Spousal sponsorship

[mingdong]

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To: "Roumeliotis.Eugenia" <Eugenia.Roumeliotis@cic.gc.ca> Cc: Barbara Jo Caruso <Caruso@cilf.ca>, "Fox.Christiane" <Christiane.Fox@cic.gc.ca>, "Minister / Ministre (IRCC)" <IRCC.Minister-Ministre.IRCC@cic.gc.ca>, "sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca" <sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca>, "Radchenklga" <Olga.Radchenko@cic.gc.ca>, "Jones.Murray (he, him | il, lui)" <Murray.Jones@cic.gc.ca>, "Nicholson.Kyle" <Kyle.Nicholson@cic.gc.ca>, delhi@international.gc.ca, spore@international.gc.ca, infocentre-manila@international.gc.ca, steven.meurrens@larlee.com, mlundy@globeandmail.com
Dear Roumeliotis Thank you for your email. I have not received a response from the unit responsible for outland spousal app intake. While waiting for that to somehow happen one day, I would like to bring up two concerns whilst, I understand, that your Department may be looking at options to facilitate temporary entry into Canada for spouses/partners with outland PR in process. The two issues include interpretation and respect for the Minister's delivery update by your overseas staff and offices, and the second issue is the continued delay in AOR and inconsistency in processing outland apps, that I haven't seen improvement. Please spare some time to review the below. The first issue is the interpretation of dual intent by different officers. The chart below shows a remarkable high refusal rate for TRV for this group - at below 50%. Most cases were refused on the basis that the officers did not believe the persons will leave Canada by the end of authorized stay because they are in a marital relationship with Canadians. Despite the program delivery was updated in Oct 2020, looking at the data in 2021, officers continued to have serious bias against this group of applicants. I would blame the Minister's Office for not taking this issue seriously - making the update only as a program delivery update on Dual Intent, and leaving the bias an open option for your officers, as well as a communication issue to make sure staff respect and comply. Let's go back to the very basic logic of humanity: what's wrong when people in love want to spend time and support each other? The Canadian visa system long ago, used to have a special visa category for fiance but that had been scrapped - then in absence of such an option, the system should promote and make family reunification for your own citizens a smooth and easy process, not the other way around. The USA immigration system has a temporary visa stream called K1, which allows foreign nationals to come into the USA and get married with their partner within 3 months of arrival. Fact check: post-covid, USA, Australia and UK were all pretty quick in picking up the processing capacity for immigration and only Canada still struggles with backlog and has a system designed to discriminate spouses/partners of your fellow Canadians/PRs - whether you want to accept or deny this statement, the numbers and facts are there! This is a big national shame. Canadians get freak out when they choose to love and marry someone from outside Canada because they will face a process that is biased, lengthy, unpredictable and inconsistent across similar streams and visa offices. What can you do to address these? We talk about annual target of 500k new PRs every year now, we talk about issuing Work Permits to a various streams of spouses/partners of temporary residents yet Canada continues to make it an endless nightmare for spouses/partners of Canadians even their only wish could be just a visitor visa to be able to spend time in Canada. Please have a proper analysis and communication to your visa offices and stop this practice because not only is it unfair, and logically wrong, it is also inhumane. The second issue is still the challenges for outland spouses intake. Your Department said in the previous emails that it is taking 10 weeks for this stream to receive AOR. The time of 10 weeks itself I think needs a lot of improvement, let alone inconsistency. We are talking about 10 weeks of the file unopened and just sit there in your portal untouched. TRV applications are auto-screened by the portal, get AOR issuance in a matter of hours. Inland spousal apps get AOR within days. Then why can't the process be improved for outland spousal apps? You link this to the issue of a high TRV rejection rate and you will see why families and Canadians go crazy about your system and why media keeps reporting on what many refer to as systemic discrimination. I personally dont think it has anything to do with discrimination, however, this is happening because it appears nobody at the Ministerial level has cared and understood the problems enough - or even if they did, no concrete and sincere actions were done to fix, leaving Canadians and families continue to suffer hopelessly. Here, again, is my ask, on behalf of Canadians who are waiting to be united with their spouses/partners/dependent children overseas: 1. Please publicize a visa policy to facilitate TRV entry for outland spouses immediately. Why immediately? Because this has been a controversial issue for years, raised by so many stakeholders and at the IRCC, acknowledged by the Department, thrown in the Minister's mandate letter since December 2021. After over two years of no action, it should be done out of immediate respect for Canadians and affected families. In parallel, communicate and monitor oversea visa offices on rejections. Globe and Mail recently revealed the Department's plan to waive eligibility for half a million visitor visa caseload in an effort to clear TRV backlog - no reasons if you can do such an ambitious plan for regular visitors, many of whom have no connections to Canada, but can't afford the same to family members of Canadian citizens. 2. Please continue to work with the outland spousal intake unit at CPC-Sydney. Sorry to be frank but please don't get offended if not true - your officers, many of whom are new hires with junior professional working experience and I imagine quite a few are working remotely, are not doing a very good job in screening intake for outland spousal apps. The AOR/bio letters for outland must continue to improve significantly to the level that is similar to inland, that is within a week or two of online submission, not 10 weeks plus. The unit is still working on files submitted early November and it has exceeded 10 weeks standard - please speak to the managers of the unit for real reports and not oral statements. Lastly, I appreciate your well intended communications. The issues I share with you have been real and seriously damage your department's reputation and I hope you continue to work amongst yourselves at the Minister Office to fix them. Best BB

 

[Ashan Perera]

Any November 2022 applications (outland) got AOR here?

 

[theonegreatone]

Important documents for you and your spouse showing that you are recognized as each other's spouse (such as employment
or insurance benefits)

For the above, Are these below valid?
1. My Wife has updated her passport and added my name as Husband
2. Marriage Certificate

Also,
My Wife is updating her Aadhar card to update her name to Add my surname and add my address.
Will these act as proof.

 

[whozarm]

Important documents for you and your spouse showing that you are recognized as each other's spouse (such as employment
or insurance benefits)

For the above, Are these below valid?
1. My Wife has updated her passport and added my name as Husband
2. Marriage Certificate

Also,
My Wife is updating her Aadhar card to update her name to Add my surname and add my address.
Will these act as proof.

No, this is separate. Those two you’ve suggested are already requested in 1. The identity documents of the PA and 2. The civil status documents.

This item is looking for a form that would have them registered as a spouse. Think employer health benefits, life insurance, emergency contact, pension, a will, etc etc.

If you’re unable to meet this, you’ll have to choose one of the other 3 options. A minimum of 2 of the 4 options has to be supplied.

 

[Jotkaur1990]

please help, Submitted spousal Sponsorship Outland application on August 26 2022 , got AOR on 19 Nov 2022, we did upfront medical on 24 may 2022 nd submitted the file with medical form but got medical request again on 29nov 2022, submitted web form regarding it, our medical was added to our file on dec 16, 2022 . There is no update on file it is showing medical requested, can somebody tell what to do? How long the medical is valid for.…¿

 

[Keshav77]

please help, Submitted spousal Sponsorship Outland application on August 26 2022 , got AOR on 19 Nov 2022, we did upfront medical on 24 may 2022 nd submitted the file with medical form but got medical request again on 29nov 2022, submitted web form regarding it, our medical was added to our file on dec 16, 2022 . There is no update on file it is showing medical requested, can somebody tell what to do? How long the medical is valid for.…¿

Call to ircc and medical is valid for a year

 

[armaanwadhwa]

Can we use the same photo (the one submitted with the application) to upload to the PR portal?

 

[CBarr]

Can we use the same photo (the one submitted with the application) to upload to the PR portal?

There is no reason not to use it, there are no requirements regarding photo not being the same as the one used before, as long as it follows the specifications they list. We are also going to use the same photo we took before. I used the same photo when I did my PR just fine.

 

[Lidwina]

Hi Everybody, Please let me know how long does it take for a Canada PR holder living and working in Canada to sponsor spouse outside Canada. Thanks.

 

[Flyingfast]

Hi Everybody, Please let me know how long does it take for a Canada PR holder living and working in Canada to sponsor spouse outside Canada. Thanks.

No one can provide an exact timeline, so allow 6–24 months. Every case is different and every visa office work load is different.

 

[Lidwina]

No one can provide an exact timeline, so allow 6–24 months. Every case is different and every visa office work load is different.

Thanks..for the reply.

 

[monster999]

Hi I am canadian PR and my wife is from Pakistan and I applied for outland online in September 2022 for which I have received AOR and SA but no medical and file has been sent to London VO that is notoriously slow. Meanwhile, My wife got her TRV approved and she will travel with me in April 2023. Given the terrible wait times, do you think I cancel the outland and apply inland in April 2023. This way hopefully I will have PR by the end of 2023 or sooner. While the outland applications for london can take 2 years and I might be getting PR in september 2024. Not sure what to do?
Will it raise any suspicions on my case if I go through. Also I am a bit scared if my wife becomes pregnant on visitor visa, I will have no coverage for delivery.

thanks

 

[Jotkaur1990]

I applied for outland spousal sponsorship in August 2022, got medical and bio metric request on Nov 29,2022. We already had upfront medical and we added it was added to the application on Dec 16 2022. No update since that , medical is not approved till now.
Can I apply TRV for my spouse ? Should we apply under visit to family or normal tourist stream, Please advise?????

 

[sk1622]

Hi Experienced Members,
I was trying to apply for PRTD but I dont see that option enabled online from my login. Can I use my spouse`s login of online portal to apply for my prtd or it will create any issues.
This is time-sensitive, appreciate any guidance or direction in this case.

 

[Banu02]

Hi Everyone,

I submitted my husband's application and I just received a refund of $85 (Biometric fee), I assume this is good news because in the past, my husband submitted Biometrics and perhaps he's been exempted?

Any insight would be appreciated!