Immigration Processing Times Unprecedented

IRCC has made significant changes to processing times for certain types of permanent residence applications, leaving applications in limbo.

Navigating IRCC Processing Times

IRCC has made significant changes to their application processing tool, which now includes two feature questions for certain application categories:

1) Have you already applied?

2) When did you apply?

After answering these two questions, you will get an estimated processing time, the number of applicants ahead of you, the total number of applicants waiting in the queue, and the estimated processing time for people applying presently.

This change applies to permanent residence applications under the following categories:

• Economic Immigration

• Family Class Sponsorship

• Citizenship

• Humanitarian and Compassionate Cases

• Refugees

While IRCC has presented this change as a form of additional transparency, it has left immigration lawyers and consultants astonished and applicants in a panic. In many cases, applications that were expected to take 24 months to process, have now skyrocketed to upwards of 10 years. For those who have been waiting patiently, this presents several issues, such as lapsing status and not knowing whether they will be able to remain in Canada while their application continues to process.

Professionals in the industry are highly frustrated with this change as many of us don't see this as transparency, but rather as the opposite. We have all be blind sighted with this update and are now scrambling to inform our clients with an inability to provide them with any acceptable answers as to why this has happened. One of the biggest concerns is that IRCC will start mass cancelling applications, because as things stand now, the processing queue will simply continue to increase with no end in sight.

If you have been affected by these unprecedented processing times, here are some steps you can take to ease the panic you may be feeling:

• If you have an immigration lawyer or consultant representing your file, let them know what your concerns are and discuss next steps.

• Make sure that you take note of the expiration date on your status document, whether it's a work permit, study permit, or temporary resident visa. You'll want to ensure that if you can extend your status you do this prior to your current status expiring.

• Stay up-to-date with IRCC news releases in case there are any further changes to processing for your application type.

• While you may not receive a response in a reasonable time frame, you can check the status of your application through your portal, or by sending a Web Form to IRCC.

If you or someone you know is in need of assistance with their Canadian immigration matters, contact us today to find out how we can help guide the process and alleviate the stress.