jckovacs said:
Do you get your passports back? Or do they take it and replace it later with a Canadian one?
...There's no reason for them to replace your passport with a Canadian one. 1) The applicant is being processed for PR, not Canadian citizenship. 2) Even if it was for citizenship, you are still not required to surrender your old passport to the Canadian government.
Passport request happens at the final stage, when the PR applicant has been approved. They ask for the passport so they can place the PR visa in it and give you your Confirmation of Permanent Residence, so that you can land in Canada as a PR. So, yes, the passports are returned.
argenta said:
We submitted our PR application in Nov 2010 and thought it was a fairly straightforward case – we included documentation of everything. Just received an email from Buffalo saying that our file was transferred to New York, no indication why. We think this means we might be called in for an interview, but not sure.
Buffalo sometimes transfers files to the satellite offices (NY, Seattle, Washington, LA, Detroit) when they are backlogged -- which they definitely are right now. It was likely transferred to help expedite things on both ends.