Thread for outland Buffalo applicants!

[AW2011]

Yay! E-CAS now shows a change in my status!

My application has now been 'in process' since November 11th!

Good news! Hope you'll get PPR very soon.
Do you have "Medical Results Have Been Received" too on your E-case?

 

[mjh49783aa]

Thanks!

As for 'medical results have been received', nope. It didn't say anything about that. Just that it's 'in process'.

Good news! Hope you'll get PPR very soon.
Do you have "Medical Results Have Been Received" too on your E-case?

 

[prophet3]

Okay, so tell them you are "abandoning" your original access to information request and you absolutely do not want the physical visa file to be removed so as not to disrupt your processing at Buffalo.

thanks, i sent her another email telling her I dont need the visa file, but only need the GCMS notes, so i hope it helps.

 

[prophet3]

Prophet, that decision in March was regarding me as a sponsor, not my common-law partner, whom I'm sponsoring. Does this make sense?

Ok , yea I understand now. I have never had all that detail in my ecas, so it seemed weird, but it makes sense that it is the sponsorship part of it.thanks for clarifying jacobsdennis

 

[prophet3]

I just wish they would update your Ecase right away when additional documents or interview are requested. I got worried reading people missing VO letters/emails and even PPR request. There's no way to know any of those requests are missed. I'll give it till Christmas then order GCMS. Thank you all and hope the turkey brings us all luck.

that is the way it supposed to be,and even in the manual for CIC it instructs the officers to notify the applicants in case the process is going to take longer than 6 months , and provide some reason, given that the initial application was complete when sent to buffalo, but dont see that happening as I am gona hit the 6 month this week :'(

 

[awor]

Buffalo has our file, it was transferred on Nov 3rd 2011. Just so you can keep the spreadsheet updated.

 

[mjh49783aa]

Speaking of spreadsheet, where's the link to that? I saw it once in this forum soon after I first signed up, and now it's buried behind pages of God knows how many posts now, so I have no idea where to start hunting.

 

[yooper]

Speaking of spreadsheet, where's the link to that? I saw it once in this forum soon after I first signed up, and now it's buried behind pages of God knows how many posts now, so I have no idea where to start hunting.

http://tinyurl.com/3rpdwav
look for posts by ddobro2, who kindly maintains

 

[mjh49783aa]

Thanks. I appreciate it, and have it bookmarked this time.

Ddobro2, could you add me to the spreadsheet too?

http://tinyurl.com/3rpdwav
look for posts by ddobro2, who kindly maintains

 

[AmericaninQuebec]

that is the way it supposed to be,and even in the manual for CIC it instructs the officers to notify the applicants in case the process is going to take longer than 6 months , and provide some reason, given that the initial application was complete when sent to buffalo, but dont see that happening as I am gona hit the 6 month this week :'(

Seriously? That annoys me even more then that their response to me in October (after I hit the 6 mth mark) when I emailed them was simply an "in process, can't give you updates" form response.

Other annoying thing is that the only indication I've had as to what could be taking so long said that it was my background check (waiting on GCMS notes to confirm this), which apparently can take months and months for the RCMP to do. Yeah, so last night I went to the local police to get a national background check done (because you can no longer go to the RCMP for that in Quebec) for an application I'm doing to have my professional license recognized here. It literally took the officer 30 seconds to look it up and another minute to fill out the form. I thought she was handing me the order form to sign, but no she was handing me the official certificate that showed that I have no criminal history in Canada. WTF is the RCMP doing that it takes months for them to do that and tell Buffalo what the result was? Are they really going through Interpol to check if I have history in every place I've ever vacationed or something? Ugh. :-[

Anyway! I'm off on a 10 hr drive south for Thanksgiving today. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that we get a ton of good news by the start of December!

 

[cantor2537]

Seriously? That annoys me even more then that their response to me in October (after I hit the 6 mth mark) when I emailed them was simply an "in process, can't give you updates" form response.

Other annoying thing is that the only indication I've had as to what could be taking so long said that it was my background check (waiting on GCMS notes to confirm this), which apparently can take months and months for the RCMP to do. Yeah, so last night I went to the local police to get a national background check done (because you can no longer go to the RCMP for that in Quebec) for an application I'm doing to have my professional license recognized here. It literally took the officer 30 seconds to look it up and another minute to fill out the form. I thought she was handing me the order form to sign, but no she was handing me the official certificate that showed that I have no criminal history in Canada. WTF is the RCMP doing that it takes months for them to do that and tell Buffalo what the result was? Are they really going through Interpol to check if I have history in every place I've ever vacationed or something? Ugh. :-[

Anyway! I'm off on a 10 hr drive south for Thanksgiving today. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that we get a ton of good news by the start of December!

Happy turkey day. My wife has this whole week off, while I'm slaving away at the office and in clinic...

 

[ddobro2]

I think I've mentioned this in the past but........where exactly does CIC tell its staff that they need to inform applicants of the reason for a lengthier processing time once the file sits there past 6 months?

that is the way it supposed to be,and even in the manual for CIC it instructs the officers to notify the applicants in case the process is going to take longer than 6 months , and provide some reason, given that the initial application was complete when sent to buffalo, but dont see that happening as I am gona hit the 6 month this week :'(

 

[ddobro2]

You're on.

Thanks. I appreciate it, and have it bookmarked this time.

Ddobro2, could you add me to the spreadsheet too?

 

[ddobro2]

I don't know about you, but I think I'm now ready to contact my MP - not about the file processing but about the GCMS notes. I think we've both been waiting more than 30 days that they are legally mandated to reply by (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/atip/time.asp), and the fact that I can't even get a response to my emails from ATIP nor anyone on the phone (they have two options now once you call up - to leave a message and to talk to someone, and it doesn't matter which you select because you'll hear the "leave a message" prompt either way), does NOT make it any easier. So thanks, CIC, it was the relative feasability of the GCMS request system that had me refraining from contacting my MP, but now that that's out the window, I guess you'll be hearing from Monsieur Dion.

As far as how long it takes them to do an RCMP check (or anything else, for that matter), it's anyone's guess because as I've said other times: CIC, including RPC-Buffalo, is a big, black box. My suspicion is that they spend less than 1/3 of their time on our stream of PR applications, and the necessity of documenting every step in every type of assessment for a given file in GCMS also means that about half of THAT time is devoted to record management. Of course if we had an audit of the Buffalo office, we would have a better idea of what goes into each step of the processing, time-wise.

Happy Thanksgiving, wait mates.

Seriously? That annoys me even more then that their response to me in October (after I hit the 6 mth mark) when I emailed them was simply an "in process, can't give you updates" form response.

Other annoying thing is that the only indication I've had as to what could be taking so long said that it was my background check (waiting on GCMS notes to confirm this), which apparently can take months and months for the RCMP to do. Yeah, so last night I went to the local police to get a national background check done (because you can no longer go to the RCMP for that in Quebec) for an application I'm doing to have my professional license recognized here. It literally took the officer 30 seconds to look it up and another minute to fill out the form. I thought she was handing me the order form to sign, but no she was handing me the official certificate that showed that I have no criminal history in Canada. WTF is the RCMP doing that it takes months for them to do that and tell Buffalo what the result was? Are they really going through Interpol to check if I have history in every place I've ever vacationed or something? Ugh. :-[

Anyway! I'm off on a 10 hr drive south for Thanksgiving today. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that we get a ton of good news by the start of December!

 

[mcmasters]

So ddobro2, I was just wondering... you've become a rogue scholar on all things Canadian immigration, do you plan on using that skill set after you get your PR? I'm totally serious! You'd be able to help a lot of people with your knowledge.

AmericaninQuebec: I'm not sure if I'm being subjected to a full RCMP background check, all I know is the MP's office said we're "waiting of further background checks." I guess my GCMS notes will tell me what that means exactly (whenever they get here ARRRRRGH), but I hope for both our sakes they get done with them SOON. It just makes me extra mad because not everyone has to go through this.

The only reason I can think of that they'd want to do extra background checks on me is because I went to school in England and Germany (two different semesters), and/or because I've spent a looot of time in Canada over the past 5 years. I did get a speeding ticket in Kingston, ON once - do you think they'll deny my PR for that? LOL juuuuuust kidding. : Uh, well, should I be laughing? Paranoid much?

Anyway, continuing to feel jealous of the lucky ones who get done in <6 months. Sometimes I wonder if I coulda been one of them, if I'd just read that letter requesting my RPRF a little more carefully and convinced hubs it didn't always get paid at the end...... bleeeeeeh.

One last thing - I think there's a very high likelihood that a great number of Buffalo applicants have never heard of this forum. It's not like the CIC suggests we all get on over here, educate ourselves, and become better self-advocates. I mean, I applied in late Feb/early March, and didn't know about this forum until mid-October.

Two more days to receive mail (including today) before the holiday. One week and two days until the policy change.

Raise your purple hand if you're holding your breath along with me...

-Maddy