April 2025 - Citizenship Applications

[armoured]

Note I edited the above post. I actually forgot to declare the old passport in the original citizenship application. Any suggestions on how to handle the non-declaration aspect? It was an oversight and I own up to it. This was the passport I originally used to apply for my work permit and biometrics in Australia. Then before I left I got my new passport and simply forgot about it.

We just didn't mention it. Won't hurt to do an LOE that you didn't include it because it hasn't been used in the period or whatever your expalnation is.

 

[armoured]

But when Australia itself is not the source of the info - e.g. any US-Canada travel would come from either the US or Canada, or both - then the info is only as reliable as the source. So your dad couldn't scan my passport(s) (even all the old ones) and see my travels between the US and Canada back before 2012 - because when I checked, neither country had a record of it.

Info-sharing: yes, Oz will be able to get access to (likely anyway) Five Eyes (Can/US/UK/Aus/NZ) records, question is how quickly and whether an average border control office will be able to do this on-the-spot/immediately or through extra steps, etc. My assumption is it's not so immediate for line officers - I could be wrong.

Obviously quesiton of how complete those records actually are - well, if no records, there's no records. So of course absurd to claim 'all travels everywhere anytime.' But it could be quite complete - as noted, more complete w/r/t travels inside and out of Oz (and probably NZ). And sure, access to some airline info - but again, not going to be all.

Perhaps there are other ones they have access to fairly easily (eg some EU/NATO? when needed anyway). But lots of concentric/overlapping circles and some that don't overlap at all.

 

[armoured]

BTW for scanning: a multifunction printer with a scanner function is what I used for scanning. Tedious but a LOT better than most other approaches where you'd be holding by hand, etc.

 

[onward28332]

Did anyone receive a ghost update on December 19? The date of my application was updated, but I don’t see the actual update itself! Pending is BG and Prohibitions on my side.

Some BG results came back but not all.

 

[moscatojuices]

BTW for scanning: a multifunction printer with a scanner function is what I used for scanning. Tedious but a LOT better than most other approaches where you'd be holding by hand, etc.

Thanks so much, I used an app called CamScanner. God bless AI technology. Not perfect but it does a good job and is easy to use, plus if you forgot to scan pages (I skipped over several) you can add them and re-order them on the app. Life saver.

We had not included all the passports/travel docs in the app - no issues came up when we 'added.'

And yes, I didn't bother doing the spanish ones (because, well, give me a break), and the remaining ones were also Cyrillic. The Russian and other countries in Europe using Cyrillic stamps (that I know of anyway) use the Euro standard of a small rectangle with name of the port of entry and then dates with an arrow for entry/exit and I think an image for type of port of entry (plane/train/ship anyway). So basically what would I be translating? The name of the port of entry?

There may have been a couple of stamps with Arabic as well as English, but repeating what was there in English.

Anyway: yes, we're supposed to translate everything. But sorry, would have been stupid. (IMO, YMMV)

Ahhh okay thanks for telling. I chose to get them translated as I prefer to comply with what is exactly asked in an immigration request. I found a very useful website - Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario https://atio.on.ca/

I used the search tool to find translation specialists and they did such a good job for just $20-$40 per set of stamps.

You're right my Russian stamp also has the arrow and rectangle. It is so idiotic of IRCC to even ask. What is even the point? Its clearly and entry and exit stamp. Does one need to be a genius to work it out? I get it if its for a birth certificate, college transcript... but a stamp? Fkn use your own translation tool if you need to!!!

Question, does an "Overseas Citizenship of India" OCI card count as a travel document of any sort? I also noticed this is glued to my old passport, but from what I understand, you cannot travel with it (you can only enter India with it).

 

[abff08f4813c]

You're right my Russian stamp also has the arrow and rectangle. It is so idiotic of IRCC to even ask. What is even the point? Its clearly and entry and exit stamp. Does one need to be a genius to work it out? I get it if its for a birth certificate, college transcript... but a stamp? Fkn use your own translation tool if you need to!!!

I think some of the laws may simply be out of date. Remember that ChatGPT is only two and a half years old at this point. Meanwhile, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the law behind this requirement - that the text was last updated in the aughts, if not even earlier.

In fairness, and in a time without adequate automated translation tools, there are stamps from countries that are harder to read. E.g. Stamps from PRC (China) have no latin letters on them at all except to spell out "CHINA", and no arrows either. The date at least is in Arabic numerals, but you need to be able to read hanzi in order to understand anything else it says (including if it's an entry or an exit stamp).

Question, does an "Overseas Citizenship of India" OCI card count as a travel document of any sort? I also noticed this is glued to my old passport, but from what I understand, you cannot travel with it (you can only enter India with it).

Travel documents stand on their own - you can enter on it, and usually they look like a passport booklet. I'm not familiar with OCI specifically but from what I'm reading online about it ( e.g. https://www.airindia.com/in/en/trav...ents/oci-cardholders-travelling-to-india.html ) it seems like it's like a Canadian PR card - you need to present both the card and your passport to fly on it, the card alone won't work.

That makes me believe that it is more akin to a PR status or visa document than a travel document.