Applying with Basic Residence. Where to find recent success stories?

[anon123]

With our beloved Bill C-24 now a law, and residency requirement coming into force in June-July 2015 as reported by members here, I did my calculation. As expected, I will have basic residence early 2015 but no physical until august. I have pre-PR and a lot of short absences for vacations, longest one 20 days. A couple of questions for senior members:

1) When applying with only basic residence, does it make any difference if I send the application with 1096 days of basic residence or more, or it's just lottery either way?

2) How can I find CJ cases from recent years for applicants with basic residence? I want to know if the trend is towards worse odds, better odds, or same odds. I want to see if C24 defining residency as "physical" will affect the CJ outcome, hence I need a place to look at CJ cases as they come.

I know a lot of people on this forum are strongly against applying with basic residence, but from my point of view it's just a lottery. WIth C-24 I will have to wait 3 more years before I qualify. If I get a positive result from CJ - good, if I get negative (after appeal) OK, I can wait, if I don't get any in 3 years (unlikely?) I can withdraw and reapply, no big deal.

 

[Empirical-Scientist]

With our beloved Bill C-24 now a law, and residency requirement coming into force in June-July 2015 as reported by members here, I did my calculation. As expected, I will have basic residence early 2015 but no physical until august. I have pre-PR and a lot of short absences for vacations, longest one 20 days. A couple of questions for senior members:

1) When applying with only basic residence, does it make any difference if I send the application with 1096 days of basic residence or more, or it's just lottery either way?

2) How can I find CJ cases from recent years for applicants with basic residence? I want to know if the trend is towards worse odds, better odds, or same odds. I want to see if C24 defining residency as "physical" will affect the CJ outcome, hence I need a place to look at CJ cases as they come.

I know a lot of people on this forum are strongly against applying with basic residence, but from my point of view it's just a lottery. WIth C-24 I will have to wait 3 more years before I qualify. If I get a positive result from CJ - good, if I get negative (after appeal) OK, I can wait, if I don't get any in 3 years (unlikely?) I can withdraw and reapply, no big deal.

The legal requirement is to apply with basic residence. The CIC officer that reviews your case cannot just delay your application based on that reason. However, you'd better be certain you haven't left any gaps in your time periods (away from Canada as well as work/education), other information, required supporting docs, etc. Then, the "lottery" part you mention is probably related to whether CBSA has the correct entry info for you or not. To clarify that with yourself, you'd better order a CBSA report for your trips to determine if all adds up with what you have...

 

[anon123]

The legal requirement is to apply with basic residence. The CIC officer that reviews your case cannot just delay your application based on that reason. However, you'd better be certain you haven't left any gaps in your time periods (away from Canada as well as work/education), other information, required supporting docs, etc. Then, the "lottery" part you mention is probably related to whether CBSA has the correct entry info for you or not. To clarify that with yourself, you'd better order a CBSA report for your trips to determine if all adds up with what you have...

Thanks. The "lottery" part is the CJ deciding to use the "physical presence" test instead of the Koo test. Unfortunately I can't find any success stories in recent years (2012-2014). My hope is that CJ will consider the impact of Bill C-24, and, had I known that Bill C-24 was coming I would have avoided going on vacations outside of Canada. It is truly unfair to people with pre-PR time like myself who find their citizenship delayed by 3 years for reasons outside of our control. But unfortunately "compassionate" grounds are not part of CJ tests.

 

[Empirical-Scientist]

Thanks. The "lottery" part is the CJ deciding to use the "physical presence" test instead of the Koo test. Unfortunately I can't find any success stories in recent years (2012-2014). My hope is that CJ will consider the impact of Bill C-24, and, had I known that Bill C-24 was coming I would have avoided going on vacations outside of Canada. It is truly unfair to people with pre-PR time like myself who find their citizenship delayed by 3 years for reasons outside of our control. But unfortunately "compassionate" grounds are not part of CJ tests.

The CJ can decide to use the Koo test even with 3000 days. My worry is not that. It's the precarious period that's following per C-24...

 

[torontonian2003]

Physical presence is still the more important residence criterion. Not meeting the mininum for physical presence would likely lead to a residence questionnaire. Note that there are very rare exceptional circumstances in which absences are considered by CIC. Please read this current guideline (this will however be modified as soon as the new citizenship act comes into effect):

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/cp/cp05-eng.pdf

 

[Empirical-Scientist]

Physical presence is still the more important residence criterion. Not meeting the mininum for physical presence would likely lead to a residence questionnaire. Note that there are very rare exceptional circumstances in which absences are considered by CIC. Please read this current guideline (this will however be modified as soon as the new citizenship act comes into effect):

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/cp/cp05-eng.pdf

That's correct -- what I meant by 1096th day is that day on which physical presence has been met at minimum...

 

[keesio]

1) When applying with only basic residence, does it make any difference if I send the application with 1096 days of basic residence or more, or it's just lottery either way?

There is no point in applying if you don't meet the PHYSICAL requirements. You will get rejected (or RQ'ed and then eventually rejected).

 

[Goldline]

here is an important link for you with many real stories. Enjoy
https://secure.immigration.ca/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5523&SID=49229522c85c3972ddf91938faz25897962963&title=residency-tests-proof-practice-policy

 

[Msafiri]

I'd go with the premise that even if I had a sympathetic CJ who was ok with my basic residence I still have to get past a CIC appeal and it increasingly seems most of the FC bench agree with the physical presence as the only true test. Its becoming difficult to justify why you need more than 1 year @ 25% time in a 4 year block to do all those other important things that keep you from getting 1095 physical days. It sucks for the PR but why should Canada fit around your chosen lifestyle rather than you fitting into Canada's rules for citizenship acquisition? If the Koo test had solidity it would have featured in the new act...that it doesn't speaks volumes about where basic residence is positioned!

 

[eileenf]

Thanks. The "lottery" part is the CJ deciding to use the "physical presence" test instead of the Koo test. Unfortunately I can't find any success stories in recent years (2012-2014). My hope is that CJ will consider the impact of Bill C-24, and, had I known that Bill C-24 was coming I would have avoided going on vacations outside of Canada. It is truly unfair to people with pre-PR time like myself who find their citizenship delayed by 3 years for reasons outside of our control. But unfortunately "compassionate" grounds are not part of CJ tests.

Any case that is short of physical presence will get a residence questionnaire and have to wait until it is fully reviewed and then wait until the citizenship judge get scheduled. It's a total gamble how long that will take, but I can't imagine it would take less than 2 years, and I suspect it would take far longer.

Long story short, you might get citizenship faster (not to mention with far less stress and expense, as it's not a good idea to go into a citizenship judge hearing without a lawyer) if you wait to apply until you meet physical presence.

Good luck either way!

 

[touché]

With our beloved Bill C-24 now a law, and residency requirement coming into force in June-July 2015 as reported by members here, I did my calculation. As expected, I will have basic residence early 2015 but no physical until august. I have pre-PR and a lot of short absences for vacations, longest one 20 days. A couple of questions for senior members:

1) When applying with only basic residence, does it make any difference if I send the application with 1096 days of basic residence or more, or it's just lottery either way?

2) How can I find CJ cases from recent years for applicants with basic residence? I want to know if the trend is towards worse odds, better odds, or same odds. I want to see if C24 defining residency as "physical" will affect the CJ outcome, hence I need a place to look at CJ cases as they come.

I know a lot of people on this forum are strongly against applying with basic residence, but from my point of view it's just a lottery. WIth C-24 I will have to wait 3 more years before I qualify. If I get a positive result from CJ - good, if I get negative (after appeal) OK, I can wait, if I don't get any in 3 years (unlikely?) I can withdraw and reapply, no big deal.

Just wait till you meet the physical residence obligations, then apply.

 

[anon123]

Just wait till you meet the physical residence obligations, then apply.

All there is to lose is the application fee. Meeting physical residence obligations will take me 3 more years after basic. If I still haven't seen the judge in 3 years then I can withdraw the application and submit under the new rules.

 

[Empirical-Scientist]

All there is to lose is the application fee. Meeting physical residence obligations will take me 3 more years after basic. If I still haven't seen the judge in 3 years then I can withdraw the application and submit under the new rules.

Live and think by Occam's Razor, not by what you wish to believe is true... Doing thus will really risk your current and future application going really non-routine...

 

[keesio]

yes, they are making things harder not easier. Judges are less sympathetic than they were before. Applying early and getting rejected will go on your record as such... probably leading to more scrutiny going forward.

 

[eileenf]

All there is to lose is the application fee. Meeting physical residence obligations will take me 3 more years after basic. If I still haven't seen the judge in 3 years then I can withdraw the application and submit under the new rules.

Previous RQs, denials or withdrawals may still be triggers for RQs with future applications. This was a known trigger in the past, though we don't have the current list, so we can't know for sure whether it is still in effect or will be in 3 years.

We also can't predict future processing times, but it's safe to say that non-routine processing times (as in RQ or RQ + CJ hearing) will be significantly longer than routine processing timelines.

So there's a lot of room to doubt whether you'd be able to start over with a clean slate after withdrawing a citizenship application that's short of physical presence. It's a gamble, so it depends on your appetite for risk. It also depends on your budget. You really need a lawyer if you're applying with significant shortfall of physical presence. The CIC would likely appeal a positive ruling as well. So, bare minimum, I'm guessing, would be $5000 in lawyer's fees.

Look through the citizenship cases on the Federal Court website to get an idea of how these things go. Here's a list of mandamus cases (not exactly what you're looking for, but close) http://residencequestionnaire.wordpress.com/mandamus/