MW2015 said:
Just received a letter from the St. Clare office stating that due to not meeting the 1460 days in country and only have 1432 I will not be eligible for citizenship. I did not know about all the reports you could file to check days, I did mine based on my own travel history documents. So yes I know I was short after receiving documents from both US and Canada border patrol documents.
I have 30 days to respond to the letter, anyone have any recommendations on how I should proceed. Or do I withdraw and re-apply. Frankly as one that pays a lot of taxes to this country I am about ready to just abandon the country. Very fed up you can't travel for work and still be considered eligible.
Short answer:
The response by
scylla says all that really needs to be said: if short of the 4 year
physical presence requirement (at the time of applying), best to withdraw the application and, assuming you would meet the requirements as of now, re-apply.
A little longer answer regarding optional procedure in responding to the letter:
Regarding other ways to respond to the letter, apparently your application included a physical presence calculation claiming more than 1460 days of actual physical presence, but IRCC has identified additional time outside Canada and based on that will decline to grant citizenship. In this case, IRCC currently does not have the power to deny your application based on failing to meet the physical presence requirement so long as you claim to have met the physical presence requirement. In such a case, all IRCC can do is
decline to grant citizenship and
refer the case to a Citizenship Judge.
But if you are indeed short, taking the case all the way through the process would be futile. Neither IRCC nor the CJ have discretion to approve a grant of citizenship if an applicant is so much as one day short. The physical presence requirement is a fixed, minimum requirement. There is no discretion to grant citizenship for someone who is short, even if just by one day.
You are entitled to a fair procedure, however, including an opportunity to respond, which may include requesting a hearing with a Citizenship Officer, and even a hearing with a Citizenship Judge. I am not familiar with the contents of the letter you received, but one way or another it should allow you an opportunity to request a hearing or in-person interview with a Citizenship Officer before IRCC makes a formal decision to decline to grant citizenship. I believe the Citizenship Officer can decline the request for a hearing and decline your application and refer it to a Citizenship Judge; alternatively, the Officer could grant the request for a hearing and after the hearing then decline to grant citizenship and refer it to a CJ.
If you had good evidence that you were in fact present in Canada the dates IRCC identifies you were outside Canada, then of course the Citizenship Officer could decide the case in your favour and approve the grant of citizenship.
Alternatively, if you have and present such evidence, even if the Citizenship Officer declines to approve a grant of citizenship, you could present your evidence to a Citizenship Judge and the CJ, if persuaded by such evidence, could approve a grant of citizenship.
But it appears you concede that you failed to report all trips abroad and thus are in fact short, in which case the ultimate outcome will be the denial of citizenship on this application. Hence, best course of action to take is to withdraw the application and, if now eligible, re-apply.
Summary:
If indeed you were short of the actual physical presence requirement as of the day you applied, you were
NOT eligible for citizenship. Thus, as
scylla observed, there really is nothing you can do but withdraw the application . . . although technically you could go through the procedural motions leading to your application being formally denied.
Further observations and explanation:
As noted, if you were short of the
physical presence requirement the day the application was made, you
were NOT eligible and a negative outcome is and was a foregone conclusion.
Thus, for example, the following response is not even in the ball park:
vop said:
if you now or if within 30 days will actually meet the days, cant you just send them them your reply stating that you will meet it now and requesting them to reconsider ?
As others have noted, this is simply
NOT how it works.
An applicant must meet the requirements as of the day the application is made, and then continue to meet the requirements until the oath is taken.
One day short = NOT eligible.
In terms of meeting the strict physical presence requirement, make no mistake, IRCC does not have discretion to grant citizenship for an applicant who is just one day short of the
physical presence requirement.
IRCC must decline to grant citizenship if the applicant is even just one day short. This is because the law imposes a fixed minimum requirement.
MW2015 said:
Very fed up you can't travel for work and still be considered eligible.
There really is nothing obscure or vague or confusing about a
minimum physical presence requirement. Other than for some very narrow and obviously not applicable exceptions, there is nothing in the instructions, the physical presence calculator, the IRCC online information, or the guide for applying, which in any way suggests that
time outside Canada will count as time physically present in Canada.
And, as
torontosm observed, there is nothing about traveling abroad for work that precludes eligibility for Canadian citizenship. All the PR needs to do is meet the requirements for citizenship. In terms of meeting the physical presence requirement, a PR could easily travel abroad three to four months a year, for business or other purposes, and still meet the presence requirements and be eligible for citizenship. All the PR needs to do is be present at least six months in four of the preceding six years and average at least eight months a year in Canada otherwise. That allows a great deal of leeway for immigrants to take holidays abroad and travel for business abroad and still be eligible for citizenship.
Bottom-line: all applicants must report ALL time spent outside Canada.
Even those who do qualify for the narrow exceptions must nonetheless accurately report all days outside Canada.
Apparently you did not do that. And indeed you did not do that by at least 28 days. That is not a slight or minor omission. You are fortunate that IRCC is handling this as a
mistake rather than a willful misrepresentation. Very fortunate. You should count your lucky stars.
But it does lead to this part of your post:
MW2015 said:
I did not know about all the reports you could file to check days, I did mine based on my own travel history documents. So yes I know I was short after receiving documents from both US and Canada border patrol documents.
Let's be clear: you were there each and every time you left Canada. Indeed, you are the one and only person in the whole world who for sure can know each and every time you left Canada and returned to Canada. Not sure why your own records failed to record the trips which you did not declare in your physical presence calculation, but the error was clearly your error.
I address this to reinforce, mostly for others, mostly for those who read this and might be planning to apply, the
absolute importance of submitting a complete and accurate accounting of travel in the physical presence calculation.
There are no records maintained by anyone else, including the government, which an applicant can rely upon to be complete. Government records are almost certain to be accurate (recognizing though some errors may occur), but they are
NOT necessarily complete. Again, the PR is the one and only person in the world who was there each and every trip and who thus is the one for-sure source who can know for-sure the date of every exit, the date of every return. And the person applying for citizenship has an obligation to completely and accurately report this information.
