Confirmation of Permanent Residence arrived with "Valid to" date already expired

[mineliner]

I just received the COPR form for my wife. We applied out-of-country even though she is staying with me in the country as a visitor (visa exempt country).

The COPR has an issue date of October 10th 2013 and a "valid to" date of October 31st 2013.

This seems like a mistake to me, giving a 20 day window for arrival to Canada.

The letter only arrived on November 8th as well, so it was definitely not given enough time to even arrive.
I tried calling Service Canada for assistance, they pointed me to CIC.
I called CIC for help, they pointed me to the London Visa Office, who issued the COPR.
I emailed the London office through their website, but there is a 28-day business response from them.

I am just posting here to get some ideas.

1. I was wondering if the Immigration Officer at the border would recognize the mistake and simply proceed to sign the COPR despite the expired "Valid to" date.

2. Since my wife is in Canada currently, I also need to know if I can simply go to the airport from inside and reach the immigration office to get the landing processed. Or do I have to travel out of the country and then back in?

3. Does the US-Canada border process immigration landings (And sign COPR forms) as well?

 

[keesio]

Oh man that is rough. When did your wife do her medicals? I think the "valid to" date is the date CIC received the medical results from the doctor.

 

[ghunter]

I just received the COPR form for my wife. We applied out-of-country even though she is staying with me in the country as a visitor (visa exempt country).

The COPR has an issue date of October 10th 2013 and a "valid to" date of October 31st 2013.

This seems like a mistake to me, giving a 20 day window for arrival to Canada.

The letter only arrived on November 8th as well, so it was definitely not given enough time to even arrive.
I tried calling Service Canada for assistance, they pointed me to CIC.
I called CIC for help, they pointed me to the London Visa Office, who issued the COPR.
I emailed the London office through their website, but there is a 28-day business response from them.

I am just posting here to get some ideas.

1. I was wondering if the Immigration Officer at the border would recognize the mistake and simply proceed to sign the COPR despite the expired "Valid to" date.

2. Since my wife is in Canada currently, I also need to know if I can simply go to the airport from inside and reach the immigration office to get the landing processed. Or do I have to travel out of the country and then back in?

3. Does the US-Canada border process immigration landings (And sign COPR forms) as well?

I would call the London office and explain the issue (they will probably ask you to leave a message on their "emergency" voice-mail), if it isn't linked to the medicals and is just a mistake they will re-issue the COPR. I had a similar problem with my London issued COPR that required a re-issue, but it took a large amount of harassing them to get them to send it. I would also contact your MP to contact them, the London office responded almost immediately when we did this.

 

[mineliner]

Thank you for the suggestions.

I have emailed the London office through the website, they did not have a direct line for immigration related inquiries.

Did you just dial the main office to "harass" them there? I will definitely reach out to my MP too for help. Great advice.

The medical might have expired at this point, but the expiry on the medical is was shorter than the wait time of the PR application. So I would expect the medical to expire before receiving the COPR. I'll double check the medical expiry and update here as this progresses.

I just hope I'm not requested to apply for the sponsorship again from scratch.

 

[canuck_in_uk]

1. I was wondering if the Immigration Officer at the border would recognize the mistake and simply proceed to sign the COPR despite the expired "Valid to" date.

2. Since my wife is in Canada currently, I also need to know if I can simply go to the airport from inside and reach the immigration office to get the landing processed. Or do I have to travel out of the country and then back in?

3. Does the US-Canada border process immigration landings (And sign COPR forms) as well?

1. No, they have to go by the date on the COPR.

2. No, you can't just go to the airport. You would need to make an appointment with CIC to be able to land inside Canada. It takes months to get an appointment.

3. Yes. Called "flagpoling", that is the easiest way to land. Your wife needs to officially leave Canada (either by entering the US or getting an administrative refusal from US immigration), then re-enter to land as a PR.

As ghunter said above, contacting your MP is probably your surest way of getting a quick response.

I just hope I'm not requested to apply for the sponsorship again from scratch.

You won't have to. Most likely, they will need to extend the validity of the medical for another year and re-issue the COPR with the new date.

 

[ghunter]

Thank you for the suggestions.

I have emailed the London office through the website, they did not have a direct line for immigration related inquiries.

Did you just dial the main office to "harass" them there? I will definitely reach out to my MP too for help. Great advice.

The medical might have expired at this point, but the expiry on the medical is was shorter than the wait time of the PR application. So I would expect the medical to expire before receiving the COPR. I'll double check the medical expiry and update here as this progresses.

I just hope I'm not requested to apply for the sponsorship again from scratch.

We called the High Commission in London and explained our issue. They deal with the immigration section as well as a number of other things. Their number can be found at unitedkingdom . gc . ca.

We called this number pretty regularly until they got back to us, but I honestly think the only reason they dealt with us was because our MP requested they speed this us a bit.

 

[mineliner]

As a final post as a follow-up to the story, the MP helped a lot and we got a response from London right away. It did take about 10 more weeks before we received the new COPR. That may have been because of the holiday season timing.

We just received the COPR this morning and will try "flagpoling" soon.

Thank you everyone for your incredible advice.

 

[Millertimez]

As a final post as a follow-up to the story, the MP helped a lot and we got a response from London right away. It did take about 10 more weeks before we received the new COPR. That may have been because of the holiday season timing.

We just received the COPR this morning and will try "flagpoling" soon.

Thank you everyone for your incredible advice.

Just out of curiosity, did they extend your COPR to October 2014? or did they extend your medicals? I ask this because I may be running to a similar situation in the future.

Congrats on gettting the COPR.

 

[Alurra71]

Just out of curiosity, did they extend your COPR to October 2014? or did they extend your medicals? I ask this because I may be running to a similar situation in the future.

Congrats on gettting the COPR.

They likely extended her medicals and then reissued the COPR to match her medical expiry date. They will not give you a valid COPR to go past your medical admissabilty date. Because his wife is in Canada and was likely here for quite some time even though they applied outland, she would not necessarily have to redo the medical.

 

[mineliner]

They ended up extending both the COPR and the medical to 2014 October, which gives us enough time this time around

 

[canuck_in_uk]

That's great to hear mineliner!

 

[avisbl81]

Hello!

I received an email (on Feb 18) from CIC mentioning that my application is almost complete. I have been asked to send my passports for issuance of visa and COPR.

My medicals were done last year (March 23,2013). So I would like how much time might be given to me (validity of visa and COPR) to enter Canada, since I am less than a month away from medicals expiration date of 1 year.

Anyone lately has received a COPR and visa, would like to know how time was given to enter Canada.

Avi

 

[AnandPatel]

Hello,

My name is Anand. I applied for my parents sponsorship visa and got the PR visa for my parents last year feb2013 with validity for landing 16 Jan 2014.
as duje to lack of knowledge and mistake, we missed the date to landing in canada.
pls anyone suggest what should should i do for getting PR visa extend. my parents in India.

Thanks,
Anand

 

[zardoz]

Hello,

My name is Anand. I applied for my parents sponsorship visa and got the PR visa for my parents last year feb2013 with validity for landing 16 Jan 2014.
as duje to lack of knowledge and mistake, we missed the date to landing in canada.
pls anyone suggest what should should i do for getting PR visa extend. my parents in India.

Thanks,
Anand

You will have to contact the Visa Office that supplied the COPR documents.
The only alternative is to start all over again from the beginning.

I would not get your hopes up...

 

[Dave01]

Hello guys,

I need urgent help please as I received from CIC this morning that my husband's application for PR is close to completion. I am a Canada PR and am sponsoring my husband from outside Canada but he lives here in Canada with me as a visitor. My question is would CIC abroad processing my husband application require him to come and get the CORP or can they just send it via mail since he's in Canada already and don't need an immigrant visa. Answers will be much appreciated.

Thanks,