We spent the weekend enjoying the sights, sounds and tastes of Montreal leading up to the Interview.
I have done several Consulate Report of a Birth Abroad in Calgary so I was familiar with the security process or so I thought. It was same basic rules as the Calgary one but way way more relaxed and casual. Being familiar with the process we simply left our cell phones and anything that was not allowed at the hotel. But unfortunately we forgot the car keys so we had to check them in until after the interview.
I (the petitioner) had basically done 98% of the prep with paperwork up to this point. I took the advice of many here to organize everything with sticky tabs...That is key to success!!! So my wife and I went over everything a couple times the evening before.
One of the questions she asked me about the night before on how to answer was about if she has ever been denied entry. I didn't think it would be an issue as it doesn't effect her eligibility. However, it was a question that was asked and because of her honest response the guy in window 7 was very helpful and entered some extra notes on her file to make her entry at the border go more smoothly he said... time will tell as we haven't entered yet.
The back ground to this was that last summer she was coming down to visit me and we weren't sure exactly how long she was going to be down. A couple nasty border agents (at Minneapolis, avoid this point of entry at all costs has been my experience) accused her of intent to immigrate. Which was ridiculous as she had already been down on a 4 month visit earlier that year and if that was our intent, we would have done it then. Anyway, it was quite traumatic for her as she was 4 months pregnant and had a 2 and 4 year old in tow. She "withdrew her application to enter the US" and they sent her back on the next plane .
One key thing is to ALWAYS be honest, but at the same time you must be careful how you word things.
My wife said everything went really well and the agents were all very friendly and helpful. From my perspective though it was tortuous as I am used to being the one to deal with this type of things. Sitting wondering if I organized and explained all the paperwork well enough was actually quite stressful.
Overall the process took about 45 minutes as we were the second people in line for the interview.
Consulate / USCIS Member Review #22045
Review on June 30, 2017:
