Hello everyone. This post would probably be one of my longest one I have in here but I would try to give back to this community based on my own personal experience regarding the whole process of Spousal Immigration as I received so much help & guidance from this forum. I am not an Immigration consultant or lawyer, so please don't quote me. Just sharing here with the people here our experience & what I understood about this whole process.
I hope it would somehow relieve few couples who have to stay away from each other for several months & feel the similar pain, help them understand the immigration process a little bit which is quite opaque process. So here you go:
- Application received for Spouse @ Mississauga: 24th April 2018
- Email Acknowledgement of Receipt 1 to Principal Applicant: 01st June 2018
- Medical Request through GCKey: 08th June 2018
- Sponsorship approval through email to Sponsor: 12th June 2018
- Medical Exam done: 22nd June 2018
- Medical Passed through GC key & ECAS: 27th June 2018
- Email from Mississauga visa office for File transfer to New Delhi visa office (NDVO) for further processing to Sponsor: 07th September 2018
- ECAS noted "We started processing you application" for Principal Applicant (never received an Acknowledgement of Receipt 2): 18th September 2018
- Background check started on GCKey: 26th November 2018
- Pre-arrival email on GC key: 27th November 2018
- Passport request letter from New Delhi visa office received through email to Principal Applicant: 29th November 2018
Few points that I noted during this several months of Spousal Immigration process:
- Support the application with all the documents per the checklist. Do double check, triple check everything again & again. Nobody wants file retuned because of incomplete application & lose months.
- The processing of the file is independent of the File Transfer date to local visa office(NDVO). As I have seen folks concerned when their file is transferred late (I was actually one of them, haha ) or getting upset when they have early file transfer date but do not get any updates. The processing of the file is completely dependent on when actually CIC received the application. At least this one seems like holding true for NDVO, not sure of other visa offices though.
- File processing is loosely based on application received date at CIC. The processing dates might be little bit off (may be few weeks) between different applicants but holds true.
- Background check (BCG) doesn't seem like take months & typically done at NDVO towards the end. It looks like as soon as they initially open the file, they put the ON button on BCG but actually it is at NDVO where it is started & completed. In my case though, spouse had no work history or travel history etc, so a very straight forward case (may be that's the reason it was quick).
So that's my very detailed experience. Thought of sharing with all folks in here who are desperately waiting for the process to complete (we know that feeling) & I hope it helps to relieve the stress few people go through during the process. I will stick around here sometimes & try to answer whatever I can.
Thanks.