My h1b is expiring on 31st December, I have applied for extension, I was planning to do soft landing in first week of December, can I still use automatic visa revalidation ?
I finished my landing on Sunday 12/17/17 at thousand island/Lansdowne, I stay in East coast, drove around 6 hrs to reach the border.
First we need to pay a toll of 2.75 usd/3.75 cad at a toll booth in cash only, after 5-10 mins drive from this toll the border crossing comes, it also looks like a toll booth only, here the Canadian officer asked me the purpose of my visit, I said landing as PR, then he took our passports and verified and gave us a yellow slip and asked us if the car belonged to me, I said it's a rental car, he showed a place to park the car and told to go inside the office.
No one else was landing at that time. We were just asked for passport/copr, how much funds we have , address in Canada. Then he asked us to put initials in some places in copr and sign at the end. After this another officer checked the goods to follow and goods accompanying list, he told he just needs one and asked me put all in one list, so I put everything in goods to follow list, he stamped the form and gave a receipt for it. That's all and I became a PR.
Next day I went to service Canada and got SIN, it was also very fast no wait at all and then went to TD bank and opened an account, make sure to take an online appointment 2 or 3 days before you travel from the bank near your place of stay. An appointment is needed to open an account.
The following day I returned to US, I was using AVR as my Visa expired in 2014, here US officer at the booth was not able to verify my status and he told my Visa expired in 2014, he took my passport, I797 and showed me a place to park my car, another officer at the parking asked me to handover the car keys, I took all the documents, my wallet and cellphone with me. Inside the building after a while another officer called my name and said the same that my Visa has expired in 2014, then I mentioned about AVR, he verified the I797 and after a while he said they are revalidating my Visa and gave an orange slip to get back the car keys. That's all I'm back home . All the best to everyone.