What to do now? (American Citizen married to Canadian Citizen)

[ovasquez1]

My husband and I submitted our outland application to CIC on March 27, they received it on March 28. On May 14 we received our UCI number, May 15 we received the SA, and our medicals were update on May 20.

What next? I know that Ottawa does not send a second AOR...most outland applications take 6-8 months..so we would receive it hopefully somewhere between the end of September to November...

How will we know we are close to the end or that they are close to making a decision?

Will they request an interview or say something on the CIC website or will they request my passport or copies?

If November comes and I don't hear anything..when should I start to worry or what should I do then?

Besides waiting, is there anything I can do now?

 

[rhcohen2014]

now we just wait. it will be months and months before CIC picks up the application to start working on it. From what i've read, ECAS will change to "in process" when this happens, and that's basically ALL that in process means - that an immigration officer picked it up and started looking at it. I have read where applications sit around for 4-6 months before they start being processed. Be prepared for a lot of silence. Apparently CIC will only contact us if they are requesting more documents or are ready to issue PPR. Everything at this point is out of our control.

The only way we can get any insight into our case is to order GCSM notes. There are multiple links on this forum about ordering them, and user828 shares a video about ordering them. It's been suggested to wait until the visa office has had the file for at least a couple of months. These notes, when ordered electronically and not by mail, have no affect on our application, and may have info about what stage the application is at. The notes can also mention if there are any concerns in the file, so essentially an applicant can send in more info to support the application. It takes about 30 days to receive them.

Keep in mind, while there are some US applicants getting through on the quicker end of things, there are some that have taken more like 10-12 months, not 8-10. The best way to track the progress is to see which US applicants are getting PPR on this forum. Right now it seems to be applicants from september - december 2013 threads. There's even someone from last August still waiting for PPR. Very rarely are US applicants processing less than 8 months right now, so i would err on the side of caution and say November or December is more realistic. It depends on the application and the officer handling the file. Also remember Ottawa processes applications from other countries too. AGain, ordering notes every so often will help figure out if any movement has happened on your file. I know I plan to order them mid summer and mid fall to get on top of anything that may come up. my processing time is pretty close to yours.