Hi all. Just wanted to share my experience. I completed the process in Montreal, Canada and just collected my passport today with the I-551 visa and the sealed envelope for the border agent.
I have to thank mom and Britsimon so much for their help and for running this forum. My experience from winning to this day with the visa in my passport has been seamless - with a lot of internal anxiety - mainly because of finding and then reading this forum, stepping in to share anything I know that could help, and reading the amazing advice provided by mom, Britsimon and the other great contributors like SusieQ. My anxiety was actually very useful because it made me very meticulous with collecting my documents, arranging them, thinking about timelines to obtain all required documents and being very diligent about the entire process! This was a such big dream come true for me and if it’s the same for you, there should be no reason you shouldn’t take charge, do your own research and take full ownership of the entire process.
I’m going to post my interview experience in full with timelines:
Sept 28th: email notice for my interview date in Montreal for Nov 1, 2018
Oct 13th: did my medical
Oct 29th: flew to Montreal (with a couple days buffer because up here at this time of the year winter weather can wreak havoc on air travel)
Nov 1st: Bright and early interview at the consulate. One of only two people in the consulate at that time. I was called to document check window in 5 minutes and provided the documents as asked:
- Passport and a copy
- Interview appointment letter
- Birth certificate (and name change documents if any) and a copy
- Education diplomas degrees etc and a copy
- Police checks
- Asked to go to a different counter to pay the US$330 DV fee. Brought the receipt back to the original window and sat down to be called for the actual interview by a consular officer.
Five minutes later, got called to the interview window. The consular officer was nice and friendly. Said to raise my right hand and vow to tell the truth about all questions.
She reviewed the file and just needed to confirm my name change since some documents were under the old name and some under the new name. We spent about 5 minutes talking about this. And she wanted to quickly confirm my current status in the US (since I’m currently on a dual-intent work visa there at the moment). All in all not longer than 10 mins in total.
CO: ok we’re ready to approve your immigrant visa. Just FYI, there is an ongoing Canada post strike so your document delivery may be delayed beyond the standard two weeks.
I’m nervous here but I gave myself 3 weeks so I figured I should be ok. She handed me a form with instructions on how to collect my passport (I already registered for collection as instructed on the consulate website before the interview so this form was not new information). It did say ‘welcome to United States of America’ at the top which was kinda assuring and kept me cautiously optimistic. In and out in less than 40 minutes.
One thing of note - she did not ask for any financial information but it may be because I’m clearly already employed in the country so there is very little risk of being a financial burden maybe. I came prepared with all my bank accounts tho.
Nov 2nd: I get an email saying due to postal strike disruption, I have been offered the chance to pick up my documents in person on Monday if I so choose. Or do nothing and they’ll mail it when the strike is resolved.
Nov 5th: I jumped at the opportunity to pick it up and not deal with the postal strike - and so I got it this morning. Visa in passport and sealed envelope for the border agent.
I still can’t believe this has happened so fast. I was preparing for the long wait. It hasn’t hit me yet I think.
My advice to all winners is to try to understand the entire DV process. Every bit of information is out there or on this forum. I rarely had to ask a question once I got the hang of using this forum and reading/searching for answers.
I can provide my experience on the interview process in Montreal if anyone needs more information. I can also provide advice on police certificates for Australia, Singapore and Canada if anyone needs to get those.
To everyone else - I pray you all will get your visas and your process will be as seamless as mine was blessed to be. Remember - luck is when opportunity meets preparation. We have all got the opportunity by winning the lottery, it is up to us to be 100% prepared.