H1B Stamping - Ottawa consulate - 221G

[RaviCKota]

Hi All,

Today I had my H1B visa stamping at Ottawa, Consulate and I had all the documents with me. However, I had a softcopy of the client letter, which i took a print of it and submitted to the officer. He is upset with that copy and was expecting to have the client letter on original letter head. At that moment, I realized that, my day is turning bad and but he kept the passport with them, but gave me a while letter called 221G (I heard about yellow/blue/pink colors of this letter, but i guess that does not matter). It is mentioned that, they are going to do some administrative process on that and would email me about further instructions.

This is a kind of disappointment to me, as I know many cases were approved with out any client letter. So, I'm expecting that they may call my client or employer to confirm about the position.

One way I'm atleast happy that, the case is still active not denied ,but given that, I don't know how long it is going to take , I need to be in Canada.

I wish they clear that early.

Did anyone face a similar situation and knew how long it took for you

Thanks

[krisc2499]

By now i think you came to know that Consulate officer prefers original of client letter.

As far as i know you will get email from consulate asking for some docs. To be safe side get the original client letter so that you can give whenever they ask.

It is tough to say how long Consulate will take because they treat every case as unique. To my knowledge not more than a month.

[RaviCKota]

Thanks for replying Krisc2499,

One thing I noticed and forgot to mention in my earlier post is about a reference number on white slip. I DO NOT have any reference number or case number mentioned on that form. It is a generic template form, where he just wrote my name and date of interview and gave it back to me. Is this common for a white form ? Because, in some posts I read over internet, there is a mention of case number on those forms, but none on mine.

Also, I notified my employer and client about a possible call or communication from consulate.

Another question, does consulates handle administrative processing in a decentralized fashion or a centralized fashion. I mean to ask, each consulate has its own administrative processing team that handles the cases pertaining to that consulate only or one centralized team that handles all cases from all consulates . The reason, I'm asking is, I can hope for an earlier response, if it is a local processing compared to a centralized global processing. May be this a weird question, but I feel that could a deciding factor on how long does it take.

Thanks

[ajji26]

Hi Ravi,

Are you the first one who went to the VO yesterday , we were also there and my wife did get a 221g. my email id is ajay.kanthi@gmail.com send me an email so that we can communicate

Thanks

Aj

[krisc2499]

There won't be any case number for 221g white. Format is same for all.

As far as i know administrative proceesing is a generic term. I am not sure what exactly they do. It can be PIMS also.

So it depends on what exactly they want to check.

[RaviCKota]

What are the implications of PIMS verification ? Would they send the application to Kentucky center for review ? Would they notify us, if it is PIMS.

[krisc2499]

Sometimes they mention as PIMS not for every case will they mention. PIMS is just a kind of database where our Visa information is saved. There won't be any rejections due to PIMS but it might take time.