hearing with a citizenship officer after test!

[coolangy123]

Hi everyone,

I really need your advice. Has someone experienced something like this before?

My mother(homemaker) applied for citizenship in nov 2014 along with my sister (a minor 17 years old) . Failed her first written test at Mississauga in May 2015 and later in September 2015 was invited to write the citizenship test again. She got 18/20(passed) the second test but there was no interview the second time, they just told her that she passed. Now, after four months of waiting, she got a letter stating "Hearing with a citizenship officer", on feb 13 at Scarborough office. Now, my mom is really nervous, she was expecting an oath letter. While she can speak and understand English, she gets really nervous and anxious at interviews. So, sharing your experiences of hearings with a citizenship officer would really help. What kind of questions will they ask her? She never worked, is a homemaker and never left Canada for a single day since we landed here 4 years ago, will that be a problem? Has anyone had a hearing with a citizenship officer before? Please advise!

 

[Politren]

Hi
Have the mother been married and then divorced?

 

[coolangy123]

Hi, Thanks for replying. No, she has been just married once to my dad but because my dad still hasn't completed the required residence period in canada, she applied alone with my sister(a minor). But, she did pass the second task, however, there was no interview this time. I'm assuming the hearing is scheduled to test her english proficiency but she gets really nervous at interviews while she can read, understand and communicate well in English. So, I want to prepare her enough to overcome her anxiety and give it her best at the hearing.

 

[Politren]

Sometimes they dig into the marriage questioning , in a situations when the Father or the Mather lives abroad and hence didn't apply together as a family application

 

[coolangy123]

thanks!

 

[Canadiandesi2006]

thanks!

I agree with Politren, sometime that triggers such concern. Let your mom take all documents to prove your dad's presence in the country now (though, ineligible yet) that justify why she had applied without your dad.

Since your mother had taken test twice before, that might that raised concerns about her language skills and wanted Citizenship judge to
review that. I strongly feel, its a minor thing all your mom has to do, is be little bold and try to express herself.

Understand most of the housewives are NOT familiar interviews and get nervous. Tell her, Citizenship judges are NOT legal judges, all they want to verify your details, such as name, family, when did come to Canada etc, its all simple.....nothing to worry at all.

 

[dpenabill]

Hi everyone,

I really need your advice. Has someone experienced something like this before?

My mother(homemaker) applied for citizenship in nov 2014 along with my sister (a minor 17 years old) . Failed her first written test at Mississauga in May 2015 and later in September 2015 was invited to write the citizenship test again. She got 18/20(passed) the second test but there was no interview the second time, they just told her that she passed. Now, after four months of waiting, she got a letter stating "Hearing with a citizenship officer", on feb 13 at Scarborough office. Now, my mom is really nervous, she was expecting an oath letter. While she can speak and understand English, she gets really nervous and anxious at interviews. So, sharing your experiences of hearings with a citizenship officer would really help. What kind of questions will they ask her? She never worked, is a homemaker and never left Canada for a single day since we landed here 4 years ago, will that be a problem? Has anyone had a hearing with a citizenship officer before? Please advise!

Someone should accompany your mother. There is IMPORTANT information available at CIC Website regarding this.

See updated Program Delivery Instructions for "Accompanying persons (instructions for citizenship officers and case processing agents)"

URL: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/tools/interview/interpreter/officers/accompany.asp

These instructions were just updated last week. Thus, while the instructions state that those being scheduled for an appearance with a Citizenship Officer should be sent the form for accompanying persons, with the "Notice to Appear," your mother's notice may not have included this (since it was sent before the PDI update). If not, perhaps telephone the CIC call centre and ask for the form.

It appears that now anyone accompanying the applicant must sign an affirmation under oath (will be presented to accompanying person at the time of the interview), and provide an identity document, and state whether they are an accompanying person or will act as an interpreter. Persons acting as an interpreter cannot be present while the applicant is being screened for his or her ability in one of the official languages.

What an accompanying person can do is very limited. But it is recognized that many applicants should be allowed to have someone accompanying them to provide moral support. The situation you describe appears to be precisely the kind of situation in which the applicant could benefit from having the moral support of an accompanying person.

Who can be an accompanying person is somewhat limited. For example, anyone who also has a citizenship application pending is ordinarily (with some exceptions) NOT allowed to be an accompanying person.

For anyone planning to accompany your mother, it is important to review the website information linked above.




Some Additional Observations:

The procedure pursuant to which a Citizenship Officer might conduct an interview or hearing for qualifications, such as knowledge of Canada or language ability, has been in place since certain changes took effect August 1, 2014.

These matters do NOT go to a Citizenship Judge, hearing or otherwise. Since August 1, 2014 Citizenship Judges only decide residency cases.

Thus, for example, it is sometimes true, as Politren posted, that a married applicant is sometimes subject to elevated scrutiny regarding residency when the spouse has not also applied, especially if a spouse otherwise appears to be living or working abroad. However, unless residency related requests for additional documents have been issued to the applicant, it is not likely that the scheduling of an interview or hearing with a Citizenship Officer is about this, but about knowledge of Canada or language ability . . . and where the written test has been passed, that seems to mean it must be about, as the OP suspects, language proficiency.

There have not been enough reports of these Citizenship Officer interview or hearings to draw many conclusions about how they go, or who tends to be scheduled for them. Indeed, as noted above, even the Program Delivery Instructions governing these are still in the process of being written and updated.

The idea of practicing to be prepared is probably the best approach.

In any event, the references to Citizenship Judges by Canadiandesi2006, like many posts by Canadiandesi2006, are not credible but rather are unreliable. In particular, Citizenship Judges do NOT conduct knowledge of Canada or official language ability screening.

 

[nkam]

Hearing with a judge could be far better than hearing with CO which will very much depend on the charchter of the CO rather than the merits of law. I'd rather be heard by a judge especially for a senior person.

 

[Canadiandesi2006]

Hearing with a judge could be far better than hearing with CO which will very much depend on the charchter of the CO rather than the merits of law. I'd rather be heard by a judge especially for a senior person.

Hearing with CJ takes over 36 months. I was shocked to see how helpless the CJ sounded. He stated, even if I approve your case based on the provided proof, the CIC officials would object.

That's left me wondering why all this farce drama by the CIC, if they will challenge their own CJ's decisions. Why to waste everyone's time.

 

[coolangy123]

Thanks everyone for your invaluable input.

 

[dpenabill]

For clarification:

Hearing with a judge could be far better than hearing with CO which will very much depend on the charchter of the CO rather than the merits of law. I'd rather be heard by a judge especially for a senior person.

There is NO Citizenship Judge hearing for either knowledge of Canada or official language ability qualifications. These qualifications are assessed by IRCC now and if IRCC determines the applicant does not meet either of these requirements, the Minister's delegate (a Citizenship Officer) will terminate/deny the application.

This is due to changes adopted by the SCCA (Bill C-24) which took effect August 1, 2014. These changes apply to all applications regardless of when the application was made.

For residency qualifications, it will not go to a Citizenship Judge unless and until a Citizenship Officer has already decided that the applicant has not satisfactorily shown meeting the residency qualification. So the first order of business for an applicant subject to a residency case (issued RQ) is to submit sufficient evidence to satisfy a Citizenship Officer.

There was, under the old process, a bit of a loop hole pursuant to which applicants could circumvent CIC's elevated scrutiny for residency, by missing the test twice and being scheduled for a CJ hearing without being interviewed and without being issued RQ. That loop hole was effectively closed in 2012 when CIC made major changes to the process and then precluded going to a CJ hearing without first going through the interview process (allowing CIC to conduct a residency assessment and issue RQ if there appeared to be a reason-to-question-residency, such as, for example, if during the interview the interviewer identified inconsistencies in the travel declarations compared to travel document stamps).

The loop-hole was solidly shut by the SCCA (Bill C-24), in provisions which took effect August 1, 2014 and which changed the procedure so that the Minister (actually done by a Minister's delegate, as in a Citizenship Officer) could grant or terminate/deny citizenship applications, reserving only residency cases for Citizenship Judges (for applications filed after June 10, 2015, CJs will only be referred cases involving issues as to whether proof of physical presence meets the physical presence requirements).

The advantage of the loop-hole was that any applicant who realized CIC might issue RQ, and that the applicant might have some difficulty providing sufficient proof in response, could instead deliberately fail to show for the test/interview, so that they would be scheduled for a CJ hearing, for knowledge of Canada testing and language proficiency screening, and at the same time would have a chance to persuade the CJ that the residency requirement was met, without the applicant's argument and supporting documents being first scrutinized by CIC. I do not know that anyone who recognized that this loop hole existed deliberately pursued it . . . many obviously incidentally or accidentally ended up in this scenario, as seen in a fairly significant number of official case decisions, where CIC appealed, but whether any of those or any others (such as those who were approved by a CJ and CIC did not appeal) deliberately maneuvered their case this way is unknown . . . none have come forward and confessed that is what they did intentionally anyway.

 

[dpenabill]

Thanks everyone for your invaluable input.

I neglected to include the following caution in my previous post:

While the reason for the hearing with the Citizenship Officer is almost certainly to assess your mother's language proficiency, it is quite likely that the Citizenship Officer has the authority to review and assess ALL qualifying requirements, at least residency, and perhaps including knowledge of Canada.

As I did note, this process has not been utilized long enough for us to have seen sufficient reports of personal experience to get a reliable understanding about how these ordinarily go. So we do not know to what extent Citizenship Officers might examine the applicant beyond the specific reason for the hearing. But there is a significant likelihood your mother will, at the least, be asked questions about where she has been living, what she has been doing in Canada, her trips abroad, and other residency related questions. She should probably review her information about this and be prepared to answer such questions. To emphasize, be sure she takes all documents the instructions say she needs to bring, and that she has at least refreshed her memory as to details about her life in Canada, especially as to addresses and activities she has engaged in.

But probably there is no need to be overly concerned about or to otherwise focus on this aspect. This is not likely to be the focus of the hearing.


Knowledge of Canada:

Will the Citizenship Officer re-examine an applicant for knowledge of Canada once the applicant has passed the written test? We do not know with any degree of confidence.

We do not know if they might in some situations or if they simply will not.

We do know, however, that under the old procedure, when a case went to a Citizenship Judge, the CJ could, and sometimes did, re-test the applicant's knowledge of Canada even though the applicant had passed the written test. We know this because there was a published Federal Court decision involving an applicant who passed the written test, but was scheduled for a CJ hearing because of questions regarding residency, and at the hearing the applicant adequately proved residency but the CJ also re-tested the applicant's knowledge of Canada and ruled she failed that test, despite having previously passed a written test. She was thus denied citizenship. She lost her appeal.

My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the Citizenship Officer is not likely to re-test your mother. Wish I could be sure. And I hope you report back what you learn about the hearing so that others might have more information regarding what to expect.


Preparation:

As has been discussed, the focus of this interview/hearing is most likely language proficiency. Her preparation should probably focus on engaging in simple conversation in English.

That said, she should also be prepared to understand and answer questions in English about herself, where she lives, where she has been living (if there have been any changes in address over the relevant years), about when and where she traveled outside Canada, about her family, about her life and specific activities. Again, we do not have much information about how these hearings go, but citizenship officers are probably trained fairly similarly to other immigration personnel, pursuant to which they are specifically trained to typically engage in conversation which has multi-faceted purposes. What I am trying to say is that the Citizenship Officer is fairly likely to ask questions about the life your mother has been living in Canada and assessing residency, language proficiency, and credibility all at the same time . . . that is, evaluating all these based on how she responds to the questions about where she lives and so on.


Above all: carefully review the notice received and all instructions and information in that notice. And of course follow the instructions.

 

[coolangy123]

I neglected to include the following caution in my previous post:

While the reason for the hearing with the Citizenship Officer is almost certainly to assess your mother's language proficiency, it is quite likely that the Citizenship Officer has the authority to review and assess ALL qualifying requirements, at least residency, and perhaps including knowledge of Canada.

As I did note, this process has not been utilized long enough for us to have seen sufficient reports of personal experience to get a reliable understanding about how these ordinarily go. So we do not know to what extent Citizenship Officers might examine the applicant beyond the specific reason for the hearing. But there is a significant likelihood your mother will, at the least, be asked questions about where she has been living, what she has been doing in Canada, her trips abroad, and other residency related questions. She should probably review her information about this and be prepared to answer such questions. To emphasize, be sure she takes all documents the instructions say she needs to bring, and that she has at least refreshed her memory as to details about her life in Canada, especially as to addresses and activities she has engaged in.

But probably there is no need to be overly concerned about or to otherwise focus on this aspect. This is not likely to be the focus of the hearing.


Knowledge of Canada:

Will the Citizenship Officer re-examine an applicant for knowledge of Canada once the applicant has passed the written test? We do not know with any degree of confidence.

We do not know if they might in some situations or if they simply will not.

We do know, however, that under the old procedure, when a case went to a Citizenship Judge, the CJ could, and sometimes did, re-test the applicant's knowledge of Canada even though the applicant had passed the written test. We know this because there was a published Federal Court decision involving an applicant who passed the written test, but was scheduled for a CJ hearing because of questions regarding residency, and at the hearing the applicant adequately proved residency but the CJ also re-tested the applicant's knowledge of Canada and ruled she failed that test, despite having previously passed a written test. She was thus denied citizenship. She lost her appeal.

My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the Citizenship Officer is not likely to re-test your mother. Wish I could be sure. And I hope you report back what you learn about the hearing so that others might have more information regarding what to expect.


Preparation:

As has been discussed, the focus of this interview/hearing is most likely language proficiency. Her preparation should probably focus on engaging in simple conversation in English.

That said, she should also be prepared to understand and answer questions in English about herself, where she lives, where she has been living (if there have been any changes in address over the relevant years), about when and where she traveled outside Canada, about her family, about her life and specific activities. Again, we do not have much information about how these hearings go, but citizenship officers are probably trained fairly similarly to other immigration personnel, pursuant to which they are specifically trained to typically engage in conversation which has multi-faceted purposes. What I am trying to say is that the Citizenship Officer is fairly likely to ask questions about the life your mother has been living in Canada and assessing residency, language proficiency, and credibility all at the same time . . . that is, evaluating all these based on how she responds to the questions about where she lives and so on.


Above all: carefully review the notice received and all instructions and information in that notice. And of course follow the instructions.

Thanks again for the detailed information. I'll surely motivate her to give it her best, keeping in mind all these pointers. Just a note: The letter clearly says, "The citizenship officer will ask questions about language proficiency requirements, your knowledge of Canada(if you failed the test) or residency."

Thanks again for taking out the time and sharing your much-appreciated opinion on this matter.

 

[links18]

The loop-hole was solidly shut by the SCCA (Bill C-24), in provisions which took effect August 1, 2014 and which changed the procedure so that the Minister (actually done by a Minister's delegate, as in a Citizenship Officer) could grant or terminate/deny citizenship applications, reserving only residency cases for Citizenship Judges (for applications filed after June 10, 2015, CJs will only be referred cases involving issues as to whether proof of physical presence meets the physical presence requirements).

The advantage of the loop-hole was that any applicant who realized CIC might issue RQ, and that the applicant might have some difficulty providing sufficient proof in response, could instead deliberately fail to show for the test/interview, so that they would be scheduled for a CJ hearing, for knowledge of Canada testing and language proficiency screening, and at the same time would have a chance to persuade the CJ that the residency requirement was met, without the applicant's argument and supporting documents being first scrutinized by CIC. I do not know that anyone who recognized that this loop hole existed deliberately pursued it . . . many obviously incidentally or accidentally ended up in this scenario, as seen in a fairly significant number of official case decisions, where CIC appealed, but whether any of those or any others (such as those who were approved by a CJ and CIC did not appeal) deliberately maneuvered their case this way is unknown . . . none have come forward and confessed that is what they did intentionally anyway.

Not sure I'd call that a "loophole." Its more like a "huge gamble" and "giant risk."