Damascus/Spousal since Jan 2010 or late 2009

[JayJ]

He says typically most are processed within a year, but 19 out of 44 embassies (43%) are taking over a year.

 

[abdmoh]

He says typically most are processed within a year, but 19 out of 44 embassies (43%) are taking over a year.

50% of china applications are fake, but their processing time is 6 months???!!

 

[JayJ]

50% of china applications are fake, but their processing time is 6 months???!!

Hong Kong, where it's now 19 months.

 

[A+M]

Thx so much JayJ for posting that! At least our voices were heard. I don't necessarily think it will have a huge effect BUT it is an opening for us to keep pushing for action! At some point in time they will have to start moving quickly to prevent a huge backlog! I just pray they start moving soon

 

[yetAnotherSilentReader]

Highlights of his response:

"Q: We received many reports that the wait time to process spousal immigration applications has increased in recent months. Particularly for applicants currently residing in Syria and other Middle Eastern countires. What is driving this backlog and is the government doing anything to address it?

A: We had to shut down our embassy in Syria. There's a war going on there, a civil war. We had to close our embassy and our immigration office, which was our main hub for the Middle Eastern region and we've had to move most of those employees up to Ankara (Turkey), some to Beirut (Lebanon). So we'll try to get on top of that, but because of the closure of our office, that's one of those unforeseen circumstances you can't really plan for."

"Typically on a global basis we process spousal sponsorship applications in under 12 months, in some places it becomes more difficult, where there are higher rates of fraud."

"And we have a huge problem with fraudulent immigration marriages around the world. In fact, a couple of years ago we identified that 50 per cent of the spousal sponsorship applications coming out of China to our Hong Kong office were fake."

"My apologies to the folks from Syria that are waiting, we'll try to get to those applications."

Thanks Jay, I am at least glad to hear his apologies, I know it means nothing to us and our loved ones ..... and thanks to those from here & elsewhere who took the time and voiced their concerns there, we have to continue raising awareness so they'll act more responsibly.

 

[Nenan]

I tweet to Jason Kenney about our suffering,I sent many tweets,and he block me , he is very understanding person.

 

[Nenan]

He says typically most are processed within a year, but 19 out of 44 embassies (43%) are taking over a year.

thank you very much JayJ, you make our voices reach to the media,they wants us stay in the dark

 

[siavashf]

Highlights of his response:

"Q: We received many reports that the wait time to process spousal immigration applications has increased in recent months. Particularly for applicants currently residing in Syria and other Middle Eastern countires. What is driving this backlog and is the government doing anything to address it?

A: We had to shut down our embassy in Syria. There's a war going on there, a civil war. We had to close our embassy and our immigration office, which was our main hub for the Middle Eastern region and we've had to move most of those employees up to Ankara (Turkey), some to Beirut (Lebanon). So we'll try to get on top of that, but because of the closure of our office, that's one of those unforeseen circumstances you can't really plan for."

"Typically on a global basis we process spousal sponsorship applications in under 12 months, in some places it becomes more difficult, where there are higher rates of fraud."

"And we have a huge problem with fraudulent immigration marriages around the world. In fact, a couple of years ago we identified that 50 per cent of the spousal sponsorship applications coming out of China to our Hong Kong office were fake."

"My apologies to the folks from Syria that are waiting, we'll try to get to those applications."

For once, I hope he means what he says and really tries to get to our applications. So far, in theory cic has said many nice things but in practice their actions have been the other way around.

 

[dirtypolitics]

bull*censored word* response.

The question was about middle east and he gave examples re china and india....which they have processing times of under 6 months.

He also implied that under 12 months is perfectly fine for him (12 months is actually more because you have to add 1 month document prep, 2 months step 1, 1 month get visa issues, 1 month at least to get ticket and reunite= 17 months).


Q: We received many reports that the wait time to process spousal immigration applications has increased in recent months, particularly for applicants currently residing in Syria and other Middle Eastern countires. What is driving this backlog and is the government doing anything to address it?

A: We had to shut down our embassy in Syria. There's a war going on there, a civil war. We had to close our embassy and our immigration office, which was our main hub for the Middle Eastern region and we've had to move most of those employees up to Ankara (Turkey), some to Beirut (Lebanon). So we'll try to get on top of that, but because of the closure of our office, that's one of those unforeseen circumstances you can't really plan for.

Typically, on a global basis we process spousal sponsorship applications in under 12 months. In some places it becomes more difficult, where there are higher rates of fraud. I'll give you an example, we have very long processing times in Pakistan, in part because the Pakistani government wouldn't give visas to our officers to go in and make decisions and, in part, because a lot of people there do Shariah marriages which are not registered in the civil courts and we can't verify them.

And we have a huge problem with fraudulent immigration marriages around the world. In fact, a couple of years ago we identified that 50 per cent of the spousal sponsorship applications coming out of China to our Hong Kong office were fake. Apparently being organized by Triads (Chinese Mafia) who were establishing relationships with biker gangs in Canada. So we had this weird situation where all these Canadian biker gang members were sponsoring these Chinese girls who they had never met to come to Canada. Apparently, the Chinese girls were promising up to $60,000 to the Triads to facilitate the bogus marriage. We caught on to this when our officers started to see ... to support their application they submitted photos of their honeymoon, but all of the honeymoon photos were taken in the same apartment, the same furniture. Bad Triads, they're not very sophisticated. Ans so we started calling them for interviews and their stories would just fall apart right away.

The better example is in Pubjab, we hired a network of fraud detection experts, a lot of former cops who are good at documentary fraud, and we started to see pictures that were being submitted in immigration marriage applications where the face of the bride and groom were being crudely Photoshopped on top of a real wedding picture. So then we changed the rules, that's not working, we want a full shot of the wedding reception so we can see context, see it's real. And then the Punjabi wedding palaces started offering special discount fake wedding reception packages. Welcome to everyone in the village, you're going to get a free meal, wear your wedding finery and the couple that was arranging the fake marriage would show up and they'd submit the pictures. It goes on and on. It's a constant cat and mouse game.

My apologies to the folks from Syria that are waiting, we'll try to get to those applications.

 

[dirtypolitics]

lesson #1: fraud in India and China, still processing time under 6 month.

lesson #2: pakistan government does not give visa to the officers is a good excuse to make processing times 25 months and keep spouses far from each other.

lesson #3: the building in damascus, syria had special magic. once the officers and files moved to other countries, they could not read and approve any more. perhaps they need advice from NASA experts to check some documents and verify them.

lesson #4: we will never give you the number of applicants transparently so you can never know how lazy and asshole we are.

bull*censored word* response.

The question was about middle east and he gave examples re china and india....which they have processing times of under 6 months.

He also implied that under 12 months is perfectly fine for him.


Q: We received many reports that the wait time to process spousal immigration applications has increased in recent months, particularly for applicants currently residing in Syria and other Middle Eastern countires. What is driving this backlog and is the government doing anything to address it?

A: We had to shut down our embassy in Syria. There's a war going on there, a civil war. We had to close our embassy and our immigration office, which was our main hub for the Middle Eastern region and we've had to move most of those employees up to Ankara (Turkey), some to Beirut (Lebanon). So we'll try to get on top of that, but because of the closure of our office, that's one of those unforeseen circumstances you can't really plan for.

Typically, on a global basis we process spousal sponsorship applications in under 12 months. In some places it becomes more difficult, where there are higher rates of fraud. I'll give you an example, we have very long processing times in Pakistan, in part because the Pakistani government wouldn't give visas to our officers to go in and make decisions and, in part, because a lot of people there do Shariah marriages which are not registered in the civil courts and we can't verify them.

And we have a huge problem with fraudulent immigration marriages around the world. In fact, a couple of years ago we identified that 50 per cent of the spousal sponsorship applications coming out of China to our Hong Kong office were fake. Apparently being organized by Triads (Chinese Mafia) who were establishing relationships with biker gangs in Canada. So we had this weird situation where all these Canadian biker gang members were sponsoring these Chinese girls who they had never met to come to Canada. Apparently, the Chinese girls were promising up to $60,000 to the Triads to facilitate the bogus marriage. We caught on to this when our officers started to see ... to support their application they submitted photos of their honeymoon, but all of the honeymoon photos were taken in the same apartment, the same furniture. Bad Triads, they're not very sophisticated. Ans so we started calling them for interviews and their stories would just fall apart right away.

The better example is in Pubjab, we hired a network of fraud detection experts, a lot of former cops who are good at documentary fraud, and we started to see pictures that were being submitted in immigration marriage applications where the face of the bride and groom were being crudely Photoshopped on top of a real wedding picture. So then we changed the rules, that's not working, we want a full shot of the wedding reception so we can see context, see it's real. And then the Punjabi wedding palaces started offering special discount fake wedding reception packages. Welcome to everyone in the village, you're going to get a free meal, wear your wedding finery and the couple that was arranging the fake marriage would show up and they'd submit the pictures. It goes on and on. It's a constant cat and mouse game.

My apologies to the folks from Syria that are waiting, we'll try to get to those applications.

 

[nono_1890]

hello everyone

I sponspored my husband sept 2 2011
start processing my application in Mississauga, Ontario on nov 16,2011
received the acceptance letter of quebec on dec 13 2011
I havent received anything from damascus
call the immigration center and got my file number that starts with B .....
instead of beirut sending us
i still have `received your application on sept 2 2011 on e-cas as our status
can anyone help me how i can find out about the medical exam
on how to be informed if they have atleast received the results ?
because i think even if they have started processing application
they are not letting us know is that normal ?
its been 7 and a half months when we applied .. is anyone in the same situation or can help me pls!!!!

 

[A+M]

hello everyone

I sponspored my husband sept 2 2011
start processing my application in Mississauga, Ontario on nov 16,2011
received the acceptance letter of quebec on dec 13 2011
I havent received anything from damascus
call the immigration center and got my file number that starts with B .....
instead of beirut sending us
i still have `received your application on sept 2 2011 on e-cas as our status
can anyone help me how i can find out about the medical exam
on how to be informed if they have atleast received the results ?
because i think even if they have started processing application
they are not letting us know is that normal ?
its been 7 and a half months when we applied .. is anyone in the same situation or can help me pls!!!!

Hello

Your situation is very much like the rest of us. No updates, no change on ecas ect. We are anxiously awaiting news from our new embassies, but they are very silent. You can try emailing your VO for information but they rarely reply. I'm 12+ months in and got my file number by emailing my VO. My ecas still says application received. Most of us are experiencing these unfortunate circumstance Good luck!

 

[rah]

hello everyone

I sponspored my husband sept 2 2011
start processing my application in Mississauga, Ontario on nov 16,2011
received the acceptance letter of quebec on dec 13 2011
I havent received anything from damascus
call the immigration center and got my file number that starts with B .....
instead of beirut sending us
i still have `received your application on sept 2 2011 on e-cas as our status
can anyone help me how i can find out about the medical exam
on how to be informed if they have atleast received the results ?
because i think even if they have started processing application
they are not letting us know is that normal ?
its been 7 and a half months when we applied .. is anyone in the same situation or can help me pls!!!!

I am in the same situation as yours. I applied in August, 1 month before you. I am not expecting to hear anything in the next afew months. Because our files who ever applied after june or july was kept in Canada until March. I found out about it when I called CIC in January. My file was transfered to Ankara in March.

So it means that I applied 9 months ago and my file has been in VO for only one month,

 

[rah]

lesson #1: fraud in India and China, still processing time under 6 month.

lesson #2: pakistan government does not give visa to the officers is a good excuse to make processing times 25 months and keep spouses far from each other.

lesson #3: the building in damascus, syria had special magic. once the officers and files moved to other countries, they could not read and approve any more. perhaps they need advice from NASA experts to check some documents and verify them.

lesson #4: we will never give you the number of applicants transparently so you can never know how lazy and asshole we are.

I loved your lesson 3 and 4. Funny and true

 

[rah]

bull*censored word* response.

The question was about middle east and he gave examples re china and india....which they have processing times of under 6 months.

He also implied that under 12 months is perfectly fine for him (12 months is actually more because you have to add 1 month document prep, 2 months step 1, 1 month get visa issues, 1 month at least to get ticket and reunite= 17 months).


Q: We received many reports that the wait time to process spousal immigration applications has increased in recent months, particularly for applicants currently residing in Syria and other Middle Eastern countires. What is driving this backlog and is the government doing anything to address it?

A: We had to shut down our embassy in Syria. There's a war going on there, a civil war. We had to close our embassy and our immigration office, which was our main hub for the Middle Eastern region and we've had to move most of those employees up to Ankara (Turkey), some to Beirut (Lebanon). So we'll try to get on top of that, but because of the closure of our office, that's one of those unforeseen circumstances you can't really plan for.

Typically, on a global basis we process spousal sponsorship applications in under 12 months. In some places it becomes more difficult, where there are higher rates of fraud. I'll give you an example, we have very long processing times in Pakistan, in part because the Pakistani government wouldn't give visas to our officers to go in and make decisions and, in part, because a lot of people there do Shariah marriages which are not registered in the civil courts and we can't verify them.

And we have a huge problem with fraudulent immigration marriages around the world. In fact, a couple of years ago we identified that 50 per cent of the spousal sponsorship applications coming out of China to our Hong Kong office were fake. Apparently being organized by Triads (Chinese Mafia) who were establishing relationships with biker gangs in Canada. So we had this weird situation where all these Canadian biker gang members were sponsoring these Chinese girls who they had never met to come to Canada. Apparently, the Chinese girls were promising up to $60,000 to the Triads to facilitate the bogus marriage. We caught on to this when our officers started to see ... to support their application they submitted photos of their honeymoon, but all of the honeymoon photos were taken in the same apartment, the same furniture. Bad Triads, they're not very sophisticated. Ans so we started calling them for interviews and their stories would just fall apart right away.

The better example is in Pubjab, we hired a network of fraud detection experts, a lot of former cops who are good at documentary fraud, and we started to see pictures that were being submitted in immigration marriage applications where the face of the bride and groom were being crudely Photoshopped on top of a real wedding picture. So then we changed the rules, that's not working, we want a full shot of the wedding reception so we can see context, see it's real. And then the Punjabi wedding palaces started offering special discount fake wedding reception packages. Welcome to everyone in the village, you're going to get a free meal, wear your wedding finery and the couple that was arranging the fake marriage would show up and they'd submit the pictures. It goes on and on. It's a constant cat and mouse game.

My apologies to the folks from Syria that are waiting, we'll try to get to those applications.

I am sorry , i did not get it. who answered the question?????
He is so rude and he is trying indirectly say that most of the marriages are fake in midddle east as well.

Plus I don't mind if they actually take time to verify our marriages are not fake or do the background check.
I want to ask that person if he really beleives that long processing time is because of extra work that our files need or the extra lazy officers
But I am 100% sure that our files are sitting in a dark room and with dust sitting on them while the officers never look at them