Archive - Long Delays In Your Canadian Immigration Application

Published: 24 June 2014

You are in the archive section. Content on this page may no longer be valid.

The processing of an application for a Canada Immigration (Permanent Resident) Visa can vary in length from a couple of months to many years.

The processing time can depend on a number of factors, such as the category of Canadian immigration in which you applied, the Canadian Immigration Visa Office to which your application was submitted, and the completeness of the information and documents you provided with your application.

Fortunately, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has set service standards that each Canadian Immigration Visa Office is expected to meet with respect to every category of Canadian immigration. If the Canadian Immigration Visa Office processing your application is not meeting those service standards with respect to your file, you have recourses available to you.

You may retain our law firm to provide you with an analysis of the current status of your application and a plan of action to get your application on track to a final disposition.

If warranted in your particular situation, we can do the following:

  • Order Canadian Immigration Visa Office notes. From these notes we will be able to determine the reasons for the delay in the processing of your application.
  • Write a letter to the Program Manager at the Canadian Immigration Visa Office processing your file. Our letter will request that your application be brought to final disposition or, alternatively, that we be informed as to what must be done for your application to proceed to final disposition.
  • Write a letter to Case Management/Case Review at Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) headquarters in Ottawa, Canada. Our letter will explain that the Canadian Immigration Visa Office processing your application has gone beyond its services standards with respect to your file and request the department's intervention on your behalf.
  • File suit (Writ of Mandamus) in the Federal Court of Canada. Our suit will ask for an order that would require the Canadian Immigration Visa Office to bring your application to final disposition in a timely manner.

Contact us to see how we can help you with your immigration problem(s).