Hello, in the midst of a mini-crisis, I would appreciate your advice.
In mid-December 2012 my wife and I applied electronically to extend our work permits in Canada. These work permits would expire on 11 January 2013, and so with processing times we knew that we would be on implied status for a while until our renewed work permits were issued.
In early February, while on implied status and awaiting our renewed work permits, my wife lost her (British) passport on public transport in Vancouver. She informed the police and cancelled her passport for security reasons. She also immediately applied for a new passport. This process takes four to six weeks.
Meanwhile, our work permit application was nearing conclusion. However, the police must have an automatic process whereby they inform CIC in the event of lost/stolen passports of foreign nationals. We received an electronic letter from CIC stating that my wife does not have a valid travel document and we must upload a valid travel document within five days for her work permit application to be fulfilled. I phoned the call centre to explain that a new passport application has been submitted to the British authorities but that this will take four to six weeks to process and so uploading a valid travel document within five days is impossible. The call centre operator advised me to upload a letter explaining these circumstances, which I then did.
Yesterday, two days after the initial deadline for uploading the valid travel document, my wife received a rejection letter due to her failure to provide a valid travel document. She has 90 days to apply for restoration of status and to again apply for an extension of her work permit.
This is especially inconvenient for us because she was due to begin an exciting new job on Monday. She is now having to call her new employer over the weekend to explain why she cannot report for work on Monday morning. We would love to find a way to ask her new employer for patience to wait for her immigration status to be resolved. In order to do so, we need a better understanding of how long this will take.
I have several questions for the kind members of this forum:
- Is there any prospect of CIC reversing their rejection and keeping my wife's implied status open until her new passport is received? If so, how should I pursue this? Call centre? Try to get an appointment at an office?
- Assuming the above isn't possible, how long does the restoration of status process take?
- And perhaps most crucially, will it be possible to apply electronically for the restoration of status only; and then cross into the United States and return into Canada in order to apply for extension/renewnal of work permit at a land border port-of-entry (in order to save the 48-day electronic application processing time)?
Thanks in advance.
In mid-December 2012 my wife and I applied electronically to extend our work permits in Canada. These work permits would expire on 11 January 2013, and so with processing times we knew that we would be on implied status for a while until our renewed work permits were issued.
In early February, while on implied status and awaiting our renewed work permits, my wife lost her (British) passport on public transport in Vancouver. She informed the police and cancelled her passport for security reasons. She also immediately applied for a new passport. This process takes four to six weeks.
Meanwhile, our work permit application was nearing conclusion. However, the police must have an automatic process whereby they inform CIC in the event of lost/stolen passports of foreign nationals. We received an electronic letter from CIC stating that my wife does not have a valid travel document and we must upload a valid travel document within five days for her work permit application to be fulfilled. I phoned the call centre to explain that a new passport application has been submitted to the British authorities but that this will take four to six weeks to process and so uploading a valid travel document within five days is impossible. The call centre operator advised me to upload a letter explaining these circumstances, which I then did.
Yesterday, two days after the initial deadline for uploading the valid travel document, my wife received a rejection letter due to her failure to provide a valid travel document. She has 90 days to apply for restoration of status and to again apply for an extension of her work permit.
This is especially inconvenient for us because she was due to begin an exciting new job on Monday. She is now having to call her new employer over the weekend to explain why she cannot report for work on Monday morning. We would love to find a way to ask her new employer for patience to wait for her immigration status to be resolved. In order to do so, we need a better understanding of how long this will take.
I have several questions for the kind members of this forum:
- Is there any prospect of CIC reversing their rejection and keeping my wife's implied status open until her new passport is received? If so, how should I pursue this? Call centre? Try to get an appointment at an office?
- Assuming the above isn't possible, how long does the restoration of status process take?
- And perhaps most crucially, will it be possible to apply electronically for the restoration of status only; and then cross into the United States and return into Canada in order to apply for extension/renewnal of work permit at a land border port-of-entry (in order to save the 48-day electronic application processing time)?
Thanks in advance.
