Thread for outland Buffalo applicants!

[Ambber29]

Greetings,

Can you post your timeline here please? so that we can add you to the excel list.

Goodluck for the interview!

Application received August 22
Transferred to Buffalo Nov 01

 

[Ambber29]

You're right, g-man, and I blame my calculator even though I didn't use it! ;D

I agree it's a long process to test our patience, and hope we will all be thrilled with the results soon.

When did they apply?
They let us know that we will have an interview but there is no date.
I hope it happens soon

 

[GOGOGO]

Who are you referring to?
Mark5 (Feb2011)
GetUsHome (Feb2011)
York Region (May2011)
g-man (Oct2011)

When did they apply?

 

[g-man]

So y'all are going to become PRs of each other's countries at the same time? How's that going to work as far as meeting residency requirements for each country to retain permanent residency?

Initially we started my wife's because the plan was to move south. After things changed, I started mine. My wife's is still in the works, however the one nice thing about the American process is that we can keep the file going indefinitely simply by calling USICS once a year and "touching" the file. Which is great because we're already halfway done and all the fees are paid!

Also once I get Canadian PR, as long as I live with my wife outside of the country, my PR status is maintained!

 

[Ambber29]

They all are going to have interviews?
They mailed us the letter on January 11 that they will set the interview date.
How soon can it be? It is already a month so may be they will set the date for next month or usuaully 2 months?
We applied in August 2011.

 

[GOGOGO]

Only Mark5 & GetUsHome that I'm aware of. Others may provide more information.

They all are going to have interviews?

 

[Ambber29]

Only Mark5 & GetUsHome that I'm aware of. Others may provide more information.

I remember someone who applied in June had his interview in January. I just can not remember the name. We applied in August so may be we will have interview in March. I hope so.

 

[Quince777]

I remember someone who applied in June had his interview in January. I just can not remember the name. We applied in August so may be we will have interview in March. I hope so.

User 'yanik34' had his interview recently. He posted the whole thread about his interview in NYC.

 

[Moonlightprancer]

Congrats!! ....by in depth...what do you feel he meant?? could you give us all an example of how thorough you were? Congrats again!

Well I am a school teacher and that led me to be extremely organized on my package. My husband and I did not have the "typical relationship" having 4000 miles between us. I am an extremely sentimental person and took many photos etc kept bus cards of restaurants we went to and receipts for everything. I then started with oldest to newest. I broke my evidence up into the categories they expressed they wanted. Travel, communication, joint accounts, gifts, wedding, other, and photos. In each section I combined everything from oldest to recent. Then placed each section in an envelope with a typed mailing label on the front declaring what was inside each envelope. I also created a spreadsheet index of every item Nd detail for each section... Just in case it came out of order or lost or something. Basically this index said Item, Date, Description. It looked as shown:

Envelope #1 TRAVELING TO SEE EACH OTHER
- card stock paper title page stating contents
- card stock paper spreadsheet of each item detailed
- reg white paper photocopies of luggage tags, airlines ticket, shuttle bus receipts, ferry tickets etc.
(aprox 30 pages )

I did this format for each envelope. Then the photos were arranged by year/ visits. Each visit had it's own envelope and each photo had a mailing label on back with names birthdates and a sentence description. Wedding/ honeymoon had it's own envelope. I then threw about 12 small envelopes of photos into one large one and slapped on a label describing that it was photos.

I didn't know how much was enough so I included photocopies of brochures of places we went to a bunch of receipts from restaurants and wrote on my spreadsheet who was with us at the time. I also included a years worth of text message records and highlighted every time it was us texting/ calling each other other or our in-laws .

 

[AmericaninQuebec]

Well I am a school teacher and that led me to be extremely organized on my package. My husband and I did not have the "typical relationship" having 4000 miles between us. I am an extremely sentimental person and took many photos etc kept bus cards of restaurants we went to and receipts for everything. I then started with oldest to newest. I broke my evidence up into the categories they expressed they wanted. Travel, communication, joint accounts, gifts, wedding, other, and photos. In each section I combined everything from oldest to recent. Then placed each section in an envelope with a typed mailing label on the front declaring what was inside each envelope. I also created a spreadsheet index of every item Nd detail for each section... Just in case it came out of order or lost or something. Basically this index said Item, Date, Description. It looked as shown:

Envelope #1 TRAVELING TO SEE EACH OTHER
- card stock paper title page stating contents
- card stock paper spreadsheet of each item detailed
- reg white paper photocopies of luggage tags, airlines ticket, shuttle bus receipts, ferry tickets etc.
(aprox 30 pages )

I did this format for each envelope. Then the photos were arranged by year/ visits. Each visit had it's own envelope and each photo had a mailing label on back with names birthdates and a sentence description. Wedding/ honeymoon had it's own envelope. I then threw about 12 small envelopes of photos into one large one and slapped on a label describing that it was photos.

I didn't know how much was enough so I included photocopies of brochures of places we went to a bunch of receipts from restaurants and wrote on my spreadsheet who was with us at the time. I also included a years worth of text message records and highlighted every time it was us texting/ calling each other other or our in-laws .

That is probably the most thorough and complete application they have ever seen! Seriously, I tip my hat to you. I have dreams of one day being a very organized person, but I'm not there yet so I think we can very safely say my application package was not nearly so organized!

 

[AmericaninQuebec]

Btw, have you guys seen this article? http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Peggy+Curran+Canada+keep+beautiful+need+immigrants/6124254/story.html#ixzz1luBEucvQ

Essentially it says that last year's census in Canada revealed that in a couple of decades population growth will be zero and then the population will steadily start to decline. Apparently the government feels that the only way to combat this will be increased levels of immigration, since even with government programs to encourage fertility rates there has still been a steady decline over the past couple of decades. Their long term projected plan for medium growth rates would see 80% of growth coming from immigration (that's about 7 or 8 people per 1000). I would say we're going to see some major immigration overhaul in the coming decades.

 

[ddobro2]

I did know about that aspect of residency for the Canadian side but I doubt the Americans have the same thing. In fact I believe the Americans are a lot more stringent about maintaining PR status than are the Canadians: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=3f443a4107083210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=3f443a4107083210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD.

Also once I get Canadian PR, as long as I live with my wife outside of the country, my PR status is maintained!

 

[ddobro2]

I don't know if anyone here has read his book but I can just picture Daniel Stoffman seething at an article like that.

Btw, have you guys seen this article? http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Peggy+Curran+Canada+keep+beautiful+need+immigrants/6124254/story.html#ixzz1luBEucvQ

Essentially it says that last year's census in Canada revealed that in a couple of decades population growth will be zero and then the population will steadily start to decline. Apparently the government feels that the only way to combat this will be increased levels of immigration, since even with government programs to encourage fertility rates there has still been a steady decline over the past couple of decades. Their long term projected plan for medium growth rates would see 80% of growth coming from immigration (that's about 7 or 8 people per 1000). I would say we're going to see some major immigration overhaul in the coming decades.

 

[Ambber29]

User 'yanik34' had his interview recently. He posted the whole thread about his interview in NYC.

I cann't find the thread

 

[Ambber29]

User 'yanik34' had his interview recently. He posted the whole thread about his interview in NYC.

I found his other thread