.Thank you *very* much for such a detailed and informative response. From my understanding in reading the checklist and how it pertains to the application I submitted, there would be no reason for Program Support...I was born in Canada in 1974 and moved to the US in 2004, she was born in the US in 2006, grandparents were Naturalized Canadians in 1969, no grandparent in foreign government employment, required certified documents sent, nothing *I* can think of that would make her application non-routine....I know there was a HUGE influx of applications this past year---guess it's just generic backlog these days.
Then it's highly unlikely your daughter's application will be sent to program support. (Never say never, but that's the checklist they use, and if you meet the criteria without hitting "Refer to program support" then there's no reason why it should.
Hawk39 caught a lucky break in both getting to an agent and having said agent tell him he went to program support. CIC/IRCC basically say don't call or write unless you exceed the published processing time (currently 5 months for proof of citizenship). If you go for more than five months, they say call if you're in Canada or write a letter to CPC-Sydney if you're in the US (or go to the embassy if you're in neither Canada or the United States).I think my stress is more out of "there's no way to find out any information" just because I live in the US. If I were living in Canada, there'd be more resources available to find out real-time information since I could just call the call centre....it's more stressful when there is no option to get information at all (like those who can get info over the phone), especially since I cannot even call IRCC at all, now, it seems.
I get the anxiety, I had it too even though there was nothing I could do about it. Even now I'm ordering my great-great grandfather's birth certificate from Italy (so I can get jus sanguinis Italian citizenship) and... well, bureaucracy in Italy certainly is a thing. I have no word at all. I'm basically told it usually takes 5-8 weeks and I won't hear anything until if/when an envelope with it arrives in the mail
The whole purpose of the phone line is to isolate applicants from the people actually doing the case work, and I guess they feel that if you're not in Canada, that you shouldn't be calling. It kind of makes sense outside of the US & Canada because most people have the embassy as a contact point, but in the case of the US these applications don't go through an embassy and the phone line should be allowed.On an aside, wonder what IS the reason behind that? Just that they want to cut down on calls received daily, or....? It kinda blows my mind that there's no phone support given to people on the basis that they are in another country, not really complaining in a sense, just never understood why calls from other countries aren't welcomed by IRCC at all considering people in other countries are paying the same fees with whatever application type they are submitting. Ah, just venting as an "outsider" now!
I also think it's an inconsistency, because you had to apply from a Canadian embassy/consulate in the past (on September 2nd, 2013 they changed the rules and applications for proof of Citizenship made from the US were sent to CPC-Sydney instead).