This is the most frustrating time for me in my life... I came to Canada in September, 2017, and claimed asylum a week after. When claiming, my family were already included in my claim. Got my pr in 2020 and my family's files transferred to South Africa VO in October, 2020. Before the transfer, IRCC had asked my wife for police clearance in South Africa which was then added to her file transferred to the VO. This police clearance for those who don't know is the Criminality IRCC uses as part of the stages you go through. Although, I had paid for her biometric and it was completed during this period. Since then, no progress from South Africa VO! MP intervention, several emails, nothing... Everytime we asked for update, only thing we got was "Criminality" passed for more than 1 year, this continued. In December, 2021, email from IRCC asking for additional documents, a marriage certificate with evidence of both couples present on the wedding day, instructions for my entire family (wife and 2 kids) for medicals. For the marriage certificate, this is for others who might be in my situation to act fast before IRCC waste your time the more... Back to my topic... we initially submitted our marriage certificate which we'd used for years but IRCC kept quiet until this last minute. It was stated that such marriage isn't recognized in Canada (it is called Proxy marriage) as I was in South Africa at the time of the marriage while my wife was in Nigeria. So the marriage was done in absentia. In Canada, this is unacceptable! Upon receiving this, we acted quickly to arrange a wedding in a third country as I am not allowed to go back to my country of origin for now. We were so excited that we've reached the end of the hurdles as we anticipated that the next thing would be for South Africa VO to ask for my family's passports in some weeks time after we submitted our new marriage certificate. To be dealt a big bang blow, MP contacted South Africa VO yesterday via IRCC to know the status of my family's applications, it was revealed that "marriage certificate received, Criminality passed, medical passed, eligibility ongoing and security not started".
It was a response that was beyond my imagination! As I'd read on this platform that security usually takes between 6 - 8 months if not even more... I was almost devastated as to how my family's applications outside Canada could take 2 years to finalize? This is a shame!
