The exact process differs slightly from visa office to visa office, but generally the process is:
1) A visa office eligibility review is done to ensure you are eligible for processing
2) After this, background DOCUMENT checks are done to verify the authenticity of your supporting documents. Also they may contact your employer during this time to verify your employment and duties
3) Once document checks are satifactorily completed visa office will issue medical requests and at the same time request the right of permanent residence fees if these were not paid with the initial application. At this time, they will begin background SECURITY checks. They may also ask for additional documents/forms along with medical requests and/or updated police certificates.
4) Once medical results have been received and approved by the medical services division of the visa office (baring in mind some visa offices do not have a medical services division and so must get other visa offices to do this for them), then the visa office will issue passport requests.
AOR from visa office
Once your application arrives at the visa office, they will sit on it for a while. When they are in a position to process it most visa offices will send you a 2nd AOR. Please see the link at the top for an example of this, from Manila office and the wordings vary from visa office to visa office. Also some offices send by email, and others send by snail mail. There is still no need to do anything at this stage. A few visa offices, most notably London, will not send a 2nd AOR at all but will skip this and go straight to medicals, or ask for further documentation.
6) Processing begins – document background checks
Once the visa office begins processing your file they will commence with document background checks.
At this stage your ECAS status should now read “In Process” with the extra line in the detail “Your application was reviewed and we started processing on <Date>”.
This document background check will include ascertaining the authenticity of your documents, and since they use some third party companies for this it could take a varying level of time depending on your visa office, the complexity of your case, and even the speed of the individual visa officer looking at your case. They may also perform employment verification checks which will involve telephoning both you (whilst at work) and your employer to ensure you give the same answers on their questions about your employment. Only a small percentage of applicants are likely to receive employment verification. Only if they are unconvinced by any of the work experience documents you sent, or if your application is one of the random spotchecks they do to prevent fraud, will they actually perform the verification.
Visa office may request further documentation from you during the processing phase, which can come by email or snail mail. They may also ask for a few things (PCCs or fresh forms) at the same time as medicals (see below)
7) Medical requests and RPRF fee request
Once the document background checks are completed satisfactorily, the visa office will write to you (usually by snail mail) requesting you to complete medicals and also requests RPRF (Right of Permanent Residents fee). They may also ask for updated documents such as PCCs and fresh forms at this stage. Please note that New Delhi visa office will also request passports at this stage. Most other visa offices will not request passports until they are about to finalise the application.
