Thread for outland Buffalo applicants!

[Shirsho]

Do you know if Hong Kong Police has sent off the results to Buffalo yet?

Not sure which email address you sent to, I did this and successfully got response from them -> eo-cncc-ib @ police.gov.hk

For my case, I did my fingerprints as suggested by you in Toronto and sent it off to Hong Kong Police without VO request (not yet received at that point of time). Hong Kong police called me and asked for 1. the original request from VO (they said they won't process without that), 2. new cheque for the correct fee (increased from HK$169 to HK$185). All were settled early this week and am waiting.

Good luck!

Hi GOGOGO,

Hope all is well. I was just wondering abt how much did it take for NYC to contact you know about the police clearance cert after the file was transferred. Mine got transferred on Feb 22, 2012 and is in process ever since..They received my file in mississauga on Aug 16, 2012. Looks like yours moved a lil earlier than mine..But we ended up in the same boat!

Let me know...Tired of checking e-cas every hr.

 

[Shirsho]

Ya but what's the next step?

When will I receive my landing doc? any idea?

Hi Jenny,

What is your AOR? Its taking a while for applications to be processed these days..But few have been lucky in getting the entire process over with in 5 months...So there is no way in telling when you will get your landing docs...The file typically goes into processing and then a decision is made......Each case is different...Processing time for Buf in general is 11 months..Can happen sooner as I said...Just be patient as I guess...Most of us are in the same boat ..So Patience..Although its natural to loose sanity once in a while..

Good luck

 

[Timemachine]

File was transferred to Seattle last week...seems like all the recent transfers have been to Seattle! Anyone have experience with that VO?

Ddobro, please update me on the spreadsheet when you have time, hope you are enjoying Canada so far!

 

[ddobro2]

What about signing up for e-cas tracker instead?

Tired of checking e-cas every hr.

 

[ddobro2]

You got it, Timemachine

File was transferred to Seattle last week...seems like all the recent transfers have been to Seattle! Anyone have experience with that VO?

Ddobro, please update me on the spreadsheet when you have time, hope you are enjoying Canada so far!

 

[ddobro2]

I don't know if I can answer your questions about the evidence. In my opinion, a receipt would obviously be a lot more convincing than a line on the bank statement because it shows the item purchased as well as the store and the date, but if you don't have that, bank statement is obviously better than nothing. As far as the phone records, write an explanation about why you don't have them going back to the beginning of your relationship, and just fill in the blanks with other evidence. I would sit down and think of every scrap of evidence you can use. Did you talk about your relationship on social media, including posting on each other's walls (I'm thinking Facebook here but you get my drift), sending each other direct messages, referencing each other in posts, uploading photos? Use all of that. Love letters, notes, letters or notes talking ABOUT one another TO friends or family, statements of support FROM friends and family, thank-you notes, invites, or cards you've sent out AS a couple....use all of that. Don't forget everything trip related. Think hard and creatively about how to evidence all your communications. I ended up downloading MagicBerry to get all the texts out of my husband's BlackBerry and pasted as images into a document.

But that's a good thing. I honestly had no idea the extent of everything until I came here and heard from both you and AllisonVSC. I knew there was a lot to take care of, and was completely lost until you guys broke it down for me. Now I just have to start organizing it all.

That said, I do have 2 other questions. Haha, please don't kill me.

1.) Would an entry from a bank statement be good enough to use as a receipt of purchase? -- like jewelry he's bought me or a game store where be bought me a video game (we're avid gamers), just an entry on his bank account for the store (not specifying what he bought though..) Same with bank statements from his mom where she has bought things (she paid for me to have some dental work done over the summer, traveler's insurance, vet stuff for my kitty, shoes, etc -- I'm assuming it'd be good to show things for referencing a family connection) I ask because we don't have actual receipts of everything, but I figured we could highlight bank entries and black out the irrelevant parts.

2.) I can't get phone records going back to the start of our relationship because our phone bills only go back a year. That said, I miss out on about some text/voice records of what should have been right at 18 months worth come May (so we'll end up with about 14 months worth of records). Will this look bad to not have dating back to the start? Our providers just don't save beyond a year and we've started printing them this month so we can only get from last March until this May, missing near 4 months worth of records.

 

[mumbles]

CONGRATS DOG HOUSE!!!! so happy for you!! you give me hope that soon we will hear something too...my husbands medicals expire in may so i am really hoping to hear something sooon....maybe i should send them an email....

 

[janyte]

We are one lining things. We just put "clothes" and "kitchenware". We really have no goods to follow, my wife isn't importing her car, etc.

Does anyone who has gone through with a "goods to follow" list have any other thoughts? We have an entire household to move, bedroom sets etc, 2 cars. Not sure how detailed to be since we're not moving for another 3-5 months. We're heading up to land this weekend, so this is my project every night...please help

 

[computergeek]

If it has a serial number, give it a line all to itself. Otherwise, general descriptions of goods and their values seemed to work for us (on the seasonal visitor basis, which uses the same B4 form that you use for landing.) We had almost 2000 DVD movies with us, for example, and we just listed "2000 assorted DVD movies" along with whatever value we ascribed to them. I think we actually did it so we had one B4 form per box in many cases, but I think that was overkill.

Separate out anything that is with you from anything that represents "goods to follow".

We had a U-haul trailer filled with stuff, they never even looked at it - the paperwork was in order, they stamped it, issued us our visitor recordes and we were on our way.

Or think of it this way: they're interested in revenue. Used clothing has minimal resale value, so they aren't going to be terribly suspicious of that sort of thing. A list of household goods is exactly what they expect to see. If you were to list "one dozen 55 inch LED/LCD 3D TVs" then they'd be suspicious, because they'd suspect you were going to sell them.

Good luck!

 

[GOGOGO]

Hi Shirsho

It took them 21 days from file transfer to document request. Here is my timeline:

1/31 - Medical was sent to Buffalo via online
2/2 - Email from Buffalo regarding case transferred to NYC
2/4 - eCAS was changed to In Process (started processing 2/1)
2/13 - RPRF+Medical were delivered at NYC by usps
2/23 - NYC requested additional documents (HK police clearance, FBI & RPRF)

Somehow I feel that their actions were mostly triggered by me sending them something. Now I don't think they're going to look at my case at all until I send them the police certs which I'm still waiting for. So I have a little bit more leisure time from NOT checking eCAS!

All the best to you!

Hi GOGOGO,

Hope all is well. I was just wondering abt how much did it take for NYC to contact you know about the police clearance cert after the file was transferred. Mine got transferred on Feb 22, 2012 and is in process ever since..They received my file in mississauga on Aug 16, 2012. Looks like yours moved a lil earlier than mine..But we ended up in the same boat!

Let me know...Tired of checking e-cas every hr.

 

[GOGOGO]

I would say, why not? That may trigger them to do something to your case. As long as you don't normally bug them for no good reason, I don't think there is any harm. Worst case they'll just ignore you.

my husbands medicals expire in may so i am really hoping to hear something sooon....maybe i should send them an email....

 

[Shirsho]

Hi Shirsho

It took them 21 days from file transfer to document request. Here is my timeline:

1/31 - Medical was sent to Buffalo via online
2/2 - Email from Buffalo regarding case transferred to NYC
2/4 - eCAS was changed to In Process (started processing 2/1)
2/13 - RPRF+Medical were delivered at NYC by usps
2/23 - NYC requested additional documents (HK police clearance, FBI & RPRF)

Somehow I feel that their actions were mostly triggered by me sending them something. Now I don't think they're going to look at my case at all until I send them the police certs which I'm still waiting for. So I have a little bit more leisure time from NOT checking eCAS!

All the best to you!

Oh thanks for sharing the info. My file doesn't say that buf/ NYC received the medicals..The file was transferred on Feb 22 and its been in process ever since....no update

Why does it say in the spreadsheet for satellites that you are inland? What does it mean? You are an outside applicant ..aren't u?

 

[ddobro2]

The one time I looked at that spreadsheet, it was apparent that awor disaggregated the cases based on who was in Canada at the time they applied and who wasn't. Possibly a way to test whether there was some relationship between being sent to NYC/LA/SEA/DET and being inside or outside the country.

Why does it say in the spreadsheet for satellites that you are inland? What does it mean? You are an outside applicant ..aren't u?

 

[GOGOGO]

My eCAS doesn't say medical received either. I just tracked the letter myself and presume they've got it.

Yes, I'm outland, and all those on the 'Buffalo to Satellite' spreadsheet are outland applications. The 'inside/outside' column on the spreadsheet is just to indicate whether the applicant is actually 'living' (or staying) in Canada while the case is being processed outland.

Oh thanks for sharing the info. My file doesn't say that buf/ NYC received the medicals..The file was transferred on Feb 22 and its been in process ever since....no update

Why does it say in the spreadsheet for satellites that you are inland? What does it mean? You are an outside applicant ..aren't u?

 

[GOGOGO]

And I don't think there is any conclusion on which.

The one time I looked at that spreadsheet, it was apparent that awor disaggregated the cases based on who was in Canada at the time they applied and who wasn't. Possibly a way to test whether there was some relationship between being sent to NYC/LA/SEA/DET and being inside or outside the country.