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| Montreal, Canada |  Review on March 30, 2016: |
bigb159
Rating:  | Review Topic: General Review
The US needs to put an interview location and approved medical facility in Halifax. This was a ridiculously long and abusive trip for us and our newborn. Montreal is a nice city... but not in March. We ended up in a ditch off the icy highway on the way there - no damage done - but this was really hard for us.
The Montreal consulate is... fine. Interview process will never be a pleasurable process, so always go in with low expectations.
On arrival, people are expected to wait outside in the cold until they clear current occupants through security. Then they check you at the door and let you in to the security room.
Basically you are not allowed to bring anything in but paperwork and the clothes on your back, and they won't hold anything for you. You will go through metal detectors and security (guards were surprisingly friendly) and head on up the elevators to the interview hall.
Directions are extremely poor and the clerk by the elevator was on the whole uninformed and useless so take some time getting your bearings of where the facilities are and where the interview windows dedicated to your class visa are located.
The room was seriously packed, people were lined up along the walls, and yet they had a full section of empty seating reserved for some other kind of visa which we were no allowed to use. You will not need to line up as you have a visa interview already scheduled.
As with every part of the US immigration system, this too was a very poorly designed system.
After a while, you'll be called out. My interviewer was professional and pleasant, so there's some redeeming value.
If you are living in Canada, reinforce with them that your stay here is temporary and you've not put down any roots, you plan to move in the near future and are already corresponding with future employers, so you don't get stuck on the "domicile" train like I did and get sent home with a refusal and petition for supporting documentation. The resulting Administrative Processing cycle is a black hole where a bureaucrat can sit on your case file as long as they like.
Let's just say that interview locations are very probably worse in other countries and locations, but where other parts of this US immigration process rated a 1 out of 5, the consulate may have gotten a 3.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #19203