How to deal with 'stuck" application?

[Taco van Ieperen]

We are dealing with a strange situation where the department is for some reason simply not looking at my partner's express entry application (Canadian experience class). We are now 11 months in. A FOIP request of the case notes shows no activity of any kind on the file since a few days after it was submitted in March last year.

A request through our (very helpful) MP's office produced a long delayed response from the department indicating that the file was "in queue waiting for an agent" . There has been no activity in the month since that update.

Any suggestions? Anyone have a similar experience? Our only theory is that the department may be under instructions to make life miserable for American citizens by refusing to processing US applications as part of some political tit for tat, but that seems unlikely.

Can we file an appeal without a rejection? Can we reapply somehow? How often do files get permanently stuck and never resolve? All we want is a fair shot at the process.

 

[jes_ON]

We are dealing with a strange situation where the department is for some reason simply not looking at my partner's express entry application (Canadian experience class). We are now 11 months in. A FOIP request of the case notes shows no activity of any kind on the file since a few days after it was submitted in March last year.

A request through our (very helpful) MP's office produced a long delayed response from the department indicating that the file was "in queue waiting for an agent" . There has been no activity in the month since that update.

Any suggestions? Anyone have a similar experience? Our only theory is that the department may be under instructions to make life miserable for American citizens by refusing to processing US applications as part of some political tit for tat, but that seems unlikely.

Can we file an appeal without a rejection? Can we reapply somehow? How often do files get permanently stuck and never resolve? All we want is a fair shot at the process.

Without actually seeing your GCMS notes, it is hazardous to guess, but ...

... will do so anyway. The long delay and response to the MP suggests that your file could have been misplaced (has happened before) or somehow fell through the cracks (for example, was assigned to an agent who is no longer there) and it took some time to find it; now it has been located and will resume processing. Hopefully, with some urgency (but they could never say that).

The only other guess I would have in the absence of information is that one or both of you may have some background that triggered a more indepth security review.

 

[Taco van Ieperen]

Yeah we were hoping maybe it had been misplaced but there's still no action a month later so we are both starting to feel this is unsolvable as the department is clearly incapable of injecting the file back into the system. We allowed 16 months as it's a totally straightforward application, but after that things get complex for us.

The notes show that nothing was ever strarted so we are certain it is not hung on any step. We'll keep applying for case notes every month or so and asking the mp, but are not optimistic.