Can I sue IRCC and get my application fee back?

[Futurism]

Hi all,

Vancouver applicant here. It's been almost 2 years since I mailed my application to IRCC. Passed the test in August and my application status has been showing in process since the beginning of September. I finally realized Covid was just an excuse to slow things down for the Vancouver office, considering the majority of other offices in Canada caught up with an acceptable speed of finalizing the applications received during or before the pandemic. Is there anyway I can take this to the court and get my application fee back? I'm also going to email a couple newspapers about this.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[scylla]

Hi all,

Vancouver applicant here. It's been almost 2 years since I mailed my application to IRCC. Passed the test in August and my application status has been showing in process since the beginning of September. I finally realized Covid was just an excuse to slow things down for the Vancouver office, considering the majority of other offices in Canada caught up with an acceptable speed of finalizing the applications received during or before the pandemic. Is there anyway I can take this to the court and get my application fee back? I'm also going to email a couple newspapers about this.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you.

Do you mean that you want to withdraw / cancel your application and get your fee back?

Or do you mean that you still want your application to be processed but that you also want to get your fee back?

If the second, then I'm not sure I would recommend pursuing. You'll end up spending a bunch of money on a lawyer and most likely won't get the outcome you want.

Or do you mean the first?

 

[Futurism]

Do you mean that you want to withdraw / cancel your application and get your fee back?

Or do you mean that you still want your application to be processed but that you also want to get your fee back?

If the second, then I'm not sure I would recommend pursuing. You'll end up spending a bunch of money on a lawyer and most likely won't get the outcome you want.

Or do you mean the first?

Second. I still want the citizenship, but I want my money back for the delay. I know it's a bad example, but think of it like paying for a service that hasn't been received on time. So I want to ask for a refund.

 

[Cell]

If you are able to prove that you had a contract with the IRCC and that you that they guaranteed you to get your citizenship within X number of months, you can ask for a refund. However, I don't think IRCC provided such a guarantee to anybody. Even though they used to say that an application for citizenship used to take about 12 months in average, they never offered a guarantee, so you should not have relied on that.

If you have a valid reason for speed up your application, you can ask to upgrade the priority of your application to urgent, but that is done only in very few specific circumstances as explained here. Even if you qualify for urgent processing, they still don't provide you with any guarantee.

The only thing you can do is to send a formal complaint to the IRCC. Probably the webforms are the best way to do that, otherwise you can see if you can send it through regular mail. Another thing that you can do (if you haven't tried already) is to contact your local MP. Some people have got some help by doing that, but I think it really depends on the MP and on the specific case.

If you really would like to try to sue IRCC, you can try to contact an immigration firm, but I highly doubt they would be able to do anything, and you would still be charged a fee for a consultation, which could be even $200-300.

 

[scylla]

Second. I still want the citizenship, but I want my money back for the delay. I know it's a bad example, but think of it like paying for a service that hasn't been received on time. So I want to ask for a refund.

IMO, if you want to pursue this, you'll end up spending a few thousand on legal fees without getting the outcome you want.

If you want to spend money on legal fees, the better option is to try for mandamus to speed up the final stages of processing. I think trying to get the fees back is a lost cause and you'll just end up even more frustrated than you already are.

Just my two cents of course...

 

[kkbaggio]

hmmmm.... when you are applying for citizenship from a country, you are not a client of that country. Citizenship grant or not / and the amount of time it takes is not for sure. And you want to sue IRCC who is going to make a decision on your citizenship... hmmm..

 

[soliman najm]

Hello guys,

I have un urgent situation I'm looking for an immigration firm to help me with my case
I'm Syrian Refugee living in Lebanon since Marc 2017 also I'm gay man, registered in UNHCR since 2017 and the sent my application to Canada since 2019
in 5-sep-2022 I got an email form immigration officer in Beirut it said that I don't meet the requirements for immigrant to Canada,
after two years and half they came back to me with this conclusion. ،knowing that my boyfriend there in Vancouver since December 2019. and he asked IRCC to speed up my application.

Please is there anyone who can suggest me a company or someone to help me overturn the judgment of the immigration officer and reconsider my application because I was wronged

Thank you

 

[CANADA-1]

Hi all,

Vancouver applicant here. It's been almost 2 years since I mailed my application to IRCC. Passed the test in August and my application status has been showing in process since the beginning of September. I finally realized Covid was just an excuse to slow things down for the Vancouver office, considering the majority of other offices in Canada caught up with an acceptable speed of finalizing the applications received during or before the pandemic. Is there anyway I can take this to the court and get my application fee back? I'm also going to email a couple newspapers about this.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you.

ircc policy -non-refundable once the processing of an application has begun, regardless of its outcome .

 

[iceman55]

Hello guys,

I have un urgent situation I'm looking for an immigration firm to help me with my case
I'm Syrian Refugee living in Lebanon since Marc 2017 also I'm gay man, registered in UNHCR since 2017 and the sent my application to Canada since 2019
in 5-sep-2022 I got an email form immigration officer in Beirut it said that I don't meet the requirements for immigrant to Canada,
after two years and half they came back to me with this conclusion. ،knowing that my boyfriend there in Vancouver since December 2019. and he asked IRCC to speed up my application.

Please is there anyone who can suggest me a company or someone to help me overturn the judgment of the immigration officer and reconsider my application because I was wronged

Thank you

I'm not sure about Canada specifically but generally courts in the home jurisdiction will rarely interfere in the judgement of an immigration officer sitting in a consulate abroad.

That being said it's possible something like that might exist in Canada. But it might depend on what class of visa you applied for and if you have any connection to Canada and many other factors.

Since this is a citizenship forum, you might not get a straight answer here.

Go to the main page here (https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/) and post your question in the appropriate forum so you'll get better answer.

All I'd say is if you end up consulting an attorney just be cautious because you shouldn't be losing money to some attorney feeding false hopes.

Good luck!

 

[scylla]

Hello guys,

I have un urgent situation I'm looking for an immigration firm to help me with my case
I'm Syrian Refugee living in Lebanon since Marc 2017 also I'm gay man, registered in UNHCR since 2017 and the sent my application to Canada since 2019
in 5-sep-2022 I got an email form immigration officer in Beirut it said that I don't meet the requirements for immigrant to Canada,
after two years and half they came back to me with this conclusion. ،knowing that my boyfriend there in Vancouver since December 2019. and he asked IRCC to speed up my application.

Please is there anyone who can suggest me a company or someone to help me overturn the judgment of the immigration officer and reconsider my application because I was wronged

Thank you

I think you've posted to the wrong section of the forum. You can't be asking about a citizenship application since you cannot apply for citizenship directly in this situation.

What kind of application was it? Why were you refused? The short answer to your question is that you need to hire a lawyer in Canada to appeal the decision. However depending on when the refusal was received, it may be too late for that.