% of Denied applicants that are in genuine relationships? What do u think?

[Boracay]

One common thing I've noticed is the concern that people's applications will be rejected, even though their relationship is genuine. Of course I share the same concern. It's not so easy prove to someone who is trained to find holes in your story and find the best of the scammers that your relationship is the real thing....especially if your case isn't 100% straight forward.

But I've noticed that the overwhelming majority on this site ends up being landed (I could be wrong!)

I'm wondering what are your opinions of the percentage of people in genuine relationships that are denied. And what you think the reasons would be?

 

[Baloo]

I doubt that you can generate statistics for this.
How can anyone determine that a rejected relationship is genuine or an approved one is not genuine?

The numbers would be a guess.

All that any genuine couple can do is provide the proof that they have, be truthful, send the application and hope for the best.

 

[canadianwoman]

I'm wondering what are your opinions of the percentage of people in genuine relationships that are denied. And what you think the reasons would be?

I think it depends a lot on the visa office. Places that reject half of the applicants must be rejecting a fair number who are actually in genuine marriages.
I've met a fair number of people who have had their applications denied, chiefly friends and acquaintances of my husband, who is Nigerian. It seems if they apply through the Accra, Ghana, office, they will be denied for sure; if they apply through some other office, most get accepted. And yet I would guess Nigerians living abroad are just as likely to be in fake marriages as Nigerians living in Nigeria. The VOs in Accra are trained to suspect fraud in all cases; evidently the ones in Malaysia aren't.

Of the 10 or so Nigerian/Western couples I know in Malaysia, only two have been rejected so far: one because he sent his Canadian wife money, so the visa officer accused him of paying her to marry him; the other one applied through Malaysia, but the app was sent back to Ghana to be processed. All of these marriages have been short internet-based romances, where the couple got married the first time they met in person and where they had spent only a very short time together. Yet none of these men have run away once in Canada (or the other countries). In one case the husband couldn't speak English well enough to be interviewed by the visa officer, and yet the VO still approved his application. There is no way a VO in Accra would approve someone who didn't share a common language with his spouse.

 

[rjessome]

Baloo is right that ultimately, there is no way to prove for 100% sure that a relationship is real. Sometimes there is only one person who knows whether it's real or not because with marriage fraud, there are plenty of spouses who've been duped. There are statistics available regarding passed/refused applications up to approximately April of 2010. They are downloadable in Excel spreadsheet format and various criteria can be looked at using the drop down boxes. Go here and play around.

http://www.data.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=C517024E&xsl=datacataloguesearchrenderer%2Cresult&searchoffset=1&searchdisplaycount=10&databasematch=wsforms&filtername=formtype&formtype=DD116BB0-BB54-41A5-B210-D245C0139CA9&keywords=immigration&submit=Search

Accra has been historically refusing approximately 35% of spousal sponsorship cases. That's high. The overall average of refusals in 2009 was approx. 18% which is a point or two higher than it was in the previous 2 years. That's more than 10,000 spousal sponsorship cases refused every year. Hong Kong has the highest rate of refusal, hovering at about 52%!

Here are some of the visa offices with refusal rates over the norm of 18%. These averages are approximate and based on 2009 numbers.

Accra 35%
Hong Kong 52%
Kiev 33%
Bogata 22%
Buenos Aires 33%
Kingston, Jamaica 22%
Lima 25%
Mexico City 23%
Port-au-Prince 34%
Port of Spain 45%

However, ALL offices have refused applications so no matter where your application is being processed, you MUST prove your case.

 

[missmini]

wooow thanks rjessome for that awesome link, i'll play around for sure

to Boracay, i think we could never know how many are denied because of their relationship; unless people from a specific embassy are very active on this forum and we would do our own statistics but even then, how do we know if most who apply would use this forum or any, and update their status (i think we r a minority)

yes we can see the percentage of denial for each office and yes we could assume that most are because of fraudulent relationships, but the reasons of denial could b soo many

 

[Bangkokcanuck]

The VOs in Accra are trained to suspect fraud in all cases; evidently the ones in Malaysia aren't.

I realize it's not the exact same thing but it does give you a view at the mindset of the people working in these offices. When my wife applied for her first visitor's visa to Canada they turned her down on the spot, I mean called her for an interview and turned her down flat. The woman interviewing her was the worst example of a femi-nazi I have ever seen, didn't even open the file called my wife all sorts of names and implied a whole bunch of nasty things. I filed a formal complaint and an appeal of her being turned down and I spoke to someone pretty high up on the food chain in the Bangkok office of course once they looked at the file and our documents etc, she was approved Visa in passport in 48 hours.

But the real point is the guy we spoke to regarding the appeal and complaint said that all Embassy staff were told to assume EVERYBODY was lying NO cases were legit and just deny EVERYBODY right off the bat. Those that are real will pursue it and everything will come out in the wash a large majority of the fraud applicants would just give up at that point.. in their POV.

His words as I can recall them were unlike in most other things.. in the immigration game "everyone is guilty until THEY can prove otherwise"

Hell of a way to do business.

 

[canadianwoman]

Bangcockcanuck: when you filed a formal complaint and appealed the decision, what exactly did you do? Did you insist on seeing someone higher up, and they actually let you do so? Or did you write a letter to the embassy? I heard of one case where a person refused a visitor visa applied for a judicial review of the decision. He won, but it took a year or so before the case was heard, and he needed a lawyer.

It seems just assuming all visitor visa applicants are lying is the rule in the USA as well. I found this quote from the website of the US embassy in Malaysia: "The presumption in the law is that every visitor visa applicant is an intending immigrant."

 

[Bangkokcanuck]

Bangcockcanuck: when you filed a formal complaint and appealed the decision, what exactly did you do? Did you insist on seeing someone higher up, and they actually let you do so? Or did you write a letter to the embassy? I heard of one case where a person refused a visitor visa applied for a jedicial review of the decision. He won, but it took a year or so before the case was heard, and he needed a lawyer.

It seems just assuming all visitor visa applicants are lying is the rule in the USA as well. I found this quote from the website of the US embassy in Malaysia: "The presumption in the law is that every visitor visa applicant is an intending immigrant."

I actually had to file out a form for the formal complaint and did that right on the spot with the girl behind the reception counter.

For the appeal they gave us a checklist of things we needed to prove that showed we were established in Bangkok and intended to return. The common stuff, business ownership, house ownership, car etc..etc... we of course met all the criteria. We had an email address on the checklist paper we were supposed to send the info to. I did so that night, the next day someone from the Embassy called me to talk about the interview and the appeal. They asked me if we could provide paper proof of everything we claimed we had on the checklist.. I dropped off 400 page of documents, they gave us the Visa then next day so roughly 48 hours after we asked to appeal.

The funniest part of the process was we were never actually told why we were turned down. The woman in the interview just said I not believe you come back, you bad girl.. prove you come back. That was it.. no direction no reason just a really crappy attitude when we explained to her boss on the phone he more or less admitted she screwed up and gave us the chance to prove what we claimed.

As for the formal complaint I talked to a couple of people further of the food chain and they agreed that "maybe" the interviewer was a little bit harsh in her methods and they would talk to her but little more than that.

Of course the second time we went for the visitor's visa we were in that morning and had the Visa that afternoon very much a rubber stamp.

 

[missmini]

thanks for sharing but i'm confused: from all official refusals letters i read they say that u cannot appeal just re-apply if ur circumstance changes...for me it's clear that even if the circumstance changes & we re-applied they don't even read the new siuation / evidence since we got the answer in the same day almost on the spot

did some offices allow appeal and others not? :-\

 

[rjessome]

I think because he filed a complaint on the spot that he got a reconsideration by the Program Manager. It's not an appeal as you are right, these are not allowed. But in principal, it's kind of the same thing as he got them to look at it again right away. It seems like the complaint against the VO triggered the PM to take a look at her decision.

 

[missmini]

I think because he filed a complaint on the spot that he got a reconsideration by the Program Manager. It's not an appeal as you are right, these are not allowed. But in principal, it's kind of the same thing as he got them to look at it again right away. It seems like the complaint against the VO triggered the PM to take a look at her decision.

i suppose but not all applicants get an interview many r refused through formal letter only which takes longer to arrive than they take to look at ur file : then u can usually go to the embassy the next opening day with the public and once there u need to show them exactly for what u came otherwise they do not even let u enter :-\

 

[CharlieD10]

Here are some of the visa offices with refusal rates over the norm of 18%. These averages are approximate and based on 2009 numbers.

Accra 35%
Hong Kong 52%
Kiev 33%
Bogata 22%
Buenos Aires 33%
Kingston, Jamaica 22%
Lima 25%
Mexico City 23%
Port-au-Prince 34%
Port of Spain 45%

However, ALL offices have refused applications so no matter where your application is being processed, you MUST prove your case.

Almost a quarter of all applications are refused in Kingston?? Holy damn.

 

[Bangkokcanuck]

I think because he filed a complaint on the spot that he got a reconsideration by the Program Manager. It's not an appeal as you are right, these are not allowed. But in principal, it's kind of the same thing as he got them to look at it again right away. It seems like the complaint against the VO triggered the PM to take a look at her decision.

You are 100% right, the truth of the matter we found out later is that IF we were officially being refused the VV they were supposed to give my wife an official document stating why she was turned down and blah blah blah.. when I talked to the big cheese one of the first things he asked me was what was the official reason for refusal and we said WHO KNOWS? We were never given any piece of paper never told anything that resembled an answer, just basically verbally abused for ten minutes. In the formal complaint I mentioned how abusive the interview was and the supervisor came back after speaking to the interviewer and said well you weren't even in the room. I said yeah I know I could hear her yelling at my wife in the waiting along with everyone else.. I call it an appeal but again you are quite right it was not technically one as we were never technically denied anything just told to go away... total nightmare I can tell ya. I had to go back to the embassy for something not that long ago can't remember what but we noted that horrible nightmare of an employee was still there making people cry...

 

[Boracay]

To be honest I'm not entirely worried about being able to prove our relationship as I feel we have sufficient evidence. At least I'd hope so anyway.

But what I am worried about is my partner may come up as a red flag. She's married (In the Philippines with divorce being illegal but that's actually irrelevant). It's just that her marriage lasted....gulp....1 day? She was extremely pressured by her parents to marry someone she didn't want to marry. She fet she could not say no and went through the process at the municipal office. Not knowing what would/should happen next she ran away and didn't speak to her parents for months....She since has reconciled with the parents but never had contact with the "husband" again. Parents are so sorry for what they did, they meant well but in my opinion are uneducated and too traditional in their beliefs.

Anyway my HUGE concern is the VO will see the evidence that we are and have been a genuine couple. I know for fact what I said about is true and I'm not being duped. It's actually been a hell of a time convincing her that Canada will be best for us. I'm worried that maybe they will see the previous marriage and think it was not genuine and that they will use that against us, ignoring the law stating if we live together and can show proof we are genuine we should be accepted. Because of course we ARE genuine. So technically all we should have to do is show proof.

Also I'm concerned is after 9 or 10 months we realize that the fact is I can no longer stay here long term and it's a struggle to stay until 12 months. But I'm willing to do it...for us! To be together. I'm afraid in their eyes it looks planned...like we decided after 12 months I go home and the apply immediately.

Anyway...if anyone has any comments or advice on all this I'm all ears!

 

[canadianwoman]

I think if you explain all this in the application it will be OK. Her previous husband was not from a Western country, was he? If he is, then it will raise a red flag. If not, I think explaining the circumstances will help. The visa officers in the embassy there know you can't get divorced in the Philippines, and are used to dealing with common-law couples where one is married to someone else.