Hi all.
I applied citizenship on may 2021.
Background completed, citizenship Test complete May 2022
now i got an email about I will be interviewed by a citizenship officer or agent to verify your identity
and the documents which i provided at the time i applied for citizenship.
someone has same situation, please share your experience with us.
p.s. i renew my home country passport (i provided to IRCC my old one which was expired 3 years) recently should i inform IRCC about that?
i did not apply for any other travel document while i was living in Canada.
i was refugee , i did not travel back home country, but just renew my passport.
Regarding Interview Generally:
Program Integrity Interview of citizenship applicants is routine. Since Covid measures were implemented, not every adult applicant has been interviewed, but prior to Covid the interview was mandatory for ALL adult applicants. While it appears that IRCC has not resumed the practice of requiring ALL adult applicants to be interviewed, nonetheless in recent months it is clear that IRCC is interviewing a higher percentage of applicants than it was at the peak of the pandemic.
Take-away: just being required to participate in an interview does not signal a problem, is not something to worry about. Just bring the documents requested and honestly answer the questions asked.
Informing IRCC about acquiring home country passport:
Generally the notice for the interview says to present current passport and all other passports that could have been used since the beginning of your eligibility period; that is, any passport that could have been used during the five years prior to applying for citizenship or since.
I do not know the details in the notice you received. Main thing is to follow what it says. Be careful about interpreting what it says. There is a tendency to read these things seeing what we want to see. Odds are high the notice says to bring and present all passports, including current passport, including passports issued after applying.
PR-refugee and home country passport:
This part is a bit tricky. As far as we see, the odds are this will
NOT cause any problem.
Technically (emphasis on "
technically") renewing the home country passport creates a presumption of reavailment of home country protection, which is grounds for cessation of protected person status. Cessation of status is serious and for many (probably most) potentially has very severe consequences. It would automatically terminate PR status and make the individual ineligible for citizenship. Just a referral for CBSA to investigate, to decide whether to pursue cessation proceedings, can cause very long delays for a citizenship application.
We do not see cases where that has happened UNLESS the PR-refugee also traveled to the home country. In contrast, we see examples of PR-refugees who have renewed the home country passport and there was NO problem. So I do not want to cause you unnecessary worry. As far as I can guess this should not cause any issues.
Better to have waited or just not done that, but it's done. Now it is worth being aware that just renewing the passport (again "
technically") creates a presumption of reavailment and to be ready to respond to questions about it (if asked) . . . It might seem ironic, but because of the presumption of reavailment, it probably makes it all that more important to disclose you have this passport. You absolutely do not want to be perceived as hiding the fact you have it.
Again, I am no expert, but from what we have seen in actual cases and from anecdotal reports in the forum, I doubt this is going to cause any problem.
