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| Montreal, Canada |  Review on May 21, 2009: |
AddyG
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
I arrived at the embassy at 6:45am for my CR-1 interview. I was the first one in line. Moosker waited with me. About 5 min after we arrived other people started showing up. I am not sure if it was because it was a Wed, but by the time the security guard opened the doors at 7:35am there where 10+ people behind me (twice as many as when I waited the morning before with Moosker). The security guard waved everyone over and let us in. I was the first one in and through security, yet they gave me the letter B and gave the family behind me A.
Once through the security you go down some steps, follow the yellow arrows on the floor to the waiting room for the elevator. I was there waiting by myself for 5 min before anyone else came. People slowly came into the waiting room and after about 10 minutes the elevator opened and the security guard called A,B,C&D to get in the elevator. I remembered reading the doors of the elevator opened on the other side so I faced that direction and giggled. No one else turned until the security guard warned them the doors would be opening on the other side. We went up to the 19th floor and sat in the waiting room. (And yes the view of Montreal from there was amazing!) We were in the waiting room by 7:50am.
Nothing happened until around 8:35am when the first name was called. It wasn’t mine or the family’s. It was the girl who had D. Next the family who were A was called. By around this time another elevator load of people had come up and around 30 people came out. I honestly couldn’t believe how many people they had packed in there.
At 8:45am my name was called. For the first stage they use counters 9,10,11&12, which are down a hall past the ladies’ restroom. There are basically windows that you stand at with small dividers between them. There is only a small opening to slip papers under back and forth. I had not clearly heard which number I was to report to but there were only 2 windows vacant. I went to the first vacant one and asked if she was waiting for me. She said no, so I went to the remaining window where I could see the lady had my passport open and my file. I stood there for a minute and she did not say anything. She was reading. She was an older lady with glasses and blondish/whitish short curly hair. She was very pleasant. I was asked how I met my husband, some questions about my previous addresses (I have lived overseas) and she asked questions as she went through my history and calculated timelines based on the dates. I really didn’t have time to answer any though, as before I did she had moved on to the next question. She was pretty much talking herself through my paperwork and was reading aloud and seldom let me answer anything. She wrote notes and ticked things off in red pen along the right side of the forms. She saw I had the police check from the other country I had lived in and moved through the paperwork quickly. She asked for my sealed envelope containing my medical results and for the Xpress envelope. I had already filled my address into the TO: section and she stamped the embassy stuff into the FROM: section and put it with the rest of my file. She told me to go back to the waiting room and she’d call me back.
When I went back the waiting room none of the others from the original 4 were done yet. I was back first. When they got back they told me they had been asked lots of questions. Most of them had been asked for their sponsor’s 2008 tax info, which they did not have. (They had never heard of Visa Journey) There were also a few that did not have an Xpress envelope either and they were mad they had not been told to bring one and they were getting more nervous.
At 9:05 I was called back to the same window to do my fingerprint scans. The lady was having computer issues and had to re-start twice. She was talking to her co-workers who were telling her they also had restarted several times that morning. She let me sit in one of the chairs directly across from her window instead of going back to the waiting room. After about 10 minutes she apologized and said it should be fine. I did the left fingers, then right fingers and then the 2 thumbs. It took a while to get good scans that were acceptable on my right hand for whatever reason. She said my fingers were not flat enough. After that she asked me to return to the waiting room and wait for my name to be called into either room 7 or 8.
At 9:20 when I got back everyone from the original group was waiting again for a long time. People from the other side of the room were starting to be called to different windows for different things by this time and it seemed like the waiting room was almost full.
I was starting to fall asleep I was so tired. The guy who I had been chatting with who was letter C was called into Rm 7 around 10:45. Names of the others people were staring to be called into the rooms 7&8 - 2 small closet-like rooms located across from the ladies’ restroom in the hall towards counters 9,10,11&12. They too had a window to stand at with only a little slot to pass papers under. When the guy with C came out he said he was a bit flustered because they asked him to fill out more forms regarding his finances because he was self employed. He asked to use my pen again.
When I was called to room 7 at about 10:55 there was a kind lady behind the glass with her computer. She said “Good Morning” and asked me how I was. She was smiling a little. First she told me the computer would pick a random finger to verify it was really me. It picked my left thumb so she asked me to place it on the scanner. After that was done, she asked me to raise my right had and take an oath everything in my paperwork or that I was about to say was true. After that she asked again where I met my husband. She said it must be nice to have a spouse with a common interest. She asked when we got married, how often I have been to see him, whether I liked the city he lives in, where we will live, whether the address on my form was still current and whether it was safe for sending stuff to me. She asked me what my husband did and if he had filed his 2008 taxes – I told her he had and asked offered her the photocopies I had. She asked if she could keep them to add to the file. I said yes. She asked if I was ready to move to the USA – I said no… she laughed. She said “Well… you better get ready because I am granting you a Green Card today.” She gave me the “Welcome to America” letter and explained how long I had to enter the USA asking “Will that fit into your schedule?” and told me what to expect when I entered and activated it. She said I should get the passport with the visa in it back in around a week and that when I received the condition 2 yr green card in the USA there would be more papers and info with it. I was done at about 11:05 and went and told the nervous lady I had been speaking to what they asked and told her to relax. The other guy I was speaking to was still filing out the additional forms. I told the others to say goodbye and good luck to him and let him keep my pen!
All in all – it was soooo easy and as long as you are prepared there is no reason to stress at all! I was only speaking to the 2 ladies for a combined total of about 20 minutes max and most of that was watching them check through paperwork and enter stuff into the computer. 
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #4427