I am hoping to gather people who took the test out of Canada and now being classified as a non routine application. My MP told me today that my application is non routine for further verification. What kind of verification do they need? My useless MP mentioned that I needed to request a ATIPP note to know the officer’s notes which could take months. I am on 16.5 months but 17 month processing time is no longer applied to my case. Do you know what I should do next?
Reviving this thread for anyone who wants to apply for Mandamus. We can do group discount and more power as a group. Anyone is reaching 17 month or more time mark?
While there are rare situations in which applications for a Writ of Mandamus may involve multiple applicants, that really is rare, and there is little or no indication that would be viable in the context of IRCC processing grant citizenship applications.
The underlying legal and factual groundwork involved in qualifying for a WoM, as to a grant citizenship application, is highly individual, very specific to the particular facts and circumstances and history in each individual applicant's case.
If you are serious about pursuing recourse aimed at pushing IRCC to proceed with your application more quickly than they otherwise will be, it would be best to
go to a competent, reputable lawyer who has experience in citizenship cases and
pay for a comprehensive consultation, one in which the lawyer reviews the details in your specific case (including, for example, your copy of the application that was submitted and anything else submitted along the way), and
evaluates IF and WHEN it might be prudent to submit a Demand Letter to IRCC. This would probably cost something in the range of four to six or so hundred dollars (possibly more for some lawyers).
Getting the lawyer to represent you and take action, however, even just making the Demand, would likely cost well into the thousands.
While there have been a few anecdotal reports of apparent success for some who pursued mandamus relief at around two years of processing (a couple even somewhat less than that), given the many thousands of applications still in process for far longer than that, there is not a lot of promise that a lawyer can accelerate things much for those whose applications have been in process less than two years. And even beyond that, it seems likely that most success stories involve applications which IRCC was close to finalizing anyway.
I noticed you referred to another forum participant whose application was in process for nearly three years as an "
extreme" case. Hardly. But depends, because applications during different periods of time have run into longer, and sometimes much longer periods. The one you referred to as "
extreme," for example, was a 2020 applicant; thousands and thousands of late 2019 and 2020 applicants ran into three plus years of processing, scores and scores of them four years or more (impact of Covid pandemic mostly). There was another historical period, 2011 to 2014, in which there was also a huge number of applications bogged down for three and four years. In the meantime, the real extreme cases are those which exceed six to ten years, and there have been some going twenty years. Most that are bogged down for five years or more involve real cause, of course, like PR-refugees who have cessation proceedings pending due to home country travel.
I also note you have referred to a forum participant pursuing mandamus without the assistance of a lawyer. I am familiar with several who suggested they MIGHT try that, NONE reporting doing so with success that I have seen. There is a somewhat recent topic in which someone suggests using ChatGPT to do this without a lawyer, but did not indicate they will actually be doing that. Not a promising approach. I have offered extensive comments in that topic (the prospect of pursuing mandamus relief is a subject I have followed closely for more than a decade now).
Only a lawyer can offer you a reasonably reliable opinion about the prospects in YOUR specific case. It depends on the specific circumstances in your case, and the amount of time in processing so far is just one factor and typically not the more important factor.
Circumstances like taking the test outside Canada can lead to non-routine processing involving IRCC pursuing additional inquiries or even investigations, leading to significantly longer timelines. Just that fact alone would not ordinarily lead to significant problems or delays, but if in addition to being outside Canada for an extended period of time after applying there are any other circumstances which tend to trigger RQ-related inquiries, for example, an applicant can anticipate longer processing times. While there has been some vociferous opposition to cautions about this, the impact is real. Not everyone is affected equally. Some hardly, if at all. Others, much more so. Varies. Enough, nonetheless, that such cautions continue to reflect how things actually do work in some of these situations.
That said, as long as there are no other circumstances raising concerns, being outside Canada for the test should have little continuing impact once the applicant is back in Canada.
