typed it in. Then she said congratulations and told me she was approving my green card. She gave me the welcome letter and asked if I had any questions, I asked her if there was any way to speed up the passport return, she said no but that she was going to try to get it issued later that day. I said thanks, and that I'd hug her if we weren't separated by thick glass, she laughed and I left. Was out by 8:45am.
It's super easy as long as you're prepared!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #13139