Successful H1-B stamping in Toronto
I and my spouse went for our H1-B stamping in Toronto on Apr 2nd. We took only one appointment for both of us. I just booked the appointment and added him as a dependent although he also was going for a H1 stamping. I went for my H4 to H1 stamping and my spouse was for H1-B with a change of employer.
When we were entering Canada, they asked us what is our citizenship and for the passport, why we are in Canada, what we are doing in US, whether we have anything to declare, any cash in excess of 10K and asked us to go to the immigration building. We parked our car there and went inside the building. They asked us to show our appointment letter, I-797, and they stamped our passport.
We stayed at Comfort Suites, which is appr. 2km from the consulate and we walked to the consulate. It is like 15-20 min walk. It was a nice walk, although it was little chill. Traffic was bad there, no observance of the speed limit and even on a Sunday evening the highways were busy.
We were there at the consulate 15 minutes before our appointment time. We entered the building in less than 10 minutes. Before entering the building the security guy checks your appointment letter and your passport. As soon as you enter the building you have a security check where they screen your belongings. After the security check, they ask you to stand in a separate line(right side), where a lady ask to keep your DS156, DS157, I-797, bank deposit receipt and passport in the file provided by them. She glanced at the documents and asked me to correct my name in the DS157, basically to write my name in mother tongue. After while we were let inside the room where all the windows for finger print, document submission and interviews exists and stood in the line to submit the documents in one of the windows. When we submitted our documents, they took out our old I-94s and checked the DS156 and DS157. The lady behind the window verified the passport details in the DS156 form. She mentioned that the background color in the photo was little darker so there was a chance that I would be asked to take another picture. This should not be a problem, since there was a photo station inside the consulate itself. I did not check how much it would cost though. She also corrected the address where am living in my DS156, ‘cause for some reason it had the country as my home country instead of US. Also they write for what visa you are applying for in the DS156 form at the top right corner. For me they wrote by mistake as H4, since I had a H4 stamping in my passport and I did not notice that until I was interviewed. So just watch out when they fill out the form.
After submitting the form, we had to go out of the room to join another line (left side), since all the chairs in the room were occupied, for our finger printing. After the finger printing we had to wait in the room for our interview. Finally the big moment came and we were called for our interview. The office seemed very nice, in fact all the officers seemed very polite and nice.
The officer first turned to my husband and asked the following question.
VO: What are you doing in US?
He: I am working as AAA at BBB company. This company does so and so and these are my responsibilities (explained his job duties).
The officer then turned to me and asked the following question
VO: So what are you doing in the US mam?
Her: I am working at XXX as YYY. Started to explain my duties…
The officer stopped me and questioned if even I was applying for H1-B, since in the form at the top right corner they wrote it as H4 (The lady who took my documents wrote as H4).I was very glad that the office asked me what I was doing; otherwise I don’t know what would have happened. The officer just corrected my application form. He asked my husband what kind of company he was working for, noted down something in the computer and gave the ticket to collect our passports the next day. We just thanked him and left. After coming out we were very relieved and glad that they took note of our correct status. They will hold on to your I-797 and give it the next day with your passport.
The next day, we went around 2:45, collected our passport/I-797 in the window outside the consulate, verified if everything was correct and left.
When I entered US, the officer at the POE asked my husband, what he is doing US, whom he works for, where he stays and for how long. He said that we might new a I94 and asked to park our car and get inside the immigration building for a new I-94. The officer inside our building mentioned that since we already have the I-94 in the I797 we don't have to pay anything, they will just take all the information and give a new I-94. But there was another officer who said that we don't need a new I-94. So they took all the information from the I-799, finger print and photograph us, stamped the immigration in the passport with the H1-B expiration date and we left. We did not get a new I-94. They just asked us to carry the whole I-797 or both lower portions of the I-797 when we have to leave and enter the country so that they could verify the expiration dates.
Overall it was a good experience. We pretty much took all our documents. Pay stubs, bank statements, previous I-797, LCA/I-129, W2s, 1040s, employment verification letter, offer letter, masters and bachelors degree/transcript, I-20s, OPT card, (both of us had masters from US), and SSN card. I did not see any rejection, although couple of them were put in security clearance.
I used to read the forum before my appointment and thanks to everyone for sharing their experience. Good luck to everyone going for their stamping.
