ONLY - Who submitted CIC-AINP(SRS-U.S. Visa Holder Category) application

[ichintu]

Thanks Despo, i know we have been tracking each other on trackitt but i found this forum much more active and useful. How are things coming at your end? will you be moving to Edmonton or Calgary?

[despoimmigrant]

Your welcome Chintu !! Things are ok so far. i am waiting on PPR as of now so i can plan my trip to india this x'mus time. I have Secured Job in one of the fortune 50 companies in US. They do have offices in Canada also. After i get PR for canada i will try to change Job within company and ask for transfer to canada. Right now dont know when this will happen as due to recession hiring is froze in our company and they did lot of restructuring recently to balance people arround the world so i doubt it will happen soon that my request to get transferd will be approved untill situation becomes stable.

Yes this forum is the best place to hang arround. Lots of intersting people with tons of knowledge and always ready to help others with their experience. Nix and CCH already got their PR but they still hang arround here to help people like us. we all should be very thankful to them.

Thanks Despo, i know we have been tracking each other on trackitt but i found this forum much more active and useful. How are things coming at your end? will you be moving to Edmonton or Calgary?

[cchabert]

Congrats CCH, indeed you must be very very happy.
I see that you have given yourself 3 weeks to enjoy...... any travel plans?? What places are you touring??

anyone got PPR recently from NY?
come on people share some good news here !!

I quit yesterday, last day in office Dec 15 last day in US January 7

Frrreeedddooommmm!!!

Thank you guys, but no time to travel I have a lot of crab to sale and pack, time to relax will come later  :-)

[despoimmigrant]

Did anyone out there with similar situation like mine.

Came to US on F1 Visa. (Never left country US)
F1 Visa Expired in 2006 I-20 Expired in 2007 December.(never Left US)
F1 visa is stamped in Old Epired Passport. Got new passport with all blank pages.
H1 Approval Notice 797 valid till 09/2011. It was approved in 2008.(Never left US yet)
No H1b Visa Stamped in Passport yet(never left US )


Planing to use Automatic visa re-validation.

Who else is in the same boat out here.

Nix are you in the same situation like mine? if so could you please share what documents did you take along with you for AVR. i have prepared list which i will share here once i hear from you.

Thank you,
Despo

P.S. If i dont get my PR request by next week i am aplying for Visitor visa for Canada in NY consulate. Does anyone have any experience with it? Is it advisible to contact NY consulate about situation before applying for Visitor visa and let them know that i have applied for Canadian Immigration already and they are the one who are processing it. )

[6SigmaMBB]

I applied and got a canadian visitor visa in 2006 at D.C..No hassles at tht time..I had a letter from my employer (my visit was business related), visa fees and other supporting docs..showed up at the consulate at 10 and had my passport with visa by noon..

P.S. If i dont get my PR request by next week i am aplying for Visitor visa for Canada in NY consulate. Does anyone have any experience with it?

[despoimmigrant]

Thanx Six Sigma Master Black Belt !! i have also visited Canada 3 times so far on visitor visa and i know it is not that difficult to get it. But now i have Immigration file pending with final review at NY consulate(expecting Passport Request anytime ).

Did you  had your Immigration file running same time when you applied for your visitor visa in 2006?

I applied and got a canadian visitor visa in 2006 at D.C..No hassles at tht time..I had a letter from my employer (my visit was business related), visa fees and other supporting docs..showed up at the consulate at 10 and had my passport with visa by noon..

P.S. If i dont get my PR request by next week i am aplying for Visitor visa for Canada in NY consulate. Does anyone have any experience with it?

[ichintu]

Hey Despo,

I was calculating average PPR time after e-cas updates with medicals received and it seems like it takes approximately 42 days to get PPR. Since our E-Cas updated 9th November if we are the average case we should get our PPR by the 21st of Dec 2009. Another 2 weeks to get PP stamped and returned so Jan 4th 2010 we get freedom from this saga.

just my 2 cents...

[GirlOntario]

Dear Narsana:

I have a small question for you. While some post says that AINP instructs nominees that NOT TO ENQUIRE TILL 20 WEEKS after they send application to CIC Buffalo, Why did you send fax? Had  you passed the limits of 20 weeks? Any impact of that fax or enquiry? Will it makes a difference once you send enquiry? I think i had asked this question previously but this time reference is different. Please post. I mean will it be advisable for candidates to enquire CIC so they can send Medicals/AOR immediately?

[nix1]

Ok guys, I am back in the US after a week long vacation/landing to Alberta. We visited Lethbridge, Calgary, Banff, Red Deer and Edmonton. We fell in love with Banff and for a bigger city, we liked Edmonton than Calgary. One thing we were shocked to learn that Alberta was much more expensive than where we live in the US (Utah). For example, 24 bottles of water cost us $6.99 in Calgary when we can buy the same size of water for $3.99 in Utah and sometime $3.25 when it is on sale. Restaurant foods were double the price of what we pay here in Utah. For those of you who have lived in bigger and expensive cities like New York and San Francisco, it may not feel very expensive though.

While we were there, we applied for SIN, and Health Cards. We also opened a bank account in the Royal Bank of Canada. The account was NOT free. We have to pay $4 per month maintenance fee. We had to open a bank account before we could apply for the Health Cards as we had to show the proof of address for that. I tried to get Alberta driver license too, but I had to give up my Utah license for that and I did not do that. There were long waits for both SIN and health cards. We had to go to two different placed and we spent about 2 hours in each place.  

Let's talk about the landing. We got to Coutts, AB on Nov 15 about 12:45PM and we were out by 1:30PM. The landing process itself was very easy. At the port of entry, I had to roll my car window down and talk to an officer.
Officer: What is the purpose of your visit sir?
Me: We are landing as permanent residents.
Officer: How many people in the vehicle?
Me: 4
Officer: Can I see the passports and PR documents?
Me: They are in the bag in the back of my car. If you want, I can come out of the car and pull them out.
Officer: No need to do that and he gave me a yellow piece of paper and asked me to park on the left parking lot and go to the immigration desk.
Me: Do I put the paper in my car?
Officer: No, you take that to the immigration desk.
Me: Thank you sir!

Parked the car and went in and headed to the immigration desk. There were three officers and two of them were doing nothing. A lady office asked me if she could help us.
Officer: Can I help you?
Me: Gave the yellow paper and told her that we are there to land as PRs.
Officer: Give me your passports.
Me: Here they are.
Officer: Other documents?
Me: What other documents?
Officer: The COPRs?
Me: Oh, I am sorry. I totally forgot to give you the main documents.
Officer: No problem, glad you have them.
Officer: Are you the father of the both children?
Me: Yes, I am.
Officer: Are you going to sign the COPR documents for them as they are obviously younger than 14 years old.
Me: If that is how it works, then I will sign.
Officer: Have a sit and we will call you later.

She started doing some paper works. Called me to sign my COPR and kids COPRs. She asked me to check all the spellings etc on the COPR documents. She asked my wife to come forward and sign the COPR as well. She asked me to mailing address to mail the PR cards and I gave her the address. She asked me a phone number too, and I gave my friend's relatives phone number. The officer also asked me to take a photo for me as she did not like my PR photo as it did not have white background. A male officer took the photo. He printed it right away. She asked me if I wanted to look at the photo and see I like it. I made the face that I did not like the photo very much. She told me that if I am not happy with the photo, she is more than happy to make the male office take the photo until I am satisfied. She said, the photo will stay on my PR card for 5 years and she wants me to be happy with my photo. She also said that the photo meets the CIC requirements, but she wants me to be happy with the photo. I said, if it meets the requirements, then I do not care. So she went ahead with the photo and gave me 3 extra photos to keep. If I had to go through this in the USCIS port of entry, they would have deported me from right there. Canadian Officers were too nice.

After that, she stapled the COPR documents in the passports and asked us to come forward. She explained the residency rules and where to apply for SIN etc. Then she said, congratulations and welcome to Canada.  No questions about the fund at all. She pointed us to go to the Traffic and Custom desk. There was another sweet lady waiting for me. She looked at the goods accompanying and goods follow lists. Started filling out some things on the forms. She asked, if I am bringing in a car to Canada and I said in the future and the car is listed on the goods to follow list. She asked what I am driving right now. I said a rental vehicle that is in the parking lot. There were no more questions about the vehicle or goods to follow list. She asked me if I was a US citizen. I said no. She asked me my citizenship and I told her Nepal and she spelled it to make sure she was right. I said yes, She was done with the paper work and gave me a copy of it and said congratulations and welcome to Canada.

Then I asked her about the money as I was carrying a cashier's check of US$20K. I asked her if I need to do some paper work for the money, she said we will fill out a form for you. Then she did. I also said we have some cash too, she said, don't worry about it. Then we said, thank you and headed to Lethbridge.

When we came back after 5 days in Canada, the experience in the US border was not too pleasant. I will explain it on my next post.

[emceemouli]

thanks very much for sharing your experience nix....once your friend gets the PR will he mail it to you...when are you planning to move to alberta...also how was the weather over there...

we are very curiuos to hear the experiences of seniors...and we would attribute all our success so far in the application so far to you guys and this forum...

thanks,
Mouli

[kishankanhaiya]

Congratulations on your successful landing. Did you give the address in Alberta for your PR or some other state in Canada.

thanks for sharing the feedback. Looking forward to hearing your US Immigration experience.

Ok guys, I am back in the US after a week long vacation/landing to Alberta. We visited Lethbridge, Calgary, Banff, Red Deer and Edmonton. We fell in love with Banff and for a bigger city, we liked Edmonton than Calgary. One thing we were shocked to learn that Alberta was much more expensive than where we live in the US (Utah). For example, 24 bottles of water cost us $6.99 in Calgary when we can buy the same size of water for $3.99 in Utah and sometime $3.25 when it is on sale. Restaurant foods were double the price of what we pay here in Utah. For those of you who have lived in bigger and expensive cities like New York and San Francisco, it may not feel very expensive though.

While we were there, we applied for SIN, and Health Cards. We also opened a bank account in the Royal Bank of Canada. The account was NOT free. We have to pay $4 per month maintenance fee. We had to open a bank account before we could apply for the Health Cards as we had to show the proof of address for that. I tried to get Alberta driver license too, but I had to give up my Utah license for that and I did not do that. There were long waits for both SIN and health cards. We had to go to two different placed and we spent about 2 hours in each place.  

Let's talk about the landing. We got to Coutts, AB on Nov 15 about 12:45PM and we were out by 1:30PM. The landing process itself was very easy. At the port of entry, I had to roll my car window down and talk to an officer.
Officer: What is the purpose of your visit sir?
Me: We are landing as permanent residents.
Officer: How many people in the vehicle?
Me: 4
Officer: Can I see the passports and PR documents?
Me: They are in the bag in the back of my car. If you want, I can come out of the car and pull them out.
Officer: No need to do that and he gave me a yellow piece of paper and asked me to park on the left parking lot and go to the immigration desk.
Me: Do I put the paper in my car?
Officer: No, you take that to the immigration desk.
Me: Thank you sir!

Parked the car and went in and headed to the immigration desk. There were three officers and two of them were doing nothing. A lady office asked me if she could help us.
Officer: Can I help you?
Me: Gave the yellow paper and told her that we are there to land as PRs.
Officer: Give me your passports.
Me: Here they are.
Officer: Other documents?
Me: What other documents?
Officer: The COPRs?
Me: Oh, I am sorry. I totally forgot to give you the main documents.
Officer: No problem, glad you have them.
Officer: Are you the father of the both children?
Me: Yes, I am.
Officer: Are you going to sign the COPR documents for them as they are obviously younger than 14 years old.
Me: If that is how it works, then I will sign.
Officer: Have a sit and we will call you later.

She started doing some paper works. Called me to sign my COPR and kids COPRs. She asked me to check all the spellings etc on the COPR documents. She asked my wife to come forward and sign the COPR as well. She asked me to mailing address to mail the PR cards and I gave her the address. She asked me a phone number too, and I gave my friend's relatives phone number. The officer also asked me to take a photo for me as she did not like my PR photo as it did not have white background. A male officer took the photo. He printed it right away. She asked me if I wanted to look at the photo and see I like it. I made the face that I did not like the photo very much. She told me that if I am not happy with the photo, she is more than happy to make the male office take the photo until I am satisfied. She said, the photo will stay on my PR card for 5 years and she wants me to be happy with my photo. She also said that the photo meets the CIC requirements, but she wants me to be happy with the photo. I said, if it meets the requirements, then I do not care. So she went ahead with the photo and gave me 3 extra photos to keep. If I had to go through this in the USCIS port of entry, they would have deported me from right there. Canadian Officers were too nice.

After that, she stapled the COPR documents in the passports and asked us to come forward. She explained the residency rules and where to apply for SIN etc. Then she said, congratulations and welcome to Canada.  No questions about the fund at all. She pointed us to go to the Traffic and Custom desk. There was another sweet lady waiting for me. She looked at the goods accompanying and goods follow lists. Started filling out some things on the forms. She asked, if I am bringing in a car to Canada and I said in the future and the car is listed on the goods to follow list. She asked what I am driving right now. I said a rental vehicle that is in the parking lot. There were no more questions about the vehicle or goods to follow list. She asked me if I was a US citizen. I said no. She asked me my citizenship and I told her Nepal and she spelled it to make sure she was right. I said yes, She was done with the paper work and gave me a copy of it and said congratulations and welcome to Canada.

Then I asked her about the money as I was carrying a cashier's check of US$20K. I asked her if I need to do some paper work for the money, she said we will fill out a form for you. Then she did. I also said we have some cash too, she said, don't worry about it. Then we said, thank you and headed to Lethbridge.

When we came back after 5 days in Canada, the experience in the US border was not too pleasant. I will explain it on my next post.

[GirlOntario]

Ok guys, I am back in the US after a week long vacation/landing to Alberta. We visited Lethbridge, Calgary, Banff, Red Deer and Edmonton. We fell in love with Banff and for a bigger city, we liked Edmonton than Calgary. One thing we were shocked to learn that Alberta was much more expensive than where we live in the US (Utah). For example, 24 bottles of water cost us $6.99 in Calgary when we can buy the same size of water for $3.99 in Utah and sometime $3.25 when it is on sale. Restaurant foods were double the price of what we pay here in Utah. For those of you who have lived in bigger and expensive cities like New York and San Francisco, it may not feel very expensive though.

While we were there, we applied for SIN, and Health Cards. We also opened a bank account in the Royal Bank of Canada. The account was NOT free. We have to pay $4 per month maintenance fee. We had to open a bank account before we could apply for the Health Cards as we had to show the proof of address for that. I tried to get Alberta driver license too, but I had to give up my Utah license for that and I did not do that. There were long waits for both SIN and health cards. We had to go to two different placed and we spent about 2 hours in each place.  

Let's talk about the landing. We got to Coutts, AB on Nov 15 about 12:45PM and we were out by 1:30PM. The landing process itself was very easy. At the port of entry, I had to roll my car window down and talk to an officer.
Officer: What is the purpose of your visit sir?
Me: We are landing as permanent residents.
Officer: How many people in the vehicle?
Me: 4
Officer: Can I see the passports and PR documents?
Me: They are in the bag in the back of my car. If you want, I can come out of the car and pull them out.
Officer: No need to do that and he gave me a yellow piece of paper and asked me to park on the left parking lot and go to the immigration desk.
Me: Do I put the paper in my car?
Officer: No, you take that to the immigration desk.
Me: Thank you sir!

Parked the car and went in and headed to the immigration desk. There were three officers and two of them were doing nothing. A lady office asked me if she could help us.
Officer: Can I help you?
Me: Gave the yellow paper and told her that we are there to land as PRs.
Officer: Give me your passports.
Me: Here they are.
Officer: Other documents?
Me: What other documents?
Officer: The COPRs?
Me: Oh, I am sorry. I totally forgot to give you the main documents.
Officer: No problem, glad you have them.
Officer: Are you the father of the both children?
Me: Yes, I am.
Officer: Are you going to sign the COPR documents for them as they are obviously younger than 14 years old.
Me: If that is how it works, then I will sign.
Officer: Have a sit and we will call you later.

She started doing some paper works. Called me to sign my COPR and kids COPRs. She asked me to check all the spellings etc on the COPR documents. She asked my wife to come forward and sign the COPR as well. She asked me to mailing address to mail the PR cards and I gave her the address. She asked me a phone number too, and I gave my friend's relatives phone number. The officer also asked me to take a photo for me as she did not like my PR photo as it did not have white background. A male officer took the photo. He printed it right away. She asked me if I wanted to look at the photo and see I like it. I made the face that I did not like the photo very much. She told me that if I am not happy with the photo, she is more than happy to make the male office take the photo until I am satisfied. She said, the photo will stay on my PR card for 5 years and she wants me to be happy with my photo. She also said that the photo meets the CIC requirements, but she wants me to be happy with the photo. I said, if it meets the requirements, then I do not care. So she went ahead with the photo and gave me 3 extra photos to keep. If I had to go through this in the USCIS port of entry, they would have deported me from right there. Canadian Officers were too nice.

After that, she stapled the COPR documents in the passports and asked us to come forward. She explained the residency rules and where to apply for SIN etc. Then she said, congratulations and welcome to Canada.  No questions about the fund at all. She pointed us to go to the Traffic and Custom desk. There was another sweet lady waiting for me. She looked at the goods accompanying and goods follow lists. Started filling out some things on the forms. She asked, if I am bringing in a car to Canada and I said in the future and the car is listed on the goods to follow list. She asked what I am driving right now. I said a rental vehicle that is in the parking lot. There were no more questions about the vehicle or goods to follow list. She asked me if I was a US citizen. I said no. She asked me my citizenship and I told her Nepal and she spelled it to make sure she was right. I said yes, She was done with the paper work and gave me a copy of it and said congratulations and welcome to Canada.

Then I asked her about the money as I was carrying a cashier's check of US$20K. I asked her if I need to do some paper work for the money, she said we will fill out a form for you. Then she did. I also said we have some cash too, she said, don't worry about it. Then we said, thank you and headed to Lethbridge.

When we came back after 5 days in Canada, the experience in the US border was not too pleasant. I will explain it on my next post.

Great briefing Nix1!! One thing that really surprise me is that why she wondered that you are US citizen? I mean they had your Nepal Passport with Canadian PR Visa stamped on it then why did she ask about US citizenship?

Also I hope US immigration experience should not be easy as you already said. One thing I have ask; Let's say you are coming from Alberta after landing and Now you are Canadian PR and just in case, US officials don't let you enter, Will they deport you back to home country or you will be able to go back to Alberta as you are already Canadian PR holder. Please write.

[nix1]

thanks very much for sharing your experience nix....once your friend gets the PR will he mail it to you...when are you planning to move to alberta...also how was the weather over there...

we are very curiuos to hear the experiences of seniors...and we would attribute all our success so far in the application so far to you guys and this forum...

thanks,
Mouli

My friend's relative will send the PR cards and other documents like Health cards, SIN, Bank Statements etc to me once all of them arrived to his home. The weather was good. It was about 45F during the day and colder in the nights, but no snow in Calgary and Edmoton. It was snowing in Banff, Lake Louise and that area.

[nix1]

Congratulations on your successful landing. Did you give the address in Alberta for your PR or some other state in Canada.

thanks for sharing the feedback. Looking forward to hearing your US Immigration experience.

The address was from Alberta (Calgary), but my COPR document says I am going to be living in Lethbridge, AB. The US immigration experience will post soon. It is nothing to worry about though. It just took longer than I thought and as long as you have all the necessay documents, they will let you back into the country. I wanted to use AVR, but I ended up using travel document to get in as they saw it while flipping through my folder and forced me to use it.

[nix1]

Great briefing Nix1!! One thing that really surprise me is that why she wondered that you are US citizen? I mean they had your Nepal Passport with Canadian PR Visa stamped on it then why did she ask about US citizenship?

Also I hope US immigration experience should not be easy as you already said. One thing I have ask; Let's say you are coming from Alberta after landing and Now you are Canadian PR and just in case, US officials don't let you enter, Will they deport you back to home country or you will be able to go back to Alberta as you are already Canadian PR holder. Please write.

Well, the custom lady had not seen my passport when she asked me that question. She was looking at my goods to follow list and I think there is no place to write the citizenship. I also had my kids US passports along with my passport in my hand and she may have seen the US passport and hence that question. I will write more on the US immigration soon. As far as deporting, I think they will let you go back to Canada as you are already Canadian PR. But I am not sure the rules.