March 2012 applicants, join here! : )

[Sweden]

I am newly signed up here and as the forum searches have been useful in answering a lot of questions, I thought I'd share my timeline for the Paris VO as I don't see many people with that VO on here - unless I've missed a specific Paris VO thread. As the principal applicant I am in Switzerland, my wife (sponsor) is in Canada.

Category: FAM
VO: Paris, France
Application received in Mississauga with meds included: March 26, 2012
Sponsor approved: June 27, 2012
File Transferred to VO: July 27, 2012

I checked eCAS right after the sponsorship approval and right after the file was transferred to the VO in Paris. Expecting this thing to take another few months I didn't give it much thought. Until that is I went to look up the dates to post on here.

It's August 5th and my "Permanent Residency Application Status" went from "In-Process" 10 days ago to "Decision Made". Naturally I have to wait for written confirmation of the decision, but am worrying that it might have been a quick turn around. Any Swiss and/or Paris applicants have any feedback?

Cheers!

p.s. does anyone know how to post the timeline in the sidebar profile box that shows up in the posts? I've looked but can't seem to figure it out. ty.

Hey! congratulations on your fast process, it's most likely good news, as if there were any doubts they would have asked you for an interview. If you have a pretty straightforward case, then it should be approval and you will soon receive the COPR by post...
You're probably within the lucky 20% that get their approval in 2 months... that was very quick...
I remember seeing that european applicants going through Paris seem to have a quicker processing than applicants from North Africa, mainly because the background checks are easier - if you have no travel history and an easy case, that might explain the quick decision.

Good luck!
Sweden

 

[swissbuoy]

Thank you for both your replies!

Well that's partly the my worry, it's definitely nice to think I fell into that small 20% group of quickly processed applicants. It's kind of hard to contemplate otherwise! Our application was straightforward and uncomplicated for the most part. I do have a rather interesting travel history but it didn't involve more than a handful of recurring countries so hopefully that doesn't equal to complicated. Am not sure whether it's scarier to see "Application Received" or "Decision Made" and having to wait

As a sure others waiting like me are constantly double checking their paperwork and questioning themselves, I keep thinking back and asking whether we added enough evidence, enough information, etc. etc. We were meticulous with our paperwork, triple checked everything. We even re-did half the forms to be safe as they'd been updated around the time we were sending our envelope in. We printed samples of emails, skype chats, call logs, tried to find the right balance of number of photos, cards and letters. Tried to print as much as possible to keep it readily legible. All my police checks were done within a month of each other and the medical so the paperwork is pretty much all in sync. We had a two immigration professionals review out paperwork (these were very kind acquaintances kind enough to give us feedback without charging us big bucks!). Anyways, the list goes on and I'd like to think we didn't screw up. I guess we keep getting re-assured that we're ok but it still feels so uncertain... I guess we're all in the same boat.

Am sure sure European processes probably do go through faster than some other regions as paperwork is easier to verify and probably has higher burden of proof to establish. In Switzerland, for example, you can go to the local post office and request your police check and it's usually in your mailbox the next day - so I imagine if they did double check it's validity it would be quick to establish!

I should probably stop speculating and try to be patient ;D I will keep you posted on any other changes to the timeline.

 

[swissbuoy]

I also noticed that on my eCas overview page, my home address now shows the city and province I indicated I would move to in Canada (my postal remains my Swiss address).

It's hard to think of what else it could mean, but I guess patience isn't my strong suit and neither is reading between the lines

 

[blondie1216]

It means they changed it to your new address! ;D

Congrats!

 

[Sweden]

I also noticed that on my eCas overview page, my home address now shows the city and province I indicated I would move to in Canada (my postal remains my Swiss address).

It's hard to think of what else it could mean, but I guess patience isn't my strong suit and neither is reading between the lines

then - it's approval! they would not change it to your address in Canada if it was a refusal - and also you would have been asked for more information, they would not have refused you right away. So it's good news, that was a really fast process.
It seems like you did a good job in including all information and reviewing your application carefully, it paid off...
Good luck with moving!
Sweden

 

[sway_in_de_wind]

Hi Sweeden
I saw in your previous posts you mention that having no travel history would speed up the application. Why is this? We travel a lot and had to use aditional sheets when listing countries all over the world that we had traveled to, we even kept the boarding pass stubs from the airline as proof of our relationship and travel together. Will this make extend the process time for us? If so why?

One year we even motorcycled through most of europ. We also listed the countries but there are no boarder checks when your on the road so there is no way of checking this appart from the photos we also included.

 

[Sweden]

Hi Sweeden
I saw in your previous posts you mention that having no travel history would speed up the application. Why is this? We travel a lot and had to use aditional sheets when listing countries all over the world that we had traveled to, we even kept the boarding pass stubs from the airline as proof of our relationship and travel together. Will this make extend the process time for us? If so why?

One year we even motorcycled through most of europ. We also listed the countries but there are no boarder checks when your on the road so there is no way of checking this appart from the photos we also included.

Hey Sway_in_de_wind,

it depends on which type of travel history you have. If you have been travelling for pleasure (holidays etc), then it should be no problem. It reinforces your application since you can show that you have travelled together, so I think you should be fine.

If you travel for work, or have been living in different countries over the course of the years, then it becomes more complicated. You have to get one police record for every country you have lived in more than 6 months since you were 18 ( that's for the principal applicant), and it becomes more complicated to do background checks for each country. That's why it might delay (in my case for example, I have lived in 7 different countries for more than 6 months since I was 18, and there are 2 countries where I can not give a police certificate, so it might delay a bit my file).

Good luck,
Sweden

 

[simb]

Hey Sway_in_de_wind,

it depends on which type of travel history you have. If you have been travelling for pleasure (holidays etc), then it should be no problem. It reinforces your application since you can show that you have travelled together, so I think you should be fine.

If you travel for work, or have been living in different countries over the course of the years, then it becomes more complicated. You have to get one police record for every country you have lived in more than 6 months since you were 18 ( that's for the principal applicant), and it becomes more complicated to do background checks for each country. That's why it might delay (in my case for example, I have lived in 7 different countries for more than 6 months since I was 18, and there are 2 countries where I can not give a police certificate, so it might delay a bit my file).

Good luck,
Sweden

oh
same is the case with me. I lived in 4 countries for more than 6months (that was less complicated) I cannot get police certificate from one country(more complication)
so tensed about it

 

[swissbuoy]

Thanks to everyone for being so positive... it's really bringing some light at the end of a tunnel for a very tough year.

@ Sweden

I take it you're referring to your own personal travel history vs the travel history you've had with your sponsor/spouse? The former potentially complicating the process, the latter reinforcing your relationship evidence and thus application?

I don't really ever want to think about filling out a travel history form again! *shudders at the thought*

 

[Sweden]

Thanks to everyone for being so positive... it's really bringing some light at the end of a tunnel for a very tough year.

@ Sweden

I take it you're referring to your own personal travel history vs the travel history you've had with your sponsor/spouse? The former potentially complicating the process, the latter reinforcing your relationship evidence and thus application?

I don't really ever want to think about filling out a travel history form again! *shudders at the thought*

yes - that's correct. The sponsor is not asked to provide criminal checks, as CIC does it directly in Canada, so the travel in that case doesn't really matter, and it's a benefit to the application to be able to prove that the sponsor and the applicant have travelled together.

I really hope my application goes through without too many troubles, because the travel history form was a bit of a nightmare indeed!

 

[sway_in_de_wind]

Ahhh Thank you for clarifying that. All of our trave is pleasure not business. Luckily for us my girlfriend has only ever lived in England so she only need one police check.

Good everyone !

 

[swissbuoy]

From what I've been told is that there isn't really a way for CIC to verify every single detail of your application such as the travel history - no one would really ever get processed. I suppose the application forms are set out so that they can very certain key points and check if things don't add up. I was advised that it's really the consistency of the application that matters.

So while you may know that you took a flight to a certain place say in March of a given year, you may not recall or have evidence of the actual date, even though the form requires precise dates. Let's face it, some people don't keep any records, not all countries stamp passports so it's not unrealistic for people to miss that information. The point is that if you say in the travel history that you went to France and on some other form you indicate that you were somewhere else then you'll likely run into problems with CIC. I don't really know the point of the travel history of the PA is other than for security checks, it probably contributes little to relationship evidence but maybe it helps them build the bigger picture. Same thing with the address listing, as a student I lived at quite a few different addresses and had to rely on friends to help me sort out the dates, but I could have easily not have found those dates. Again making sure you're not overlapping travel history with an address that doesn't match up is the key here... and with all the forms it's pretty easy to make an honest error and throw a spanner in the works.

 

[Sweden]

I agree with Swissbuoy - the important part is to be coherent and be honest - and if some things are not too clear, just be honest about it (otherwise it could be misrepresentation). CIC can not check every single small detail, but they want to have the picture of the applicant to know who they are letting in the country... knowing the background and the travel history of the applicant is part of that...
Good luck to all,
Sweden

 

[Joshmantis]

I agree with Swissbuoy - the important part is to be coherent and be honest - and if some things are not too clear, just be honest about it (otherwise it could be misrepresentation). CIC can not check every single small detail, but they want to have the picture of the applicant to know who they are letting in the country... knowing the background and the travel history of the applicant is part of that...
Good luck to all,
Sweden

Yes, I would always recommend being as thorough as possible. I know in China, many people get rejected for tourist visas because they hand in quick, sloppy and lacking applications.

My wife got her tourist visas no problem both times because she was (overly) thorough.

 

[simb]

its been a month now and my ecas still says 'application received'. no 'in process'