xtreme75 said:
Hello Fellow Forum Members
We (Myself, wife and daughter) applied for a PR Renewal on Feb 11 2017, and received an acknowledgement of case file being received along with an email on April 21 2017, for the following documents:
"For the purposes of determining if you have upheld the residency obligations in meeting the requirements for a Permanent Resident Card and in accordance with Section 28 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, please provide us with proof of your residency in Canada for the period FEBRUARY 11, 2012 to FEBRUARY 11, 2017. Please submit a copy of the following documents dated within the period specified above:
Complete pages (including blank pages) of your passport(s)/travel document(s) held in the last 5 years. Ensure all pages are in colour and are clearly legible.
AND
Personal immigration entry/exit record or movement certificate issued by the countries where you have travelled."
We haven't set foot outside Canada since 26th Dec 2014 accumulating 775 days in total continuous stay in Ontario. We submitted all relevant documents (bills, tax assessments, lease copies and coloured passport pages with a complete history of our previous travels) still being asked to re-submit the colored copies of the passports. My questions are:
1- Is this normal procedure?
2- Any insights into obtaining travel records from UAE, Pakistan, Mauritius, London, Singapore and Malaysia would be highly appreciated.
3- Should I submit e-ticket print outs for countries that I can not obtain travel history from?
4- Should I be worried or be proactive about anything in particular to avoid further delays.
4- Any other heads up or suggestions please do share. Thanks!
Some overall observations:
No need to panic. While your situation is non-routine, for obvious reasons, and this could mean a significant delay in processing your PRC applications, this request may be no more than random quality control. If you promptly make a responsive submission, this could be
NO problem, and mean no more than a short delay.
Even if this is not a random quality control check, but rather derives from concerns about your history and extended absences from Canada, if you are able to make a reasonably responsive submission, there is a good chance that will resolve concerns and the delay will be minimal or relatively short (compared, say, to many of those bogged down in a lengthy Secondary Review which can go on for many months, beyond a year for some).
That noted, since you have been outside Canada more than in Canada, there is a significant risk of a more probing, in-depth Residency Determination. This could mean not just a longer delay, but being required to more substantively prove your actual presence in Canada during the times you report being in Canada.
Thus, it is important to indeed be proactive, but even more so to be as specifically responsive to this request as possible. I personally know little about obtaining record of movement or travel records from other countries. But you should follow up and do your best to provide what you can as soon as you can. I address this a little more in response to the particular question you posed.
"1- Is this normal procedure?"
No. It is
non-routine. It is, however, relatively
common for any PR who has spent more time outside Canada than in Canada, thus raising the possibility it would be reasonable to infer the PR was outside Canada any days for which the PR does not affirmatively prove presence inside Canada (for any days not definitively shown to be present in Canada it is, of course, reasonable to infer the PR was where the PR usually was, as in outside Canada).
The reasons why should be obvious, since your circumstances are far from routine. Most PRs settle in Canada permanently within the first year or two. A few push it beyond two years, approaching three or even more. Those who push it beyond two years, and especially so if it goes longer, should anticipate having to more fully prove their presence.
Not a problem so long as you have objective evidence to show actual presence. Obviously, just showing date of entry and claiming no exit will not suffice. How much more proof than that will be needed depends on a lot of factors and circumstances particular to the individual PR, that is, it depends on the specifics of your individual case.
It is not clear when you landed and became PRs, but it appears you have been PRs at the least since February 11, 2012 (given the request for records going back to that date), and thus for more than five years. Your overall immigration history is a relevant consideration. While being in Canada at least 730 days cures any previous, unreported breach of the PR Residency Obligation, that history is still taken into consideration, at the least relative to assessing the veracity of the PR's reporting and the PR's credibility in general.
Regarding additional documents submitted with application:
It appears you submitted additional documents when you made the application. There has been virtually no reliable confirmation doing this helps, or helps much anyway. In contrast, there has been ample reporting to indicate the contrary, that submitting additional information or documentation with the application not only fails to make much if any difference, it does not preclude being formally required to submit the same documentation later. (Among possible exceptions, my sense is that when making an application relying on H&C reasons to, in effect, waive a breach of the PR Residency Obligation, it might indeed help to add a supplemental page prominently asserting the H&C case, explaining it, and including key supporting documents, not a lot of documents, but some key documents supporting the H&C reasons.)
"2- Any insights into obtaining travel records from UAE, Pakistan, Mauritius, London, Singapore and Malaysia would be highly appreciated."
Hopefully others here can offer some information about how to go about this. Best I can offer is to start by making inquiries to the respective embassies here in Canada.
Similar requests have been more commonly reported and discussed in the conference here about citizenship. Especially relative to the UAE. Might be worth posting a new topic in the Citizenship conference, specifically titled: "How to get travel records for UAE, Pakistan, Mauritius, London, Singapore and Malaysia?"
Submit what you can. Explain why for what you do not submit. If you can obtain alternative evidence of dates of travel for countries you cannot provide a record of travel from, submit a
reasonable amount of that evidence, with an explanation. Make a concerted effort to be responsive to the request . . . in other words, do not easily give up trying to get and submit the requested records.
"3- Should I submit e-ticket print outs for countries that I can not obtain travel history from?"
Yes, probably a good to submit any objective evidence/documentation you have which tends to verify the information you submitted to IRCC, especially as to travel dates. Do not go overboard. Do not do a
document-dump. But some key documents corroborating your reported travel history, and corroborating stamps in passports, can indeed help.
That said, it is
NOT likely these will help your case much. e-tickets evidence trips made but do not prove there were no other trips. I assume you accurately reported all the trips made. IRCC is undoubtedly attempting to verify that there were no other, unreported trips made.
In particular, proof of those trips will only verify your absences from Canada prior to December 26, 2014.
In contrast, my guess is IRCC is not challenging where you were prior to December 26, 2014. IRCC is probably concerned (if this is not merely a quality control check) you may have been absent since December 26, 2014. That is, if this is rooted in actual concerns about your travel history, IRCC is more likely focused on verifying your claimed presence between December 26, 2014 and the date of your PRC application, and thus is mostly looking for any indications you may have failed to report travel since the end of 2014.
"4- Should I be worried or be proactive about anything in particular to avoid further delays."
Some delay is inevitable. It is a non-routine case.
Unlike submitting additional documents with the application itself, which again does not appear to help, submitting a
reasonable amount of additional documents in response to a request like this is probably a good idea, particularly if you cannot submit any of the records of movement requested.
But again, do not go overboard. Do not do a
document dump.
Remember, quality is far more important than quantity. Focus on key documents that actually and directly show what it is you are trying to show (be that proof of particular travel or proof of being personally engaged in specific activities in Canada). A huge pile of what is often called
passive evidence can be more distracting than helpful.
Particularly at this stage,
unless the correspondence includes a request for other supporting documents (however that might be worded), focus mostly on being responsive to what is requested. You can submit alternative evidence to what is requested, but be strategic about what you add to your response. Be sure there is a specific reason for including particular evidence.
Being further proactive: Gathering documentation beyond what is submitted.
This is
just in case. May not be necessary. But better prepared than unprepared. Probably a good idea to begin gathering as much documentation and other evidence to show you have been living and present in Canada these past 28 months. No need to dump all this on IRCC now (again, unless the correspondence includes a request for
other supporting documents, or such). But you might want to get started gathering as much
evidence as you can. Even testimonials from family, neighbours, friends, or even leaders in a Church, Mosque, or Synagogue who know you and can attest to interaction with you personally. (Avoid testimonials which assert over-generalizations -- specific instances, with reference to particular numbers (such as number of interactions) or dates within realistic, truthful ranges of time, tend to show actual presence, whereas broad generalizations purporting to cover whole periods of time are obviously, on their face, less credible.) Maintain banking and other transaction records. And so on.
Just in case.
"4- Any other heads up or suggestions please do share."
There are good odds this is just a bump in the road. That this is not a reason to worry about a lengthy delay let alone crashing altogether (assuming, of course, you have in fact been living and present in Canada for the last 28 months now).
But you should nonetheless take it seriously and be diligent in responding, including making a concerted effort to provide the record of movement from as many of the countries as you can. This might demand a concerted effort on your part.
The less effort you put into making a responsive submission, the greater the risk of longer delays and, perhaps, an overt challenge to your accounting of presence in Canada.
Please return and report on how things go. This forum depends a lot on shared experience. Over the years, CIC and now IRCC have been increasingly less transparent. Your input could provide important insights for others.