PR Card Renewal Mishap

[Herrmann115]

A good chunk of my family has booked a trip to mexico for vacation and my mother is under a PR status in Canada. Her card expired September 14, 2014 and knowing this, she applied for a renewal on Aug 4th, 2014, thinking that it was a 6 week process as it was for the original card. She got a rude surprise when I found a page on the CIC site that said the process is around 15 days. Today I sent an urgent application to the email address they provide on the site and I would love to set her mind at ease. The urgency is that she is booked in a room with my 10 year old daughter. Can anyone provide any info on what options we may have? I keep seeing something about applying for a Permanent Resident Travel Document when arriving at the destination. We are landing in Cancun. Any suggestions or info would be hugely appreciated.

 

[Leon]

She could try to use proof of travel to change her PR card application to urgent processing. If she is lucky, she could get her card before she leaves. Otherwise, if somebody is checking her mail and in case her PR card is mailed to her address while she is gone, they could fed-ex it to the hotel in Cancun.

Is her passport by any chance visa exempt to Canada? If it is, she can use it to board her flight back without mentioning her PR status. Once in Canada, she would just show her expired PR card and explain that she did not have time to renew it.

If not, applying for a travel document in Mexico is definitely an option. You would have to apply through the visa office in Mexico city. You can see some info here: http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/mexico-mexique/visas/travel-documents-perm-titres-voyage.aspx?lang=eng and here: http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/mexico-mexique/visas/processing-traitement.aspx it says that the processing time is a week. However, if the processing time turns out to be longer than a week, depending on how long you are staying, she may miss her flight home.

Last resort, if she ends up stuck in Cancun without a PR card or a travel document and is not visa exempt to Canada, she could try for a US visit visa, fly to the US and enter Canada by land with her expired card.