sunsun said:
@ figtoria....
Hi...what questions did Visa Officer ask you ?
Hi SunSun,
Here's the detailed rundown of our landing today, including what they asked us.
We arrived about 40 minutes early to the Hamilton office. We parked across from the entrance and noticed a few couples/families loitering on the sidewalk outside the door. My husband commented that if we had to wait outside, we'd just come back and sit in the car until 1:30. So we walked over to see what was going on. There was a sign on the door saying if you had an appointment to ring the intercom. So my husband did. A lady answered and he told her that he had an appointment at 1:30. She buzzed us in. That woke up all the other people standing outside!! They immediately started buzzing to be let in for their appointments too! It was kind of funny. Apparently, we were the first people in a while who had bothered to read the sign!
Anyway - We went straight up to the counter and the lady asked for the letter he was sent with the landing date. He gave it to her. She then returned it and asked us to sit down, someone would call us when it was our turn. We sat for maybe...10 minutes. During that time, we could hear all the other people who had buzzed in after us signing in. Most of them had appointment times before us, so we settled in to wait. But, surprise! They called us first! We went up to the counter and she asked for my husband's landing letter, his passport, and the pictures. Then she asked for my drivers license. Then she asked if he had ever been convicted of a criminal offense or if he'd be asked to leave the country. He answered 'no'. Then she asked if he any other wives or children elsewhere and laughed. We laughed too and said, "No, just the dependent already listed, who is non-accompanying." There was a bit of confusion at that point, which made me sweat a bit, because she didn't find the computer information for his son immediately, but it didn't take too long for her to find him and confirm that he had been examined, etc and all was fine. Then she took the pictures and stuck one to a piece of paper and started writing on it. She asked a couple of more questions confirming our address and his original entry date to Canada. Then she stamped his passport and had him sign and initial two copies of the COPR. Then she gave him a "Welcome to Canada" booklet. And that was it! We were up at the counter for about 10-15 minutes tops.
Then she told us to sit down for 10 minutes and the Service Canada people would get him his permanent SIN. It was only about 2 minutes before they called his name again and we were led through a maze of halls and rooms to an area where two people had temporary desks set up with laptops. We sat down at one and the lady asked him his mother and father's names and his birthdate. Then she tried to "send" the online form she'd filled out to the appropriate server, but it kept timing out. She tried and tried. Eventually, we suggested that maybe her co-worker could have a try, so we moved to his desk and his failed the first couple of tries, but then it went through. That took an hour. That was the longest part of the whole process. But the people were really nice and kept apologizing. We suggested that we could come back and do that another day, but apparently your existing temporary SIN number expires the day that you become a permanent resident, so we didn't want to take a chance on messing up his employment.
And then it was over. To be honest, it felt kind of anti-climactic after all that long wait. We're very happy. He hasn't been home to the US in 4.5 years.
That reminds me. The COPR has "not valid for travel" stamped right across it. We asked the lady if it was okay to go by car to the US and she said technically 'no'. But what will happen is, when we come BACK to Canada, the border agent will pull us over and look him up in the computer and find out that he IS a permanent resident and let him in. But it will be a faff until we get the PR card in 8-10 weeks (which is what we were told).
Anyway - we're glad to be done!
Best of luck to the rest of you!! I hope things pick up soon!!
