I am a Canadian woman married to a Dominican I filed the application Nov 11 2011 Feb 2012 it was sent to the office in Santo Domingo a few weeks after we were sent a letter stating they received the application and it should take about 6 to 12 months and how to prepare for Canada. I have writing to them almost every other month since then for an update on the status of our application the last response was in July stating they are awaiting an officer to handle our file. I wrote back because at that point it was to be assumed my file was literally laying around somewhere in limbo doing nothing. They have not written me back since my file has had almost 10 months should I be freaking out because I am. We were married in DR May 2011 we applied for a visitors visa but was rejected of course....I am really glad I found this site because I thought I was losing my mind all alone.....input plz