I was reading some posts from few years ago and it was rather common for people to get RQed for just about everything. Does this still happen these days? I'm a bit concerned because most of my three years I spent studying.
Do they send out as many RQs as they used to?
- Thread starter monsieurkittlykat
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Studying in Canada is a very strong indicator you were in Canada, and a very easy one to prove if you have to.
It's absolutely not a reason to worry in itself.
I concur in the other observations that a qualified applicant who meets the physical presence requirement has little or no reason to apprehend that there will be any serious issue or problem in regards to their physical presence.
I would qualify this, however, by adding that it is a good idea to wait to apply with a decent margin over the minimum. A month is good for most. Some may want to wait longer, as I did for personal reasons related to migrating my business to Canada from abroad. While many in the forum suggest a week to ten days is enough, for most waiting a month plus a bit should be easy and that in turn will typically make the job of verifying physical presence easier for the total stranger bureaucrats who process the application.
In any event, in particular, for qualified applicants who apply with a decent margin over the minimum, and otherwise properly follow the instructions, there should be little risk of full blown RQ these days. Moreover, all RQ requires, even the full blown RQ, are copies of records that people should be keeping generally, so at worst (for the qualified applicant), apart from the inconvenience of gathering and submitting the documentation requested, all RQ does is delay the grant of citizenship.
Re: Is RQ Still Common?
Bears repeating that there is no indication that being a student, rather than employed, will trigger residency/presence concerns. So there is no particular cause for you to be concerned about the extent to which RQ is still being used, or the extent to which there is a risk an application becomes a presence/residency case if IRCC identifies cause to question an applicant's physical presence (like a significant omission or discrepancy between what the applicant reports in their travel history versus what IRCC sees in other sources, the CBSA travel history looming large here).
That is, probably no need for you to have concerns about whether RQ is still common.
It has been awhile, a fairly long while now, since we have seen any anecdotal reports of full-blown RQ. I have not been watching all the threads sufficiently to assess how frequently IRCC is making lesser RQ-related requests, and it is not clear that IRCC continues to regularly use even the RQ-lite form to make such requests.
Full-blown RQ was indeed very common for applications made based on the previous residency requirement (thus applications made until June 2015), in large part because there were so many applying based on three years of *residency* while short of 1095 days physical presence. Additionally, for a period of time in 2012, for example, approximately one in every four applicants was getting full-blown RQ; but that was during a period of time when any period of self-employment or unemployment would trigger RQ.
In the meantime the capacity of CBSA to capture and store, and facilitate access to individual travel records, has expanded dramatically in the last decade, and in conjunction with the change to a physical presence requirement this has reduced the extent to which there are questions or concerns related to what is asked in a Residency Questionnaire. And in general, these days we are all leaving a paper and digital trail that makes it far easier for IRCC to identify if there is a "reason-to-question-residency."
There are exceptions, of course. Cannot be sure whether @phewphew's application will be processed as a presence/residency case, or not, but there are indications that is where their application could be headed. See discussion here: https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/physical-presence.841198/page-2#post-10796153 . . . but that involves an application made based on exactly 1095 days physical presence. NOT a good idea. And it also appears that something likely triggered increased scrutiny.
But @phewphew does not, not so far, report getting RQ'd. Even though it is quite apparent that their physical presence is the focus of additional inquiry. Just four or six years ago this would have most likely involved RQ. Has something changed in how IRCC approaches residency/presence concerns?
In the past I would have been engaged in the ATI process to get more internal information about policies and practices at IRCC. I have greatly reduced the extent to which I do the research (getting old and hoping others here would take on the task of doing the homework), so I cannot say much beyond what can be discerned from current IRCC website information and anecdotal reporting in open source forums like this. That said, that acknowledged, there are numerous enough reports of applicants waiting on non-routine physical presence assessments, that in conjunction with known policies and practices at IRCC, it is readily apparent that if and when IRCC has physical presence concerns they are conducting additional investigations into the applicant's presence/residency. Some of this will be IRCC officials conducting additional inquiries, while some of it will involve a referral to CBSA for investigation by its NSSD branch.
I do not know, but I strongly suspect that is where things are in processing @phewphew's application, in some phase of additional investigation.
And among numerous anecdotal reports of delays in processing, the prospect looms large that many of these have been referred into a path for non-routine investigation of physical presence.
So my impression, albeit an unconfirmed impression, is that these days IRCC is relying more on its investigatory tools than RQ.
Which brings this back around to qualified applicants who properly and accurately provided information, including travel history, in their application: if there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to worry. That may sound glib, but there really should be no reason to worry when all an investigation will find will be consistent with the applicant's account of physical presence, and the applicant did in fact meet the requirements.
Again, with some exceptions. @phewphew, for example, might want to consider withdrawing the current application and making a new one. But that is mostly about having applied with NO margin at all and how long it might take if the case goes to a hearing with a Citizenship Judge.
Are you asking whether the process of verifying a PR was in Canada for 730 days within the five years prior to making a PR card application, while a citizenship application is in process, will somehow diminish any concerns the PR was not in Canada for at least 1095 days within five years, as of an earlier date (date citizenship application was made)?
The risk of non-routine RQ-related processing (whether that is RQ or a presence investigation) depends on the particular facts and circumstances in the specific individual's case. Remember, correlations do not necessarily entail causation, and very often do not so much as hint of causation (while there may be other reasons to be cautious about feeding our children or grandchildren milk, fear that drinking milk will increase the risk they will be a murderer is not one, despite the fact that more than 9 out of 10 murderers in prison drank milk as a child).
The underlying facts will be the primary influence in whether a specific individual encounters non-routine processing, in regards to a PR card application as well as the citizenship application. No special powers of prophesy necessary to predict that the clearly well-settled, permanently settled in Canada PR, who meets the presence requirement, will have the lower risk of RQ, and that this is a far more influential factor than documenting 730 days of presence in Canada for a five year time period different from the five year citizenship eligibility time period.
But at the same time, for such an individual it is likely that there is a low risk of non-routine complications in regards to BOTH the citizenship application and a PR card application. So, any apparent correlation between low-risk of RQ-related processing of the citizenship application and a routine, quickly processed PR card application, is most likely about the underlying facts, not about how one application influences the other.
As noted in this thread, for a qualified applicant who followed the instructions, there is a low risk of non-routine RQ-related processing these days. If there is a significant risk of RQ (or what is probably happening these days, a significant risk of a non-routine referral to investigate presence/residency) in a specific applicant's case, that will be based on the particular facts and circumstances of that individual's case. And those underlying facts are what will matter.
Oh my god. I hope this is no longer the case because I had unemployment for the first few months while I was settling down in Canada, getting my driver's licence, etc.
The more severe triage criteria, and particularly the draconian application of the consultant, self-employed, unemployed criteria, was only used for a fairly short period of time, 2012 and 2013. In that period of time just using an identification, like a drivers' license, that had been issued within three months of making the citizenship application, triggered full-blown RQ.
Most indicators suggest that these have NOT been triggering RQ-related processing let alone the full-blown RQ for nearly a decade now.
That's a relief to hear. I guess most immigrants are unemployed for a few months when they land in Canada. I know many of my colleagues who were.