Non-accompanying children

[ufa]

We've been working on our application for a couple of months now. I was really hoping to submit this month, but that's doubftul now. The main reason we are delayed is because my husband is trying to 'track down' his daughter, who is living with another family. He needs her to take her to get the picture required for the application, and for her passport. She is very young, and will not accompany my husband to Canada. Do we really need the pictures and the passport?

I asked CIC about the passport/travel doc requirement, and they said 'yes', but now I've been reviewing this Operation Manual posted by rjesome in another thread: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/op/op02-eng.pdf and it indicates in section 5.10 that the passport is not required!

Any experience in similar case out there? Or suggestions?

 

[Leon]

Passport is not required but photos and medicals are required for a non-accompanying child. If he can not get photos and medicals, he can write a statement stating his circumstances, that he has tried his best and failed and that he understands that this will prevent him from ever sponsoring this daughter in the future. He needs to get that letter notarized and send that with the application package.

 

[canadianwoman]

Do your best to get the photos and medical done for the child. This is called 'examining' her. If a child is not examined, the parent will never be able to sponsor the child in the future. Since the daughter is very young, circumstances could easily change, so I suggest you keep open the option of sponsoring her in the future by getting her examined now.

 

[ufa]

Thanks for both of your input.

We will definitely get the medical done in order to keep the doors open in the future, but the med exams will happen after we submit (we got instructions from the visa office to proceed in this manner). And as the doc and both of your comments suggest, she doesn't need a passport. So that leaves just the application pictures that are needed now. Obviously, we'll give it a little bit more time to sort out as I'm sure leaving the application incomplete would be a problem, but since we're already looking at a delay in processing due to the medical exams occurring later than usual, we don't want to wait too long. The question then is: how big an issue is filing the application without her pictures?