That said, it actually might be safe to make an educated guess that processing time might be FASTER rather than slower? I mean, if NYC doesn't have any applications (or hardly any since everyone sends to Buffalo instead).. that the only ones ahead of me are those from Feb-May (since the website still states Feb for stage 1 processing) ... by all the applications in Buffalo going to Ottawa.. that means there's absolutely nothing in those of us in stage 1's way.
The talk of double processing time or slower actually seems wayyyy unlikely now. Would you think it'd be the same for those in process already and faster for the newbies considering the mass amount in process are going to Ottawa and all of us newbies are going elsewhere?
It's not quite as clear cut since NY (and the other prior satellite offices in Los Angeles, Seattle, Detroit, and Washington, D.C.) used to cover 50% of the US outland family sponsorship volume so they do have cases in their queue that they are working on. Nonetheless, yes, overall this is very good news as the other US VO's won't suddenly have double the volume (as some folks had predicted) so the US applicants should still stay some of the fastest worldwide (at least for now)
Also consider that the fact that they have practice processing applications is also good news since they know what they are doing.
Given that Buffalo is closing down, this seems to be a minimum impact on timing scenario (at least in the very short term).
And, for folks whose applications are being sent to Ottawa ... they seem to be very efficient. I had mentioned this as a possibility on Friday as the better-case scenario for this reason (they are trained already from processing low-risk successful appeal cases and cases from other VO shut down temporarily due to emergencies, etc).
Assuming that the satellite US Visa Offices take over, the questions of timing will now be pushed into the future beyond current applications ... the backlogs may slowly increase (unless LA/Seattle/Detroit/DC/NY hire more personnel unless Ottawa's role expands to help process future apps too). However, CIC seems to be centralizing more and more functions onto Canadian soil so this CPP-O pilot may end up being the beginnings of a bigger thing.
And, there's the outstanding question I know a few folks are struggling with re where interviews will be held that were scheduled for June. Hopefully that info will come out soon too (I would hypothesize that one of the satellite offices will handle them either in person or that they may be switched to phone interviews).
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