Corruption within the CIC

[flx2015]

just curious... how susceptible is CIC to corruption? what i mean by that is if for example an applicant has powerful connections within the govt, could he/she use them to speed up their process?

the reason i'm asking is because i know someone personally who was able to get through the family sponsorship stream much quicker than average, and my family is suspecting that he used his connections and/or bribed someone along the way. i don't agree with my family because i always thought that visa officers are independent and have the right to refuse an application even if the priminister himself endorses someone. this guy's application was processed in London, and i find it highly unlikely that he'd have connections there. he's a thug (a lucky one at that), not some bond villain or an international criminal.

what do you guys think? IMO he just got lucky and there was no corruption/bribery involved here.

 

[scylla]

He got lucky. I made it through much faster than the average at the time I applied. No bribes involved.

 

[mf4361]

Are you comparing London VO's process with your file inland (Ottawa)

Every office has its own processing time expecting but generally, outland applications are done much quicker than inland

Hong Kong VO's family sponsor can be done within 1 year. Ottawa inland for family sponsor is now up to 5 years.

 

[hannahmay]

I can't speak for every individual who works in immigration, but you'd have to have world-class connections to be able to bribe your way through CIC, if it's at all possible should you apply as everyone else does.

Times differ per case and per application route. Inland applications take longer than outland. Times differ per office the application is sent to. Times differ depending how thorough you make your application. I made mine pretty air-tight with PLENTY of evidence, literally enough to make a small book, and submitted everything (medical check, payment, forms, evidence, police check, marriage certificate, everything) altogether. CIC website stated that my outland spousal application should've taken up to 36 months. It took only 2.5 months to be approved. No bribery involved, we just played by the rules, read everything 3 times over, made sure nothing was missing.

 

[flx2015]

I can't speak for every individual who works in immigration, but you'd have to have world-class connections to be able to bribe your way through CIC, if it's at all possible should you apply as everyone else does.

Times differ per case and per application route. Inland applications take longer than outland. Times differ per office the application is sent to. Times differ depending how thorough you make your application. I made mine pretty air-tight with PLENTY of evidence, literally enough to make a small book, and submitted everything (medical check, payment, forms, evidence, police check, marriage certificate, everything) altogether. CIC website stated that my outland spousal application should've taken up to 36 months. It took only 2.5 months to be approved. No bribery involved, we just played by the rules, read everything 3 times over, made sure nothing was missing.

read this:

Your short wait time had little to do with whether or not your application was air tight. Had they sent your application to London instead, i can gurantee you that your file would have sat on the shelf gathering dust for another 6 months.

this guy is spot on. you got lucky that your file was sent to ottawa, simple as that. it boils my blood when people come on here implying that all applicants who are made to wait longer have weak cases or disorganized files. my marriage is genuine and my file is as perfectly organized as possible, and only the visa officers at london have the right to tell me otherwise.

anyway... this individual i was referring to in my initial post, let's call him "Mike".

1. Mike's application was processed at the same visa office as mine
2. Mike's spouse is of the same nationality as mine
3. i applied about 2 months after Mike

here is where things get weird.

4. the london visa office began reviewing Mike's application at around 5.5 months after he submitted it (initial review = starting the PA's eligibility assessment)
5. my application is 6.5 months old, and london hasn't even begun reviewing it yet
6. my gcms notes from mississauga indicate that my application is complete and that there are no apparent red flags (based on mississauga's quick review of the sponsor and applicant)

do you see the problem here? what i'm essentially saying is that "case strength" does not matter in the slightest UNTIL a visa officer decides to actually pick up your file and begin reviewing it. you may think of it as a triage at an emergency room; you have a bunch of patients sitting in front of you, but you won't really know how to prioritize them until a nurse speaks to each patient individually and assesses their condition. i was hoping that they would keep the wait times consistent and begin initial review of my file at the 5.5 month mark, but that never happened.

 

[mf4361]

Again different VO has their working efficiency and not all are up to standard. What you describe is a genuine problem in the bureaucracy that frustrates some people.

It's certainly not a problem of [Corruption], where some people pays a VO under the table to expedite the service. I don't believe that is happening.

 

[hannahmay]

read this:

this guy is spot on. you got lucky that your file was sent to ottawa, simple as that. it boils my blood when people come on here implying that all applicants who are made to wait longer have weak cases or disorganized files. my marriage is genuine and my file is as perfectly organized as possible, and only the visa officers at london have the right to tell me otherwise.

anyway... this individual i was referring to in my initial post, let's call him "Mike".

1. Mike's application was processed at the same visa office as mine
2. Mike's spouse is of the same nationality as mine
3. i applied about 2 months after Mike

here is where things get weird.

4. the london visa office began reviewing Mike's application at around 5.5 months after he submitted it (initial review = starting the PA's eligibility assessment)
5. my application is 6.5 months old, and london hasn't even begun reviewing it yet
6. my gcms notes from mississauga indicate that my application is complete and that there are no apparent red flags (based on mississauga's quick review of the sponsor and applicant)

do you see the problem here? what i'm essentially saying is that "case strength" does not matter in the slightest UNTIL a visa officer decides to actually pick up your file and begin reviewing it. you may think of it as a triage at an emergency room; you have a bunch of patients sitting in front of you, but you won't really know how to prioritize them until a nurse speaks to each patient individually and assesses their condition. i was hoping that they would keep the wait times consistent and begin initial review of my file at the 5.5 month mark, but that never happened.

Jeez, cool it. I was simply explaining my own experience, that's all I can and did do. I made no such implication that this guys, or the next guys, application is not genuine.

 

[nope]

Corruption exists in two forms. The hard form, when someone simply pays a bureaucrat for favorable treatment, is very rare in Canada. The soft form, where someone who has connections gets faster processing, simpler processing, or processing with less scrutiny, probably exists everywhere and it's hard to estimate how common it is in Canada.

I saw an example of the latter version, once. A friend of our family was living in a US territory, married to a foreign national who had no green card. He was hired to do a top-level, specialized job for the United States State Department in a war zone; a few months later, his wife was a US citizen. This is normally a multi-year process, involving applying for a green card, holding a green card for a few years, applying for citizenship. She jumped over all those hurdles in a few months -- I personally saw her local immigration document, and her US passport. Is this corruption? I guess it is -- but pretty much everywhere, the people who administer the rules don't apply them too stringently to each other. Probably deep down, there are vague exceptions that say things like ". . . at the discretion of so-and-so," which make it legal, so long as So-and-So knows who you are. In my opinion, this is less corrupt than expediting citizenship for Olympic athletes.

Could your friend have benefitted from this? Sure -- but they could also just have been lucky.

 

[flx2015]

Corruption exists in two forms. The hard form, when someone simply pays a bureaucrat for favorable treatment, is very rare in Canada. The soft form, where someone who has connections gets faster processing, simpler processing, or processing with less scrutiny, probably exists everywhere and it's hard to estimate how common it is in Canada.

I saw an example of the latter version, once. A friend of our family was living in a US territory, married to a foreign national who had no green card. He was hired to do a top-level, specialized job for the United States State Department in a war zone; a few months later, his wife was a US citizen. This is normally a multi-year process, involving applying for a green card, holding a green card for a few years, applying for citizenship. She jumped over all those hurdles in a few months -- I personally saw her local immigration document, and her US passport. Is this corruption? I guess it is -- but pretty much everywhere, the people who administer the rules don't apply them too stringently to each other. Probably deep down, there are vague exceptions that say things like ". . . at the discretion of so-and-so," which make it legal, so long as So-and-So knows who you are. In my opinion, this is less corrupt than expediting citizenship for Olympic athletes.

Could your friend have benefitted from this? Sure -- but they could also just have been lucky.

for the "soft form" of corruption you're describing, wouldn't one need to have connections at the overseas visa office where their application is being processed? sure he may have connections in canada, but i can't imagine how london VO would react to someone telling them to "look the other way" when processing so-and-so's application.

yes it's very likely this person just got lucky in terms of processing time, because he's not the only one to have been processed that quickly. however what i find hard to believe is why the VO didn't scrutinize his application given the amount of red flags it had.

 

[flx2015]

Jeez, cool it. I was simply explaining my own experience, that's all I can and did do. I made no such implication that this guys, or the next guys, application is not genuine.

sorry. been away from my wife for too long. job's keeping me busy and i haven't been able to visit her for quite a while now.