Looking for assitance with replying to email: Section 130(2)

[avidrunner]

My wife and I are doing an outland spousal sponsorship. We have already received emails from IRCC regarding the federal approval for the sponsorship, have completed the biometrics within the first few months, and up until now we thought everything was going well so far. After scanning and emailing our documents in for the requested medical exams (which has been approved by a Canadian certified health facility) and also the scanned document for the CSQ (which has been approved by the province of Quebec), we have now received the following email (see below):

In particular, this sentence in the email:

"I have concerns that your sponsor may not meet the requirement of Regulation 130(2) as outlined above. Your application provides little to no evidence that you and your sponsor intend to reside in Canada once your permanent resident visa is issued."

We already included documentation in our sponsorship package, detailing our plans to live in Canada permanently. Showing our job search results in Montreal (at the time of submitting the sponsorship package it is too early to have a work contract), plans for our life in Canada, plans for our retirement in Canada. As the sponsor, I have savings in my bank account (Canadian bank account) and I am a Canadian born citizen with friends and family in Canada. We are currently living and working overseas right now so this is the first time we have heard we must show proof of a job in Canada. If the job search we provided is not enough I'm not sure what else they would be looking for? We have work related connections in Montreal, Quebec but no work contract set in stone lined up as of right now. It's too early to apply for university in September 2022, new applications will open up in March 2022. With our savings we plan on living in Montreal, working in Montreal, and I am also planning on going to university in Montreal. The federal government (IRCC) has already approved our spousal sponsorship and the province of Quebec has already approved CSQ (Certificat de Selection du Quebec).

Therefor, in regards to this email coming from an overseas Migration Section Officer, I wonder if they also have access to the hard copy of the sponsorship package that was mailed to IRCC in Canada? It includes these details, so I also am wondering if communication sometimes not crystal clear between all of the departments? Or if this is a normal part of the process and they typically want to do another check?

I am reviewing your application for a permanent resident visa as a member of the family class. I
have concerns that you may not meet the requirements for immigration to Canada.
Section 130 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations states that a sponsor in the
family class must meet the following requirements:
130 (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), a sponsor, for the purpose of sponsoring a foreign
national who makes an application for a permanent resident visa as a member of the family class
or an application to remain in Canada as a member of the spouse or common-law partner in
Canada class under subsection 13(1) of the Act, must be a Canadian citizen or permanent
resident who
• (a) is at least 18 years of age;
• (b) resides in Canada; and
• (c) has filed a sponsorship application in respect of a member of the family class or the
spouse or common-law partner in Canada class in accordance with section 10.
(2) A sponsor who is a Canadian citizen and does not reside in Canada may sponsor a foreign
national who makes an application referred to in subsection (1) and is the sponsor’s spouse,
common-law partner, conjugal partner or dependent child who has no dependent children, if the
sponsor will reside in Canada when the foreign national becomes a permanent resident.
I have concerns that your sponsor may not meet the requirement of Regulation 130(2) as outlined
above. Your application provides little to no evidence that you and your sponsor intend to reside
in Canada once your permanent resident visa is issued. Before I make a decision on your
application, I want to give you an opportunity to directly address this concern. Therefore, please
provide documentary evidence of your and your sponsor’s plans to date to relocate to Canada.
This may include but is not limited to:
- A written job offer or documentation indicating work transfer back to Canada, job contract in
Canada, etc
- Evidence of a job search in Canada
- Evidence that you sold a home abroad or terminated a lease or rental agreement
- Evidence that you have searched for a home in Canada
- Bank documentation showing accounts opened in Canada or closed abroad
- A detailed written account of your plans once you reach Canada (where you plan to live, what
type of work you plan to do, etc)
- Any other evidence or information in your possession that you feel helps establish your
intention to relocate to Canada
Before proceeding to assess your file, I would like to provide you with the opportunity to
respond to this information and provide any new relevant information and material. You will
have sixty (60) days from the date of this letter to submit any additional information and material
you would like taken into consideration. For online applications all responses should be sent via
the IRCC online portal. For all other applications, all responses should be sent via email to
###immigration@international.gc.ca. Please clearly indicate your file number on all
correspondence with our office.
Sincerely,
Officer
Migration Section

If anybody has received an email similar to this, or might have further information, any assistance on how to reply is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[scylla]

My wife and I are doing an outland spousal sponsorship. We have already received emails from IRCC regarding the federal approval for the sponsorship, have completed the biometrics within the first few months, and up until now we thought everything was going well so far. After scanning and emailing our documents in for the requested medical exams (which has been approved by a Canadian certified health facility) and also the scanned document for the CSQ (which has been approved by the province of Quebec), we have now received the following email (see below):

In particular, this sentence in the email:

"I have concerns that your sponsor may not meet the requirement of Regulation 130(2) as outlined above. Your application provides little to no evidence that you and your sponsor intend to reside in Canada once your permanent resident visa is issued."

We already included documentation in our sponsorship package, detailing our plans to live in Canada permanently. Showing our job search results in Montreal (at the time of submitting the sponsorship package it is too early to have a work contract), plans for our life in Canada, plans for our retirement in Canada. As the sponsor, I have savings in my bank account (Canadian bank account) and I am a Canadian born citizen with friends and family in Canada. We are currently living and working overseas right now so this is the first time we have heard we must show proof of a job in Canada. If the job search we provided is not enough I'm not sure what else they would be looking for? We have work related connections in Montreal, Quebec but no work contract set in stone lined up as of right now. It's too early to apply for university in September 2022, new applications will open up in March 2022. With our savings we plan on living in Montreal, working in Montreal, and I am also planning on going to university in Montreal. The federal government (IRCC) has already approved our spousal sponsorship and the province of Quebec has already approved CSQ (Certificat de Selection du Quebec).

Therefor, in regards to this email coming from an overseas Migration Section Officer, I wonder if they also have access to the hard copy of the sponsorship package that was mailed to IRCC in Canada? It includes these details, so I also am wondering if communication sometimes not crystal clear between all of the departments? Or if this is a normal part of the process and they typically want to do another check?






If anybody has received an email similar to this, or might have further information, any assistance on how to reply is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

The officer has access to your full application package. The issue is that you have provided insufficient evidence that you plan to return to Canada in your application package to satisfy the officer.

The earlier approval steps do not assess intent to return at all. It's assessed at this stage in your application which is why you are only hearing about this now.

There are many historical threads on this forum that deal with this issue and discuss the kinds of supplemental evidence people have submitted to address this concern. Let me see if I can find one for you. IRCC does look for you to submit evidence to back up the statements you are making and sometimes it's simply a situation where there was insufficient hard evidence in the application to prove return and this can be easily solved.

BTW: The Federal Government has not approved your entire application at this point. That only happens at the very end once the officer who is handling your application now completes their review. What the federal government has approved so far is you as a sponsor. That first approval is limited to just that - you qualifying as a sponsor - not the entire application.

 

[avidrunner]

Thank you for the helpful reply. So it sounds like they did not deny us but they are asking for more info. We also hope there are no red flags that will forever remain in their system due to this:
“I am reviewing your application for a permanent resident visa as a member of the family class. I have concerns that you may not meet the requirements for immigration to Canada.”

I am thinking about what else we can send to the officer as proof we will stay in Canada. Things that go above and beyond what we already sent in our application package. We thought we were quite clear with our letters of support, screenshots of job and university searches in Canada, and letters explaining our plans. Would you mind pointing us to some of the historical threads you are mentioning? Some of the things we are considering sending to reply to the officer’s email include:

Our current work contracts outside of Canada (expire date June 2022, already sent)
Our current rental agreement outside of Canada (expire date June 2022, already sent)
2x Screenshot of my bank account page (sponsor) showing my name and address in Canada
Screenshot of Canadian credit card (sponsor) showing my name and address in Canada
More Montreal work search screenshots
Montreal home search screenshots
University emails screenshot (correspondence about the program I plan on attending in September 2022, application window has not yet opened yet)
Family home address in Canada, different province but may still be helpful?

 

[YVR123]

Thank you for the helpful reply. So it sounds like they did not deny us but they are asking for more info. We also hope there are no red flags that will forever remain in their system due to this:
“I am reviewing your application for a permanent resident visa as a member of the family class. I have concerns that you may not meet the requirements for immigration to Canada.”

I am thinking about what else we can send to the officer as proof we will stay in Canada. Things that go above and beyond what we already sent in our application package. We thought we were quite clear with our letters of support, screenshots of job and university searches in Canada, and letters explaining our plans. Would you mind pointing us to some of the historical threads you are mentioning? Some of the things we are considering sending to reply to the officer’s email include:

Our current work contracts outside of Canada (expire date June 2022, already sent)
Our current rental agreement outside of Canada (expire date June 2022, already sent)
2x Screenshot of my bank account page (sponsor) showing my name and address in Canada
Screenshot of Canadian credit card (sponsor) showing my name and address in Canada
More Montreal work search screenshots
Montreal home search screenshots
University emails screenshot (correspondence about the program I plan on attending in September 2022, application window has not yet opened yet)
Family home address in Canada, different province but may still be helpful?

Your new proof will show that you won't be moving until June 2022 the earliest... Is that the plan? When did you do your medical?
It depends on where you are moving from, some VO requires more solid proof than others. (historical data)

 

[scylla]

Thank you for the helpful reply. So it sounds like they did not deny us but they are asking for more info. We also hope there are no red flags that will forever remain in their system due to this:
“I am reviewing your application for a permanent resident visa as a member of the family class. I have concerns that you may not meet the requirements for immigration to Canada.”

I am thinking about what else we can send to the officer as proof we will stay in Canada. Things that go above and beyond what we already sent in our application package. We thought we were quite clear with our letters of support, screenshots of job and university searches in Canada, and letters explaining our plans. Would you mind pointing us to some of the historical threads you are mentioning? Some of the things we are considering sending to reply to the officer’s email include:

Our current work contracts outside of Canada (expire date June 2022, already sent)
Our current rental agreement outside of Canada (expire date June 2022, already sent)
2x Screenshot of my bank account page (sponsor) showing my name and address in Canada
Screenshot of Canadian credit card (sponsor) showing my name and address in Canada
More Montreal work search screenshots
Montreal home search screenshots
University emails screenshot (correspondence about the program I plan on attending in September 2022, application window has not yet opened yet)
Family home address in Canada, different province but may still be helpful?

IMO your evidence looks weak and points to a return date that is still a year out.

Read through the following threads:

https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/how-to-prove-sponsors-intent-to-return-to-canada.502507/

https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/proof-of-sponsors-intention-to-return-to-canada.481010/

https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/canadian-citizen-proof-of-intent-to-return.593751/

 

[avidrunner]

Thank you for the reply.

We mailed our outland sponsorship package to Canada at the end of December 2020 with plans to move to Canada by June 2022. This is because on the official IRCC website it says approximately 18 months processing time (Quebec sponsorship taking longer than other provinces). If anything, we were concerned the approval would not come soon enough due to covid. From the threads you have mentioned, it now seems as though IRCC wants to put us through as soon as possible. Which by the sound of things, as soon as they approve us they would like us to move to Canada within a few weeks or even a month?

As of right now it has been 9 months of processing our application, which is half of the time we were expecting to receive the approval.
Can we explain to them our intention to move is still in June, due to our understanding of the timeframe involved? We will also finish our work contracts and rental agreement in June, and back in October 2020 we intentionally renewed our rental agreement to have it end in June 2022 to be ready to move to Canada.

Terminating our work contracts and rental agreement halfway through is not how we were planning on "running at the drop of a dime on a whim's notice" to Canada and leaving our workplace and landlord without giving them much notice. Is there any chance that this overseas IRCC officer that is looking over our file would be more understanding? I'm not entirely sure what the concern is if they know we are coming in June 2022? Would the officer be concerned we will change our mind after we get the approval? Or is there something else that is the cause of concern?

And if the officer says no again after we email further evidence of our plans to relocate for good in June 2022, do we need to start the entire process over again?

 

[avidrunner]

Your new proof will show that you won't be moving until June 2022 the earliest... Is that the plan? When did you do your medical?
It depends on where you are moving from, some VO requires more solid proof than others. (historical data)

June 2022 is our intended date to arrive in Canada, assuming we receive the approved.. As I mentioned above we understood the processing time would be approximately 18 months after application. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/check-processing-times.html At the time of checking this on December 20, 2020 when we mailed our application package it said 18 months for spousal sponsorship applicants that wish to relocate to the province of Quebec. (Extra time for CSQ)

 

[avidrunner]

Your new proof will show that you won't be moving until June 2022 the earliest... Is that the plan? When did you do your medical?
It depends on where you are moving from, some VO requires more solid proof than others. (historical data)

Also, my spouse's medical exam was completed on July 13th - we understand that the outland spouse and sponsor must leave the country to fly to Canada within 1 year after the medical exam.