Spousal Sponsorship Interview Questionaires, Experience, Preparations

[soblue3]

Thanks, yes i dont have a choice but be patient...but its not easy lol. Thank to god my husband is so good natured and patient. We have started looking at properties in tunisia and talking about possible business ideas there. He makes me laugh and gives me a lot of strength. He was joking about us making a house in sahara...a bedu tent and us getting a new car...a camel that is. Ah really i hope it does not come to that and that we can hear something soon. I just worry because reading about the experiences of others sometimes the VOs have already made the decision but take months to notified the applicants. That is just so unfair, i hope it does not happen to us.

 

[Hasan9999]

Thanks, yes i dont have a choice but be patient...but its not easy lol. Thank to god my husband is so good natured and patient. We have started looking at properties in tunisia and talking about possible business ideas there. He makes me laugh and gives me a lot of strength. He was joking about us making a house in sahara...a bedu tent and us getting a new car...a camel that is. Ah really i hope it does not come to that and that we can hear something soon. I just worry because reading about the experiences of others sometimes the VOs have already made the decision but take months to notified the applicants. That is just so unfair, i hope it does not happen to us.

Don't worry. Meanwhile, prepare yourself 100% to face IAD just in case they turn down your husband's PR. But don't lose your hope. Take it easy and everything will work out well eventually.

 

[Oi]

This thread has been immensely helpful in alleviating some of the anxiousness my partner and I (I am the sponsor, he is the one applying) had upon receiving our interview request letter only a few days ago, now. We have our interview in less than a month (and overseas) and are scrambling to get together whatever paperwork we can, now.

I've realized we may be in a major hitch for some of the paperwork they're asking of us, though.

Just as some pretext, they start the letter with "AS AN APPLICANT for permanent residence in Canada, it is your responsibility to provide the... [etc..]" So, am I correct in assuming that all of the paperwork requested in the list in the letter (following the text I quoted) is only in regards to my partner (the applicant), unless stated otherwise?

1) They ask that we complete a medical examination "if you have not done so or had undergone examination more than 15 months ago". However, I emailed the CIC a couple months ago regarding our expiring medicals, and they responded saying that my spouse's medicals had been renewed by them until next year February. Should I not worry and just bring a copy of the email that they sent me confirming this?

2) "ORIGINAL police certificate or criminal clearance (within 12 months validity) from each country in which you and every one in your family aged 18 years or over have resided six months or more since reaching the age of 18." We sent them an original copy of the FBI clearance record for my partner way back when we applied. We received that original in very late March 2013, and sent our application the following July, so it's definitely past the 12 months by now. However, they want to interview us in less than a month! We live in Hawaii, and the processing times for the FBI clearance is 28 days not even considering the postage time to our tiny island. Can anyone give advice on this? He has 0 criminal records, so it shouldn't be an issue, but I understand we need to prove this to them. I don't see how, though, given the time constraints.

3) "PROOF of your sponsor's Canadian legal status (such as photocopy of citizenship certificate or Permanent Resident Card or Visa) and Canadian residency including photocopy of your spouse Canadian citizenship card or passport or permanent resident card..." This confuses me slightly. It says "AND", but I have never in my life owned a citizenship certificate, or the rest (considering I was born in Canada). I have a passport, which is what I photocopied and sent with the application originally, but the "AND" is what worries me. Is this required, or is it only necessary for those who have become citizens through ways other than birth?

I think those were the only major points we're worried about being clear on, other than making a new binder to bring with us... If anyone could help answer all these questions ASAP, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[chala]

This thread has been immensely helpful in alleviating some of the anxiousness my partner and I (I am the sponsor, he is the one applying) had upon receiving our interview request letter only a few days ago, now. We have our interview in less than a month (and overseas) and are scrambling to get together whatever paperwork we can, now.

I've realized we may be in a major hitch for some of the paperwork they're asking of us, though.

Just as some pretext, they start the letter with "AS AN APPLICANT for permanent residence in Canada, it is your responsibility to provide the... [etc..]" So, am I correct in assuming that all of the paperwork requested in the list in the letter (following the text I quoted) is only in regards to my partner (the applicant), unless stated otherwise?

1) They ask that we complete a medical examination "if you have not done so or had undergone examination more than 15 months ago". However, I emailed the CIC a couple months ago regarding our expiring medicals, and they responded saying that my spouse's medicals had been renewed by them until next year February. Should I not worry and just bring a copy of the email that they sent me confirming this?

2) "ORIGINAL police certificate or criminal clearance (within 12 months validity) from each country in which you and every one in your family aged 18 years or over have resided six months or more since reaching the age of 18." We sent them an original copy of the FBI clearance record for my partner way back when we applied. We received that original in very late March 2013, and sent our application the following July, so it's definitely past the 12 months by now. However, they want to interview us in less than a month! We live in Hawaii, and the processing times for the FBI clearance is 28 days not even considering the postage time to our tiny island. Can anyone give advice on this? He has 0 criminal records, so it shouldn't be an issue, but I understand we need to prove this to them. I don't see how, though, given the time constraints.

3) "PROOF of your sponsor's Canadian legal status (such as photocopy of citizenship certificate or Permanent Resident Card or Visa) and Canadian residency including photocopy of your spouse Canadian citizenship card or passport or permanent resident card..." This confuses me slightly. It says "AND", but I have never in my life owned a citizenship certificate, or the rest (considering I was born in Canada). I have a passport, which is what I photocopied and sent with the application originally, but the "AND" is what worries me. Is this required, or is it only necessary for those who have become citizens through ways other than birth?

I think those were the only major points we're worried about being clear on, other than making a new binder to bring with us... If anyone could help answer all these questions ASAP, it would be greatly appreciated.

I am also required to attend an interview on August 5, however mine will be in LA. I have received basically the same letter as you have, which I deem to be a form letter certain portions of which do not apply to all applicants. As my medical has been extended until February 2015 ,I don't think it's necessary to redo it. Also I did not obtain another FBI clearance either as time would not permit it. I have been residing in Canada since March 2012 on extended visitor visas so I will bring the originals to the interview as proof of my legal status in Canada. My sponsor will be attending the interview with me and will provide his Canadian passport as proof of his citizenship although we have already submitted a photocopy with the original application.
It seems to me that for US applicants, these interviews are for the purpose of finalizing their decision on permanent residence eligibility as regards to the genuineness of the relationship,and all other aspects of processing has been completed as regards to medical, police clearances etc.
Good luck with your interview.

 

[Oi]

I am also required to attend an interview on August 5, however mine will be in LA. I have received basically the same letter as you have, which I deem to be a form letter certain portions of which do not apply to all applicants. As my medical has been extended until February 2015 ,I don't think it's necessary to redo it. Also I did not obtain another FBI clearance either as time would not permit it. I have been residing in Canada since March 2012 on extended visitor visas so I will bring the originals to the interview as proof of my legal status in Canada. My sponsor will be attending the interview with me and will provide his Canadian passport as proof of his citizenship although we have already submitted a photocopy with the original application.
It seems to me that for US applicants, these interviews are for the purpose of finalizing their decision on permanent residence eligibility as regards to the genuineness of the relationship,and all other aspects of processing has been completed as regards to medical, police clearances etc.
Good luck with your interview.

Thank you immensely for your response, it's very reassuring to hear from such a similar situation. Ours is actually in LA, as well! We'll be a day apart. I'll try not to worry in regards to the police clearance and simply work on getting any photos printed that were taken between our application and now, amongst other things...

We wish you the absolute best on yours, as well!

 

[chala]

Thank you immensely for your response, it's very reassuring to hear from such a similar situation. Ours is actually in LA, as well! We'll be a day apart. I'll try not to worry in regards to the police clearance and simply work on getting any photos printed that were taken between our application and now, amongst other things...

We wish you the absolute best on yours, as well!

See also my PM in your inbox.

 

[Hasan9999]

KINGSTON VO, JAMAICA INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE

Quote from: Maddants on September 18, 2013, 01:33:15 pm
Hello Everyone, How is everyone doing today....Sorry that i have not posted anything on the forum for a long time but i still read everyone post though...to let everyone know that i had my interview yesterday morning at 10am.... here is how my interview went....

I got the the embassy around 9:20am and when i went inside there was no one in the embassy waiting for anything. the embassy was very scanty like nobody was there working. i was saying to myself look like the strike is really having an impact on the kingston embassy for sure... i did not even sit down for a good min. they call my name telling me to go to room number 4 which i did... the immigration officer was a woman in her 50s with long black hair with gray hair also.. she ask me for the things they required and i gave her everything..she started to go tru everything and which she is going tru them she ask me question about them. here are a few question she ask me.

who are these ppl in the pictures
what is my wife mother name
what do her kids them do
why no one from her family attend our wedding
have my wife cook her native food for me
what do i know about my wife culture
what do i know about my wife that other ppl dont
what kind of work do my wife do and where she work
have me and my wife every get into any aurguement and how we resolve it
they have a few more questions that i forgot...

i was not nervous at all when i was at the interview.....i answer all the questions that i could answers but a couple of them i could so i just told her i did not know. some of the question i answered the immigration officer told me that she did not believe me but i still answered it as i was there telling her the truth...im not going to say that the immigration officer was rude or anything but she did give me a bit of a hard time though.....i spend about 1hr in the interview. when the interview finish she told me that she will have to review over everything again because she is saying that my wife is putting out all the effort to know me and im not pushing out any effort at all. so she gave me back my passport but she kept my birth certificate, marriage certificate, police record, and medical records....she did not give me a time that she would get back in touch with me.. so i just have to wait for the outcome of the interview..i know im myself that i did good but they can think differently. the immigration officer look like she was mix with native american indian also...

WOW Maddants I hope you and wifey hear some good news soon sounds like you did well in the interview so your time will soon come

 

[ninakap30]

KINGSTON VO, JAMAICA INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE

Quote from: Maddants on September 18, 2013, 01:33:15 pm
Hello Everyone, How is everyone doing today....Sorry that i have not posted anything on the forum for a long time but i still read everyone post though...to let everyone know that i had my interview yesterday morning at 10am.... here is how my interview went....

I got the the embassy around 9:20am and when i went inside there was no one in the embassy waiting for anything. the embassy was very scanty like nobody was there working. i was saying to myself look like the strike is really having an impact on the kingston embassy for sure... i did not even sit down for a good min. they call my name telling me to go to room number 4 which i did... the immigration officer was a woman in her 50s with long black hair with gray hair also.. she ask me for the things they required and i gave her everything..she started to go tru everything and which she is going tru them she ask me question about them. here are a few question she ask me.

who are these ppl in the pictures
what is my wife mother name
what do her kids them do
why no one from her family attend our wedding
have my wife cook her native food for me
what do i know about my wife culture
what do i know about my wife that other ppl dont
what kind of work do my wife do and where she work
have me and my wife every get into any aurguement and how we resolve it
they have a few more questions that i forgot...

i was not nervous at all when i was at the interview.....i answer all the questions that i could answers but a couple of them i could so i just told her i did not know. some of the question i answered the immigration officer told me that she did not believe me but i still answered it as i was there telling her the truth...im not going to say that the immigration officer was rude or anything but she did give me a bit of a hard time though.....i spend about 1hr in the interview. when the interview finish she told me that she will have to review over everything again because she is saying that my wife is putting out all the effort to know me and im not pushing out any effort at all. so she gave me back my passport but she kept my birth certificate, marriage certificate, police record, and medical records....she did not give me a time that she would get back in touch with me.. so i just have to wait for the outcome of the interview..i know im myself that i did good but they can think differently. the immigration officer look like she was mix with native american indian also...

WOW Maddants I hope you and wifey hear some good news soon sounds like you did well in the interview so your time will soon come

which is ur visa office?ohhh my god this is a nightmare

 

[Hasan9999]

which is ur visa office?ohhh my god this is a nightmare
[/quote] It was Kingston, Jamaica visa office for her.

 

[ninakap30]

which is ur visa office?ohhh my god this is a nightmare
It was Kingston, Jamaica visa office for her.

ankara ((

 

[Hasan9999]

INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE AT BUCHAREST VISA OFFICE:

Quote from: danap on July 24, 2012, 10:42:36 am

My interview was ok, I passed it!

But now I have to wait for the extension of my medicals if the main office will be agree to do it otherwise I have to redo the medicals...its insane

My interview went well, about 15 min or so.

The questions had nothing to do with my marriage, they put me only one question about my husband and how my our relatioship have had developed the rest of the questions was related with my ex husband, divorce, years spend it out side of my country (I used to live in Paris for 5 years).

Every case is different and the questions at of possible interview may be very different.

As for the questions of my interview were not exactlly as I expected, I expected to ask me more questions about my relatioship and marriage, but no, the main subject of my interview was my ex marriage and my life in Paris, (I use to live in Paris for 5 years).

They really thought that my marriege its not genuine, from the first moment when I entered in that small room I was judged, its really not a nice experiece.

Now it's over and I hope I will hear from them in 3 weeks like the officer told me, with the passport request or a new request to redo my medicals (I hope they will give me the extention becouse its going to be difficult sice a special doctor for this we have only in Bucharest... )

 

[Hasan9999]

WHY INTERVIEW IN SPOUSAL SPONSORSHIP ?


POSTED BY Mrs_Canuck:

« Reply #1 on: February 11, 2014, 05:48:48 pm »
Quote
An interview is requested when there are red flags in a case that CIC want to clear up. Red flags could be any number of things including but not limited to:

* Large age difference between the couple, usually 7+ years difference, this is especially the case if the woman is the older of the couple.
* Different religious/cultural backgrounds.
* Different levels of education
* Family being unaware of the relationship
* Never meeting in person
* No/few trips together or to meet each other.
* No formal wedding with no family attending.

They will ask quite a few relationship questions, I found a link here with some of the questions you may be asked. It is always a good idea to study them with your partner and make sure that you are both comfortable going through them and know the answers:

http://immigrationguides.com/content/view/70/110/

You will not know if your visa is accepted before the interview. Depending on how the interview goes you may get your full approval right then and there. But no, there is no way to know before the interview.

Don't be nervous. If you are confident in your relationship there is no reason to be nervous. Have faith and go through this with your partner. If you have nothing to hide, there is nothing to worry about.

 

[Hasan9999]

SUCCESSFUL INTERVIEW AT SYDNEY VO

POSTED BY fijiana (Sydney VO):

« Reply #18 on: February 28, 2014, 12:32:36 am »

hi guys got ppr yesterday after the interview. Interviewing Lady was generous. Alot Of Ppl Showed Up For Intherview. the way i did it is you have to take over the conversation or else they think you some kind of lier. first its was a bombardment of negative questions. but stay cool and fight for your words to show you are genuine. waiting for visa now. yiha.

 

[Hasan9999]

SUCCESSFUL INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE

POSTED BY: charmainefrances



AOR:APR 16, 2013 AIP:JAN 23, 2014 OWP:JAN 30, 2014 DM: FEB 20, 2014 LD:MAR 12, 2014!


Category........: FAM
Visa Office......: CPC/VEGREVILLE TRANSFERRED TO CIC-EDMONTON
App. Filed.......: 23-11-2010
File Transfer...: 19-10-2011
Med's Request: 12-10-2013
Med's Done....: 23-10-2013 received by cic 31-10-2013
Interview........: 12-09-2013 PASSED
Passport Req..: 18-03-2014 PPR OF MY SON
VISA ISSUED...: 10-06-2014 CEM PHONED AND VERIFIED OUR ADDRESS HERE IN CANADA SO THEY CAN SEND OUR SON'S PASSPORT BACK TO US
LANDED..........: June 24,2014 To God be the glory!


Re: SPOUSAL INTERVIEW - 2014
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2014, 06:48:09 pm »
Quote
Background:

My husband is 32 years older than me
I am 30 and he is 62.
I arrived in canada under a work permit in june 2009. 2 weeks after, i met my (now husband for 3 years and 1 month).
We got married on sept. Of 2010
Applied inland in nov. 2010
File tranferred from vegreville to edmonton in oct. 2011
Reasons: age gap, short courtship, doubting if our marriage is genuine, asking if i'm married back home. That i did not declare my son when i applied for a visa to come to canada.

Month after the transfer, we submitted everything we could to prove that our martiage is true, genuine and authentic. We did this every month until april of 2013.

Aug. 30, 2013 - we received a call in notice from cic edmonton asking us for interview. The requirements the io requested : lease/ rent agreement, pictures from wedding, trips etc., t4, notice of assessment, t1 , paystubs, bills, and option c and bank statements(Most of the req. were tax related, it's probably because the io want to make sure that we have money to provide for our dependent)

Sept. 12,2013- interview day- we arrived at cic edm very prepared! Did not even feel nervous at all! We are confident and we know that what we need to do is to show who we really are!

My interview lasted for 1 hr and 15 min.
Questions asked:
What is my name, bday, my parents name
What is my husbands name, birthday, parents name, siblings and where they live.
Where and when we meet?
Who proposed, describe the moment
When and where is our wedding?
How many people attended? Names of attendees, reception?
1st date? Where when, what we ordered?
Are we sexually active?
Do we want to have kids?
Name of my son, names of my husbands daughter, names of grandkids
How is the relationship between my husband and son

And then suddenly the io stopped typing because she said the computer stopped working. So we started again from the very beginning. I think for me this is to test if i will answer the questions the same thing.

Then, she asked me 3 times in different ways , where do i work, she probably want to make sure that i am not working anywhere else.

Describe our apartment
Who pay bills ?
Where does my husband work?
How much salary?
Do i send money to my home country? How much?
She asked if I'm in Canada
Asked if i have a criminal record or convicted

At the end of the interview, she just said that the only reason why our file was transferred is because of our age gap. Then i said, i know! Lol! I said that , when we applied in 2010, we did not even know that there are red flags like that. What we presented them is the real us!

Then i showed some personal stuff like the crosstitch i made as a birthday gift for my husbands grand daughter, cards from friends and family. Our wedding invitation.

And that's it!

Then it's my husband's turn!!

His interview lasted for 45 minutes. And he was asked the same questions and he answered the same as mine with a little bit of elaboration lol!

When the io told him that our file was tranferred because of age gap, he told the io that this has been happening eversince, just like cleopatra and julis ceasar, charlie chaplin and his wife oona etc. etc. that was the killer answer! Lol!
The io was smiling while typing this my husband said!

All in all the interview went well! The atmosphere inside the interview room was very non threatening, it was actually full of laughter. Me and my husband are very happy people by nature! So i think we really gave a positive vibes inside the interview room.

Exactly 1 month after the interview, oct12,2013, i received an email requesting for medical examination. Then aip and owp arrived on oct. 16.

Medical examination done Oct. 23, 2013.

cic received medical Oct. 31, 2013

Now waiting for 2nd stage approval. I know it will still be long process because i have a dependent back home. But it's alright! I always believe in GOD's perfect time!

When u go to the interview, just be yourself! You know yourself and ur spouse than anybody else! Just be honest with the answers. Look the interviewer straight to the eye.

That's it! Goodluck with everything!

 

[Hasan9999]

SUGGESTIONS ON INTERVIEW


POSTED BY: 2joys

There were 3 parts of the interview.
1. Checking basic information
2. Development of the relationship.
3. The officer indicates what his decision is regarding the case.

Keep your hopes up, prepare for the interview. That's most important. They ask a lot of small details about your relationship. How it developed, make sure your spouse can describe everything that happened and when it happened. Be able to storyline the entire relationship development. She should also be familiar with you and your background. Your education, job, family, physical appearance (height etc.) They were really interested in how the relationship developed, especially in the case of long distance relationships. Particularly when and how you went from online acquaintances to developing feelings to onwards. Be comfortable and take your time. Answer the questions but don't over do it.

Check the CIC Operational manual regarding interviews:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/op/op01-eng.pdf