Montreal Interview....

[constance_13]

Greetings,

I have my interview in Montreal on this coming Thursday at 8:30am. I know this interview is just to prove that my marriage is real and I am not overly worried but though I would post and ask for any feed back on what I can expect at the Montreal consulate and the interview.

I have both my waivers (I-160 & I-212) ready (They look very good and are very well put together. We have lots of evidence and such and I feel we have a STRONG case); I also will have my two money orders and everything else I need to submit. We have waiting a long time for this and I am very anxious.

Also, I know the adjudication process is extremely varied but does anyone know the average current time on processing these two waivers once submitted in Montreal? I know this is extremely doubtful but we are hoping I might have a chance of being home before the baby is born….I am due May 6th, 2008. We also have to call the senators office back once I have had my interview (as per their request) and I believe they are going to help us. (I am hoping and praying they will)

Thanks for any and all impute!!!

[gaby]

good luck Constance, and I hope you can come back before the baby due, there are few people here that havee cases over in Montreal, hope they can check in and give you more info.

[emt103c]

Montreal is an easy consulate to interview at. . .mostly because they will let the spouse into the consulate. Don't forget to pay CLOSE attention to the prohibited items list and DO NOT try to take in a purse.

(I forgot and accidentally took a key FOB in with me one of my trips and had to hand it over.)

They take a pretty long time, and were not nice about the waivers, in fact were a little confused.

They originally tried to tell me I needed both when I did not. I felt like me being there with hubby made a big difference to the officer, he acted differently when I came than he did before I showed up--I was late because of a blizzard snow storm on my way in NY.

It's good that you have the waivers ready, though, because trying to get them to reply to emails for a second appointment is very difficult. Waivers there take a bit of time to process. On the spreadsheet there is as wide a margin as six to 18 months.

Something I'm a little excited about is that they are processed in Vermont and Vermont recently started posting their 212 processing at 6 months, which hopefully means even the ones being processed with a 601 since that happens frequently. They do not post the times for 601's.

I wish you the best of luck for a speedy process!

May I ask what your case is for, or if your SO is originally from Canada?

[kenaly]

I had good luck with Montreal. I was there with my husband for his interview. My senator was able to expedite his waiver. Most Montreal I-601 waivers are currently taking about 12 months I am sorry to say. Make sure that when your approval comes in that you have kept any RCMP reports updated as after 12 months they will need to be redone. Good Luck!

[constance_13]

Thank you very much for the info. I wish more then anything my hubby could have come to the interview but due to starting a new job he was unable to get the time off with out cause a hassle and we felt it was important for him to have a securer job with good benefits for when the baby and I come home. Our lawyer told us there was not guarantee he would be let in with me and that it may or may not help so we had make the choose based on that and it seemed more important to keep his boss happy at this point then to not……I hate having to make these chooses……its so hard. But we also wanted to make sure he would be able to come up to Canada for the birth of our baby if I am still stuck here so saving to have time off for that seems a higher priority if that makes sense.

I am Canadian born and raised. I have no criminal record and have never done anything wrong till the day I tried to cross the boarder and lied to the crossing guard. I was so scared they would not let me go back down to Cali that I used poor judgment and lied instead of telling the truth and asking for help on how to stay in the US for an extended period of time. I lied about my employment status in Canada and my intentions. I will NEVER do that again let me tell you. This was the second scariest day of my life. I was held for 6 hours, finger printed, had mug shoots taken, questioned, was not allowed to use the washroom or the phone. It was freezing and I was not allowed to get my coat from the car. It was horrible and I have never been treated so bad in all my life. I honestly though I was going to jail.

I was giving an order of removal and determination of inadmissibility under section: 235(b)(1) & 212(a)(7)(A)(i)(I). With this they gave me a 5 year ban. This April will bring us up to 2 years since this all happened. We had made several errors….I had gone down to Cali for 6 months and then came back to Canada for 2 weeks and this all happened when I tried to re-enter. My husband and I had tried to research the immigration laws and process many times and were simple at a loss. The sad thing was we were going to see an immigration attorney when I got back from my trip but I never made it home.

Points of our case:

1. My mom and law was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer and is going through chemo and radiation
2. My husband lives beside his grandmother and helps her as needed due to her health deteriorating. He is her security.
3. He helps care for his aunt how has downsydrom
4. He helps care for his step-grandma who is confined to a wheel chair and since his mom’s diagnosis she has needed his help and support even more in that roll.
5. His sister is only 14 and relies heavily on him
6. Since our separation he has been diagnose with clinical depression and anxiety and is different meds
7. He suffers from head aches and migraines and they have been come increasingly worse since our separation
8. He is only 25 and in Oct “07 he had a stroke and was hospitalized for 4 days (this was the scariest day of my life - I though I was going to loose him and our baby was going to have to grow up with no dad). There is no medical explanation for him to have had the stroke and the doctors feel it’s directly related to the stress he has been under.
9. I am 6 months pregnant with our miracle baby (I had to have surgery, go through infertility treatment and plan it all when he was going to be visit to conceive)
10. We have lots of family and friends down in Cali and a huge support network included living in a family owned home.
11. We have nothing in Canada
12. He has a job with a School district in the IT department and he is also going to school.

That is my case in a nut shell. I am sure I have forgotten some things but those are the highlights. We had an attorney put our wavier together and it looks very good. We have lots of affidavits and all the medical records for all the above mentioned ppl. I really hope they will approve everything. I simply want to go home. This has been a LONG HARD almost 2 years and all we want is to be able to start our family in one place.

[constance_13]

This is us (the 3 of us) at Christmas this last year, my hubby came up for 5 days:

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd171/constance_13/JAChristmas2007.jpg

[emt103c]

You all look VERY cute together.

You saw the document from me in the other thread. I was with my hubby the day he got stopped. . .I was THE reason, along with a foreign visa in his Canadian Passport.

They held BOTH OF US--I'm the USC--for nine hours under same circumstances. . .no bathroom, searched MY CAR, MY BRIEFCASE, MY PURSE and MY RECORDS on the computer. They treated me as if I was trying to sneak my husband in, then they told me I was going to marry him, divorce him and defraud the government.

They tried anything they could to scare us. . .it was horrible. I will never forget it. . .when they finally let me have my cell phone back they threatened me from calling an attorney.

I last saw my hubby at Christmas too. . .we're mourning the fact that we cannot go ahead and have children now with the separation.

I'm working three jobs just so I can keep busy and afford my airfare to QC :( Along with immigration fees. . .

[constance_13]

OH MY GOODNESS....I am so sorry to hear your are going through all this too....it is crazy to me how they can treat ppl so bad and get away with it. I know the money that keeps going out is incredibly hard to keep up with as well....its seems every way you turn someone has their hand out for more.

We are extremely lucky and our family is helping us or there is no way we would be able to fight this. The cost is so high and we did use an attorney as it was just so over all our heads and we did not want to mess up again.

I am sorry you have to hold off on starting your family. We had decided to start tiring when we could (every visit) as we knew that the chances of it happening were extremely low and I was also getting older. I am currently 31. I had been working with a specialist in Canada for 5 years to help keep my endometriosis under control and to help manage the pain. He has been wonderful and he made sure we could plan all the treatments around when my husband was up visiting. I still feel the timing is a bit off as this is our first child and my husband has missed most of my pregnancy and I feel so sad about that but we are both extremely happy we were able to have our own children so it’s double sided. I just hope we will be a family soon and I can go home and have the baby in Cali. I still find it absolutely crazy how this horrible immigration process effects every aspect of your life and you have to base personal family decisions on what is happening. In the end we decided that no matter what was happening with the process we wanted to do everything in our power to start our family. I am still completely amazed it happened as the stress alone was enough to make your body not allow the miracle to take place let alone the IF challenges. So we believe this little one was destine to be and I have to say she (yes it’s a girl) is a tough little bean….she has hung on and stayed safe inside when most pregnancy’s would not have made it through. Truly our little miracle.

I wish you all the best with your process. Stay strong.....I truly know how hard it is. I believe if we can get through this we can get through anything!!!!

[emt103c]

I believe if we can get through this we can get through anything!!!!

I hope you're right! :)