CanadaMan

Please note that It will be a huge delay in all applications in buffalo office from 2-3 years for any application with AOR after 2002.

It is the biggest delay in the immigration process. Read the news.

MarkG

Care to elaborate?

Andrew Miller

Same delays will be in all visa posts due to the settlement cases - 130,000 of previously frozen pre-2002 applications have been thrown back into processing and half of them (including all 1999 and earlier) must be completed by middle of 2006, all 2000 cases completed by middle of 2007 and all 2001 applications must be completed by the end of 2008. Read Article 3c here for details:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/mandamu...ent-final.html

130,000 applications represent statistically more than 270,000 visas versus annual quota of about 135,000 to 145,000 visas available in affected SW class. So yes, they will affect all still pending cases submitted in 2002 and later.

Additional delays for 2002 and later cases may be anywhere from several months to 3+ years, depending from visa post.

Ibraheem

but will this affect the already been gone throw IA , medicals ..etc?

Andrew Miller

Yes, it will affect all pending cases - although to various extend. Those waiting only for security check will get their final decision and passport request just after those pre-2002 cases at similar stage of the process, providing that visas are still available for the year.

Tab

Mr. Miller:

Following the numbers you have provided, does this mean that just about all of the 2006 quota will be used to comply with the court order (if about 130,000 visas will be required to meet the court order in 2006)?

Does that mean that people expecting a PPR now can expect to wait until 2007 or later?

If this is so, does the government have any strategy to treat current applicants equitably?

Thank you for your response.

Andrew Miller

130,000 cases means about 270,000+ visas - it is 2 years quota of visas in SW class. But only half of it must be completed by middle of 2006 and the rest until end of 2008. So, the hardest hit is now and through next year - later it will still affect all but to lesser extend. And hiccups and delays caused by growing completely out of control backlog will be felt for next 10 to 20 years or longer, unless CIC raises pass mark to clear backlog and/or stops accepting applications for few years.

Why "treat current applications equally"? Those 130,000 applicants are in the process already for several years (some 5 or 7 years already), they deserve the first priority now. Why should they give up what they deserve to applicants who applied years after them?

sww

I don't understand why didn't they finilize these cases at time, probably because most of them have problems ? or not even qualified to immigrate to canada ?

if not they should have been finilised at time, because of the bring forward date, so they check these files at regular basics ?

i m not trying to act smart here, but isn't this how the system work ?
and i have a question : how do we know that it s 130 000 cases ?

Eckhart1234

What this says to me... is that the Skilled Worker class is now essentially worthless to apply for Immigration. Because if you applied today then by the time you got your Visa it would almost be 2010. Heck the Olympics might come and go before you ever get here.

So it seems the only way people will be coming to Canada is either by doing the Provincial Nominee program or by Marrying into the Country. Everything else will take so long as to be largely unreasonable.

I feel for the LawSuit people's plight but the Canadian govt in their decision now by re-enfranchising one group of people is disenfranchising another... So it isn't truly fair to those that are currently having their applications looked at in varying stages to have a great firery mountain dropped on them much like the original lawsuit folks did with IRPA that caused all this grief in the first place.

So in short they are creating a new set of problems by fixing an old set. It's like trading one for one. They aren't really doing anything except seemingly adding more wood to their already too high blazing of a fire. From reading stuff here and going to a few presentations it seems like CIC is drowning in their own beaurocracy and ocean of paperwork.

This is just my opinion and I could be completely wrong and underinformed. Another idea that comes to mind that would clear the backlog instead of increasing the passmark to weed people out is to in essence throw the door open much like the US in the 19th Century. But before I get flamed not in as open and non-paperworked way. Hire more Visa Officers, Streamline processes that check things out, double or even triple the Immigration Visa Quota or just do away with it all together. So it would be an if your Qualified then come on down rule possibly.

I'm not saying it wouldn't bring some problems of its own but it would incourage migration to Canada instead of discouraging it.

Andrew Miller

Seems you are new here and brief history lesson may be in order.

Those are cases filed prior to 2002 and new law implemented in 2002 made them retroactively subject to new selection criteria. Some of those 130,000 applicants would not qualify under new rules, although not all. But quite few lawyers "smelled blood" (read big money) and filed a class action lawsuit, collecting thousands of $$$ from naive clients mainly in India to have them inclued in the lawsuit, while once it was classified as class action lawsuit all affected were automatically included, unless decided to not participate. Those lawyers made jackpot of lifetime. Federal judge in early 2003 froze processing of all pending pre-2002 applications (except for those who opted-out from lawsuit) until matter is resolved. So, all newer cases started enjoying shorter processing times as a result. Now after settlement has been approved all frozen previously cases are coming back to processing. And will take processing resources as well as visa quotas for few years to come.

Most of those cases didn't have problems, they were not finalized because court order froze their processing for over 2 years.

rahulaustraliamein

Dear Miller Sir.
As i applied in New Delhi in 2003 november .....if we count all cases of backlog plus fresh cases when my application will ne given I.A?
in 2010 or....so?
what else way can i go for ????

ktp

As this case was finalised in March 2005, will the extra processing times be factored into any AOR's recently received?

For example, I have just received my AOR from the London office, 2 weeks after posting application, stating a 36 month waiting time. Will this include any extra processing time arising from the finalisation of these cases? Or should I expect to wait more than 36 months.

Thanks

Katy

Azam Ali

I received a letter from CHC Singapore saying they are confident that they would clear all these cases by end of 05. But I am not sure about New Delhi.

MarkG

Who knows? Who can tell?

This is the real problem I have: the total lack of communication with applicants about these things. If they'd at least say 'sorry, due to events outside our control your application won't be processed until 2008, not 2006', I could just start arranging a wedding next year, but as it is I have no clue whether I should wait for my skilled worker application to be processed or give up on it. Equally, if I'd known last year what a mess the whole process would be, I'd just have got married then and be in Canada by now.

To be honest, they're only hurting themselves this way. As much as I like Canada, if my girlfriend wasn't Canadian I wouldn't even have considered emigrating there after the way they've treated potential emigrants in the past... and if applicants in the UK now are going to be looking at a five year wait for a visa, the vast majority of the kind of people the government really want to emigrate to Canada are just going to forget about it.

bubbleface

Well said! The long process is scaring the skillful people away from immigrating to Canada. Most of the people have put life on hold to wait for this PR paper. If they knew it would take them 5-10 years in some countries, they might as well stay where they are, or immigrate to somewhere else.