Ankara Visa Office Applicants Check in here! :)

[Sara Joon]

Please give me your inputs about this letter. It addresses a completely different request to the prime minister


June 9th, 2017

Re: request for family support for Canadian Citizen sponsors waiting for outland spouse sponsorship more than a year (example Ankara office 1.5 times normal processing time, more than 15 months since Feb 2016)

Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

We are more than 30 educated and professional Canadian Citizens/PRs (mostly women and mostly Iranians) sponsoring our spouses to come to Canada under the family sponsorship program to start our family life. The citizens/residents of Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Jordan are assigned to the Canadian visa office in Ankara, Turkey. The normal processing time as mentioned on the Immigration, Refugee, Citizenship Canada website is 8 months for Iran. We all have passed the normal processing time and our spouse applications have been in background check/security screening for 7-8 months despite the fact that they all have passed the criminality and have no criminal records. And our total processing/waiting time is so far more than 1.5 times the normal processing time and more than a year.


The Ankara office and office of the immigration minister confirmed that they conduct background checks by working together with partner agencies such as RCMP, CSIS, CBSA, medical authorities and agencies of foreign governments. Background screening processes are non-discriminatory and universal in their application (although Ankara is the only VO passing the normal processing time based on the statistics). Any delays or requirements that their partner agencies may require in providing input are something over which they have no control. And also it says in the IRCC website that they’ve committed to processing most (80 %) of the applications by end of Dec 2017. We process the applications in the order we get them. So basically no deadline for our applications as we fall out of 80%. And despite all their efforts and announcements to unite families there is no clear horizon in front of any of us as for the time to start our family.

Most of us are working as professionals/business owners in Canada for so many years and we are largely contributing to the Canada success and as single individuals working hard we are contributing large amount of tax to Canada. It took us a lot of years of hard working to reach where we are standing in our career now and got professional designations and work for large Canadian companies. Most of these companies don’t have any branch in the world and are pure Canadian so we have no option to transfer. As young professionals most of us are only entitled to 2-3 weeks of vacations so during the last year we could only be with our spouse for 2-3 weeks in a year. Our spouse does not have any way to come to Canada while waiting for security check to be concluded as visitor visa is hardly granted as well (ideally there should be a spouse supervisa similar to the parent supervise which was introduced couple of years ago but we leave this matter to the immigration minister's office).

We are asking for some kind of support to be added for families in this situation in the Canadian work system by law. Canada has paternity, maternity, caregiver leave, etc. We want to make sure the sponsor can temporarily take off from work and stay with her/his spouse for 6 months or 1 year (partially paid for couple of months or even without pay) and not losing her/his job and being able to prove to IRCC that he/she can still sponsor her/his spouse financially once they both move to Canada. The requests for this leave to start maximum one year after the sponsorship application and not any longer. This situation has put our family and career life in danger. Currently most companies don’t grant such leave for their employers. Husband and wife need each other as much as a dad and baby do, etc (specially newly married couples). We believe the current system brings discriminations against Canadians marrying non-Canadians by putting their family and career life at risk and it is specially discrimination against females as they have age limitation to bring babies and expand their family and they cannot even start a family and unit with their spouse for more than a year. This is while they continue to contribute tax for others to be able to use the child benefits, free schools, etc for many years.

It is a great letter hon, well done

 

[strength2]

I have to send this letter as soon as possible because the parliament will close June 23rd for three months till 18th Sep and most MPs will be back to their home offices.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/en/sitting-calendar

 

[strength2]

It is a great letter hon, well done

please let me know if there is any grammar error as your English should be better than mine after 23 years. Thank you.

 

[strength2]

It is a great letter hon, well done

If immigration is not at their hand they should do something for us. some of us contribute 5 digit tax to Canada every year.

 

[Mina124]

Please give me your inputs about this letter. It addresses a completely different request to the prime minister


June 9th, 2017

Re: request for family support for Canadian Citizen sponsors waiting for outland spouse sponsorship more than a year (example Ankara office 1.5 times normal processing time, more than 15 months since Feb 2016)

Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

We are more than 30 educated and professional Canadian Citizens/PRs (mostly women and mostly Iranians) sponsoring our spouses to come to Canada under the family sponsorship program to start our family life. The citizens/residents of Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Jordan are assigned to the Canadian visa office in Ankara, Turkey. The normal processing time as mentioned on the Immigration, Refugee, Citizenship Canada website is 8 months for Iran. We all have passed the normal processing time and our spouse applications have been in background check/security screening for 7-8 months despite the fact that they all have passed the criminality and have no criminal records. And our total processing/waiting time is so far more than 1.5 times the normal processing time and more than a year.


The Ankara office and office of the immigration minister confirmed that they conduct background checks by working together with partner agencies such as RCMP, CSIS, CBSA, medical authorities and agencies of foreign governments. Background screening processes are non-discriminatory and universal in their application (although Ankara is the only VO passing the normal processing time based on the statistics). Any delays or requirements that their partner agencies may require in providing input are something over which they have no control. And also it says in the IRCC website that they’ve committed to processing most (80 %) of the applications by end of Dec 2017. We process the applications in the order we get them. So basically no deadline for our applications as we fall out of 80%. And despite all their efforts and announcements to unite families there is no clear horizon in front of any of us as for the time to start our family.

Most of us are working as professionals/business owners in Canada for so many years and we are largely contributing to the Canada success and as single individuals working hard we are contributing large amount of tax to Canada. It took us a lot of years of hard working to reach where we are standing in our career now and got professional designations and work for large Canadian companies. Most of these companies don’t have any branch in the world and are pure Canadian so we have no option to transfer. As young professionals most of us are only entitled to 2-3 weeks of vacations so during the last year we could only be with our spouse for 2-3 weeks in a year. Our spouse does not have any way to come to Canada while waiting for security check to be concluded as visitor visa is hardly granted as well (ideally there should be a spouse supervisa similar to the parent supervise which was introduced couple of years ago but we leave this matter to the immigration minister's office).

We are asking for some kind of support to be added for families in this situation in the Canadian work system by law. Canada has paternity, maternity, caregiver leave, etc. We want to make sure the sponsor can temporarily take off from work and stay with her/his spouse for 6 months or 1 year (partially paid for couple of months or even without pay) and not losing her/his job and being able to prove to IRCC that he/she can still sponsor her/his spouse financially once they both move to Canada. The requests for this leave to start maximum one year after the sponsorship application and not any longer. This situation has put our family and career life in danger. Currently most companies don’t grant such leave for their employers. Husband and wife need each other as much as a dad and baby do, etc (specially newly married couples). We believe the current system brings discriminations against Canadians marrying non-Canadians by putting their family and career life at risk and it is specially discrimination against females as they have age limitation to bring babies and expand their family and they cannot even start a family and unit with their spouse for more than a year. This is while they continue to contribute tax for others to be able to use the child benefits, free schools, etc for many years.

It is perfect, very good
I suggest list the applicant name, their file numbers and their MP, to show that a lot of cases stuck in this stage.

 

[Sara Joon]

please let me know if there is any grammar error as your English should be better than mine after 23 years. Thank you.

I couldn't do any better darling, well said , good job, I hope we hear something soon, I am really upset by this whole thing, I feel my brain is frozen.

 

[strength2]

If anyone like to include her/his MP name in the letter to the prime minister please let me know asap.

 

[Mina124]

Hi,

Yesterday, I sent an email to Ankara office to inquiry about the status of my application and today I receive this reply

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is in response to your recent E-Mail enquiry.
The processing of the application is continuing. You will be advised once all the statutory requirements have been met.

We trust that this information is of assistance.

Regards,

Immigration Section/Section d'immigration


What does "statutory requirements" means? I have not hear before? They did not talk about security check but talk about "statutory requirements" !!!!!
Is it new stage that we have to face with it? What do you think? Did you have any similar reply from Ankara office?

 

[Sara Joon]

Hi,

Yesterday, I sent an email to Ankara office to inquiry about the status of my application and today I receive this reply

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is in response to your recent E-Mail enquiry.
The processing of the application is continuing. You will be advised once all the statutory requirements have been met.

We trust that this information is of assistance.

Regards,

Immigration Section/Section d'immigration


What does "statutory requirements" means? I have not hear before? They did not talk about security check but talk about "statutory requirements" !!!!!
Is it new stage that we have to face with it? What do you think? Did you have any similar reply from Ankara office?

Not to worry, it means the same thing, once they are finished , the will let you know what's the statues of your application, approval or ....

 

[strength2]

June 12th, 2017

Re: Outland spouse sponsorship - Ankara office more than 1.5 times normal processing time, more than 13 months

Dear Honorable Ahmed D. Hussen MP,

We are more than 30 educated and professional Canadian Citizens/PR (mostly women and mostly Iranians) sponsoring our spouses to come to Canada under the family sponsorship program to start our family life. The citizens/residents of Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Jordan are assigned to the Canadian visa office in Ankara, Turkey. The normal processing time as mentioned on the Immigration, Refugee, Citizenship Canada website is 8 months for Iran. We all have passed the normal processing time and our spouse applications have been in background check/security screening for 7-8 months despite the fact that they all have passed the criminality and have no criminal records. And our total processing/waiting time is so far 1.5 times the normal processing time and more than a year.

The Ankara office and your office confirmed that they conduct background checks by working together with partner agencies such as RCMP, CSIS, the CBSA, medical authorities and agencies of foreign governments. Background screening processes are non-discriminatory and universal in their application. Any delays or requirements that your partner agencies may require in providing input are something over which we have no control. And also it says in the IRCC website that they’ve committed to processing most (80 %) of the applications by end of Dec 2017 and that they process the applications in the order we get them, hence basically no deadline for our applications as we fall out of 80%. Despite all your efforts and announcements that the Government of Canada will make family reunification an important priority, there is no clear horizon in front of any of us as for the time to start our family.

The table below shows the normal processing time for some other nationalities (based on IRCC website) and the maximum time the assigned visa offices took based on the statistics from the canadavisa.com forums as an example.


Afghanistan

Pakistan

India

Ghana

Iran

Visa office

Vienna

London

New Dehli *

Accra

Ankara

Normal processing time, months

22

20

17

16

8

Max processing time took, months

13

15


7

Ø 16

‘* always grant visitor visas at the same time PR in process as well

Other visa offices are relied on the same agencies for security screening but still they have all finished the applications even faster than the normal processing time. Ankara might be busy with refugees and may not have time to follow up with the agencies. We do not know any case from Ankara who has passed the normal processing time and who got PR (all waiting after one year). Maybe our files should be transferred to a different visa office due to backlog in Ankara.Also even though IRCC has a visitor visa rule with a dual intent made for people with an immigration file that need to come to Canada temporarily with visitor visa, Ankara rejects 99% of the spouse visitor visas who have the PR application file.

In general the less stable the spouse is in Canada the faster she/he can bring her/his spouse to Canada. Students can bring their spouse as visitor within 40 days. Also we see many people are coming to Canada as visitor without mentioning that they are going to get married. Then they get married inside Canada and they can apply for work permit and PR at the same time and they get work permit within a month and can live and work in Canada with their spouse legally while they wait for PR. Is there any CIC rule which will not let couple do this? If so please advise us about it.
If no, What is the difference with someone who is genuine and who applies for PR from outside Canada from the beginning instead of coming to Canada on a visitor visa? Why should the PR take for ever and what is the difference between the admissibility/risk of that applicant and the one who came as a visitor?

There should at least be a spouse super visa which will let the spouse to enter Canada as soon as they got married and be able to live together even on a visitor visa basis.

Thank & Regards,

sent from sponsors who are constituents of the following MPs
(for privacy the MP names are given but MP has the file number and names)

Geng Tan, MP, Toronto, ON (2 constituents)
Ali Ehsassi, Canadian/Iranian MP, North York, ON (2 constituents)
Majid Jowhari, Canadian/Iranian MP, Richmond Hill, ON
Marilyn Gladu, Sarnia, ON
Alexandre Boulerice, MP, Montreal, QC
Helene Laverdiere, MP, Montreal, QC
Marc Miller, MP, Montreal, QC
Marc Garneau, MP, Westmount, QC
Terry Duguid, MP, Manitoba, MB
Thomas Mulcair, MP, leader of NDP, Ottawa, ON
Kennedy Stewart, MP, Burnaby, BC
Jonathan Wilkinson, MP, North Vancouver, BC

 

[strength2]

The table does not copy paste here. Please let me know your inputs.

 

[Mina124]

The letter is very good like always. Many thanks.

 

[strength2]

The letter is very good like always. Many thanks.

Thank you. Any other argument to add?

 

[Naghmeh]

your comments as always ,perfect and excellent .thank you very much .

 

[strength2]

Second week of June. Monday passed in Ankara and still we are in process. Lets hope something changes this week.