Degerli arkadaslar buradan Montreal’de mulakata girmis ve dosyasi onaylanmis, Turk vatandasi olmayan bir talihlinin deneyimini olur da ilerde Montreal Konsoloslugunda mulakata girecekler olursa diyerek paylasiyorum.(Mulakat ingilizce gerceklestirilmistir)!
Arrived at 8:35 for appt. @8:45, at the gates/doors - security lady asked for Pasport that was used for appt. - verified and printed/glued sticker with our info behind each passport and gave us printed tickets with queue number, then regular security check up, scanner, belt, keys, cards, take off to run under scanner - then they directed to small lockers on the left side to turn off cellphone and close/keep the keys with us.
Then we were showed the elevator and told to take it one level up. At the first floor - there is waiting area with seats and other ppl waiting for their own different visa interviews and cases etc. there is also security at that floor as well, they’ll ask for ticket which was given downstairs and will tell us to take a seat and wait for your number to call from TV or intercom.
Wait was not very long (around 15 minutes) and then we were called to go to a certain window. We all went there, and lady greeted everyone and informed us kindly that others can go back to waiting area while I can only stay and hand over to her documents one by one per applicant.
Document handover process took almost an hour, and she was super kind, thorough and methodical. She even helped with copying a few documents that I forgot to make extra copies (for marriage certificate - I had included original and copies only for myself, but it turns out for your spouse’s applications we should make another copy and include it). After that fingerprints and I was further directed to another window to make the payment - visa credit card - US/CAD exchange rate was mentioned at 1.30 at the cashier window. Made payment and was handed a receipt which I took back to document collecting officer. She called my spouse for her fingerprints and kids were too small for fingerprints, (11&9yo), so we were thanked for everything and asked to go back to waiting room and wait for the call from TV which will indicate another window. We went back to waiting area and waited around another 15-20 minutes and were called for the interview to a different window.
Officer greeted everyone and asked whether we take an oath that whatever we had completed/submitted in our applications are true and correct, and then fingerprints again - for my and my wife only. And this time instead of kids, I was asked to scan extra time. Then questions: where we were born, what do I do here in Canada, what is my highest education degree, what field I studied, which country was it, name of university, what year did I graduate, when did we get married, were we married before or it is our first and only marriage, do we have other kids, adopted, etc, have we been before to the US, for what purposes, what was the longest stay in the US, what year, were we ever refused entry to the US, were we ever refused a US visa before? When, where? where are we going to go in the US, who lives in that address that we are planning to immigrate, what does he/she do in the US, their US status, whether were we arrested or convicted in the past, have we ever lived in any other counties in the past for more than 6 months, what other countries we have been in the last 5 years.
Each time when I was answering he was making notes on his computer, writing down and very kind and encouraging officer that would make the whole interaction human like conversation versus robotic interrogation. He would comment: “wonderful, great, amazing, etc after each responses which kind of makes you feel a bit at ease. And after all the questions, he initiated original document review which was handed to him by previous lady officer who collected documents from us. So each answer was double verified from his computer(notes from earlier conversation) back with original documents - he was making those review loudly, so we could hear. Like year of graduation - he read from his computer 2013 and referred back to original diploma and said to himself check, and so on…as far as one my police clearance certificates that was unobtainable from China - I had included letter of explanation - one pager with attachments - printout responses from Chinese embassy in Ottawa, consulates in Montreal and Toronto stating that I would need to appoint someone in China to obtain the document on my behalf - he read through - and I also instead of police certificate from that particular Chinese city had a letter from my employer attesting to my good conduct during my residence in that city - so officer said that employer letter would suffice.
Also, early in the interview Kids were also asked for their dates of birth and what grade they were in now and whether they’d prefer to be in school today or there - to which he got school response and we all had a good icebreaker laugh.
Upon detailed review & quick read thru - he said everything seems good and he would make recommendations for our visas to be approved. And handed us back all the originals with tracking instructions and said it might take 2-3 weeks to process and congratulated again and wished us luck in states!
PS:
I had my bank statements printed out from two banks, my spouses bank statement, did appraisal for my car, letter from my employer stating my current salary, and even also krypto currency details as proof of funds :))) none of them were asked so I did not provide those - but had them with my just in case….
I also competed DS5535 supplementary form, with my details of travels for the 15 years - there were more than two pages of trips to a lot of places, my full list of relatives, address details for the last 20 years and also my detailed CV (not resume) I handed those to collecting officer lady - she handed them back to me saying that keep them with you and in case interviewing officer asks you - then you can provide those to him…so I took them back and was never asked for them during the interview.
Once all complete, we headed back to elevator down, took phones from locker and finito!