NEED HELP - CITIZENSHIP 2019

[Messi lional]

Hi,

Please need urgent help. Next year in 2019 January I will be eligible to apply for citizenship and in the same year October I have to travel to India to attain my sister's marriage. I should be able to get citizenship and passport before October because I have to surrender my India Passport before applying for Indian Visa or OCI. in Case if I will get citizenship test or Oath date in October would I be able to request for change of date or I should wait and apply in July because If I apply in July by the time they request for test or additional document I will be back from India.

Looking for advice.

Thank you.

 

[btbt]

Impossible to say. Processing timelines are in flux, so we can't make any estimates that far out.
There are no guarantees about processing time for an individual application anyway, and the differences between one application and the next can be large. For most people a citizenship application will take somewhere between 4 and 12 months; for a few people it will take considerably longer.

Also, take into account the time it takes to process your renunciation of citizenship and the application for OCI (right now surrender of citizenship seems to take 2-4 weeks, and issuing the OCI 6-8 weeks -- https://blsindia-canada.com/ocihome.php).

Another thing to consider: "There is a grace period of three months after acquisition of foreign nationality (to be counted from the date of registration / Naturalisation Certificate and not from the date of foreign passport) for using Indian passport for travel." (from https://blsindia-canada.com/renunciation_ppt.php)

When you apply you are expected to be able to respond promptly to requests for information or to invitations to test or citizenship ceremony. Your application should be (at least) past its official acceptance, so you would be able to inform IRCC of your pending absence, which usually means no invitations will be sent for that time period. However, sometimes requests for information and invitations still get sent, so you'd need to have someone reliable to keep an eye on your mailbox, so you can respond in a timely manner. (Invitations are sent at least two weeks in advance. If you cannot attend you have 30 days after the scheduled day to contact IRCC and justify your absence. Information requests tend to have a 30 day deadline. It is possible to ask for an extension, but you would be expected to do so within that time frame.)

 

[Messi lional]

Can I use passport surrender receipt against applying for the visitor visa to India?

Or another option I should apply in August because by the time I will get AOR, I will be back to Canada.

The only thing I am scared about is what If conservatives come to power in next election and they might change the Citizenship rules right away after elections October 2019 because now as per new bill we can count our temporary status towards citizenship requirement but you never know what type of changes conservatives will bring into consideration but on the other hand that's really important for me to attain my sister's marriage.

 

[KRP]

Hi,

Please need urgent help. Next year in 2019 January I will be eligible to apply for citizenship and in the same year October I have to travel to India to attain my sister's marriage. I should be able to get citizenship and passport before October because I have to surrender my India Passport before applying for Indian Visa or OCI. in Case if I will get citizenship test or Oath date in October would I be able to request for change of date or I should wait and apply in July because If I apply in July by the time they request for test or additional document I will be back from India.

Looking for advice.

Thank you.

I would suggest you to wait until DEC 2018 and then check on the forum since we never know what all could change in another 9 to 10 months.

 

[amitdi]

Can I use passport surrender receipt against applying for the visitor visa to India?

Or another option I should apply in August because by the time I will get AOR, I will be back to Canada.

The only thing I am scared about is what If conservatives come to power in next election and they might change the Citizenship rules right away after elections October 2019 because now as per new bill we can count our temporary status towards citizenship requirement but you never know what type of changes conservatives will bring into consideration but on the other hand that's really important for me to attain my sister's marriage.

I am in same boat for 2018, meaning I have to travel in Oct 2018 and I have applied for citizenship in Oct 2017. Still no test invite.

if you dont care about getting a Canadian passport before your trip, then your safest scenario is to apply in late summer/ fall 2019. This is before the election, so same rules apply. Then as soon as you get your AOR, update IRCC with your vacation dates so that IRCC does not send you test invite in that period. Once you are back, you can safely resume your citizenship application journey. This is the lowest risk option, given your scenario.

Other considerations are apply asap (Jan 2019) and keep watching. I am confident that the timelines then should not be as bad as now. So you should really be done before your trip. If not, you can always update IRCC with your vacation plans.

In my case, if I dont get done with oath by mid-July, then it would be a risk to get the OCI in time. So I have two options - delay oath ceremony (not sure if I can do that and how) OR apply for short term tourist visa.