Well, just to share our interview experience specifically:
My husband attended his PR interview in Mexico City. It took place 8 months after we initially sent our application in. He said the mexican woman was nice/straighforward. It was in Spanish even though we requested English, because he too has been speaking perfect english for over 5 years. He says she asked him only 3 questions: about the genuity of our relationship, about a legitimately declined refugee claim long ago, and about why he first came to canada.
At the end of the interview, the interviewer said she believed in the genuity of our relationship and was recommending approval.
Unfortunately the ARC interview 7 months later was much more brutal. Before my husband even sat down,the officer stated he had already thought our application through and was declining. The interview was just a chance for my husband to change the officer's mind (apparently). It was a man with multiple tattoos and earrings, from Quebec. He was mean and discouraging. He said he didn't care about our relationship, even said "yah, you're in love, blah blah blah, i'm not disputing that", but mainly focused on the "why didn't you leave canada", etc. issue.
He made several comments about my ability to simply move to mexico to be with my husband and that we could do rather well there (hah! i barely speak a word of spanish, maybe 1 short sentence, and would need to apply for residency in order to work there, i think minimum wage is $4 a day???---and the process takes a long time). Not to mention being away from my family and handing the keys to our house over to the bank and abandoning my entire life. Nice work buddy!
Anyway, my husband was calm and answered his questions.
In the end, he asked if the application was really declined, the office confirmed, yes it was on the spot! As he was convinced that we
could start a life in Mexico.
Is this a recruitment office? or Immigration? Boy! they are trying hard to bring some blondes down there!
Anyway, i really don't think you can judge how your application will turn out if it's given in Spanish or English, and by what questions they ask you. It's all strategy and probably different approach from one applicant to the next. It's nice to have a little hope in the meantime while you're waiting for the response though. In our case, even though he said we were declined we still rationalized that perhaps it was some sort of strategy to see how my husband would react.
Well that's our interiew story.
Other than that, we did get a positive response regarding the genuity of our relationship, just to let you know, my parents/sisters did not attend our wedding in Mexico. They don't even have passports and have never travelled out of the country. We did provide statements from my parents about their full support of our relationship/wedding and a brief explanation as to why they did not attend our wedding (financial hardship/work obligations/lack of travel experience/no passports/planning celebration upon his return). Also, my father had a heartattack (unrelated!) the day before our wedding, so was really good they didn't come or he would probably not be alive right now. We didn't even have a set wedding day when i went there because we weren't sure how long it would take to get a wedding permit and the authorities gave us a really hard time down there. It took 1 1/2 weeks and my trip was 2 weeks.My husband's parents and family friends absolutely did attend though. We even had a Mormon missioner interpret in English the vows for me (as they were all in Spanish). We were married by a local Judge's secretary. Long story!) ha ha
Also, we were not married with wedding rings. His mom showed up late and forgot to bring them.
I also didn't change my last name to his, upon returning to Canada.
We don't have insurance policies in each other's names (we're a bit young for that).
I haven't even had the time to do our joint taxes even.
But we have been together a long time. Have the support of family and friends. Provided emails, 3rd party emails (he and my mom/ me and his mom), phone records (showing an exuberant amount of talk time), also, about 10 pages worth of calling cards in addition to phone records. A "selection" of pictures. Plane tickets. Event tickets and receipts and lots and lots of letters/cards back and forth. Also some money transfers from when i was in University and he sent money to his starving student girlfriend (me). I'd have to say, proof of interaction between each other's families definitely helps. Our file was about 4" to 5" thick.
Hope our info helps.
Good luck with everything and let us know how it went!
