Agm

My fiance and I had sent in the final checklist necessary for the K1
visa process at Montreal on August 2nd. I called the Montreal
Consulate two weeks ago to inquire as to the status of the application,
since I had been reading on various newsgroups and websites that it was
taking around one month to receive an interview letter from there.

The lady who I was directed to in the visa department looked up his
case number, and told me that they had received the checklist 2 weeks
prior and that we should be expecting the interview letter around 1
week after the day I spoke to her.

Time passes and no letter.

This time, we asked his mother to call since we are both working and
cannot make calls from work. The response she got was entirely
different; the lady told her that "he (fiance) was told it would be at
least two months before he would hear anything" and that a letter was
NOT sent out, and that we should be expecting one no earlier than
November or December.

Who are we to believe? I don't know if I should call a third time as I
hate to pester people, but it has thrown our wedding planning out of
wack as well as his employment situation since we have no idea if he'll
get an interview this month or three months from now.

ian-mstm

I can't tell you how many times in this forum, people have been sorely disappointed because their wedding plans were based on the *chance* that a visa will be issued in a timely manner. You should not believe anyone you've spoken to, and you should probably not call again... you may get an entirely different third answer... all of them correct and all of them incorrect depending on the point of view... yours or theirs! You should probably plan to postpone the wedding until your fiance has the visa in his hand. He has 6 months in which to use it and a further 90 days in which he needs to be married. This gives you almost 9 full months to plan a wedding.

Always remember Ian's two USCIS mantras: 1) An emergency on your part does not constitute one on mine; and 2) I am not responsible for your lack of planning.

Feel free to substitue appropriate words to fit your situation vis-a-vis your fiance and the Montreal consulate.

Ian

Agm

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I had not planned on calling again, the
disappointment really stems from having had the first reply only to
find out it was not a timeline upon which we could work on. I had
ommited it from my original post, but I was curious to see what other
people's recent K1 experiences have been with Montreal.

We'll just wait for the paperwork to come through, whenever it does.
The only complication that is problematic is that his company allocates
employment based solely on 6-month contracts; his contract is up for
renewal at the end of the month. What we did not want to do was for
him to re-sign a contract, only to have to break it in half the time
because of his move down there.

Now while I completely understand that our inconveniences are not
USCIS's concern, it does make it difficult on the
petitioner/beneficiary's end to have no clue as to when a visa
interview is set for employment situations such as his.

I suppose he'll have to find a new job that doesn't require a contract,
which I hope you understand is rather a bummer, though entirely not
USCIS's fault or concern.

meauxna

When he gets the visa, it is valid for 6 months before he must enter the US. There is time for him to complete his work contract.

ian-mstm

I agree with Meauxna... he has 6 months in which to use the visa, so he could complete his contract. That said, he's moving to the US... it's not going to make a whit of difference immigration-wise if he breaks the contract mid-stream and leaves Canada... well, unless he has a super strong moral conscience or something.

Ian

Agm

True :) I do have another question though, once the K1 gets stamped in
his passport, will he be able to visit the US before moving down here
to get married? His PoE is through one of the Ontario-US road border
points (Sarnia, Windsor usually). Or is he required to use his K1 visa
the first time he travels to the US post-approval?

meauxna

There have been reports of people being able to do this posted to visajourney.
At first, conventional wisdom was that there was NO way this would be allowed (to enter without activating the K-1 visa). Turns out to happen every now and again, but it is at the discretion of the border agent. I'm not sure I would want to bank on it being possible, but it has happened.

cindyabs

yeah, really wouldn't bet my paycheck on it, since it is a one way visa, NOT mulitple entries............

Agm

Just a followup -- we got our interview letter today, with a date of
Nov 23 :) A nice amount of time for planning to go to Montreal, etc.
Thanks for the advice, all

Mh

In article <[email protected]. com>,
AGM <[email protected]> wrote:
    >Just a followup -- we got our interview letter today, with a date of
    >Nov 23 :) A nice amount of time for planning to go to Montreal, etc.
    >Thanks for the advice, all

As long as the weather holds (and there are no fire alarms - I had to go
through security 3 times as a result :-)

MH