March 2025 - Citizenship Applications

[ashsense]

And there seems to be movement for Jan - March 2024 applicants who were stuck in background which sort of indicates (sadly) that we are still 12 months away from file completions.

Yeah I'm not waiting that long. I will go for mandamus once it is 18 months plus. Already working on collecting ATIPs and exhausting MP options before filing

 

[Hwallikniw]

Monthly check in: any updates folks? nothing for me here

 

[m34]

None. Again still seeing a lot of movement for Q1 2024 applicants who are either waiting for oath or had done it already. Their backgrounds wrapped up around April of this year, suggesting that the full background screening is taking 24 months. More than convinced now that we will need to wait for spring/summer 2027 to get traction. And i stopped checking tracker every day which is a big relief.

 

[MossH]

Nothing new here ....

 

[zack87]

Background will go back to completed for you, they just need to run new criminal checks for u.

Background updated to complete. Now prohibitions remain, no idea if the separation request was completed or not.

 

[azhar1989]

Background updated to complete. Now prohibitions remain, no idea if the separation request was completed or not.

What about your spouse’ background? Was that processed too?

 

[m34]

The latest monthly data is out. Around 3.3K applications submitted before March 2025 were finalized, but nearly 40K pre-March 2025 applications are still outstanding.

The overall processing time is now listed as 12 months, yet the IRCC processing time tool still suggests we're about two months away. I genuinely can't make sense of how these numbers add up.

 

[armoured]

The latest monthly data is out. Around 3.3K applications submitted before March 2025 were finalized, but nearly 40K pre-March 2025 applications are still outstanding.

The overall processing time is now listed as 12 months, yet the IRCC processing time tool still suggests we're about two months away. I genuinely can't make sense of how these numbers add up.

I've done my update of my spreadsheet that's tracking these updates and what they tell us. It's a mixed picture.

1) Yes, for March 2025, 'two months' remaining. Unfortunately there are fully SEVEN months (March through September, inclusive) for which 'two months' is the official line.

This is, to put it bluntly, nonsense. There's no way to justify this foolishness.

On the other hand, those of us remaining in the March 2025 cohort MIGHT see the 'expected remaining time' drop to just one month - and probably be one of THREE months with only one month remaining.

2) From what I can tell now, there are ~3000-3500 members of the March 2025 cohort. And right now, ~250-350 are graduating each month (i.e. getting the oath invitation. Call it 5-10% per month.

3) In future months, if our month follows the pattern of previous months, the number being approved will drop each month - both as the number of remaining members of the group falls, but also some further shrinking in addition - closer to and probably a bit below that 5% per month figure.

4) There does APPEAR to be a bit of an effort by IRCC to clean up files / approve those that are roughly in the November '23 - Jan '24 cohorts - or roughly those that are 30 months out. This more or less (if it is in fact a pattern, I wasn't looking at those months before) amounts to ~25% of each cohort in those three months being approved each month, which really does amount to a big drop of about 60% of one month's cohort over those three months.

Conjecture, but I'm assuming that IRCC and the security side do this 'clean up' for those that have been in security review for a long time, and they 'pass' those that really don't have any serious adverse info /that they can act upon/ - or that they at this conclude that the risks related to these applicants are actually reasonably low (and more time is not going to provide a lot more information).

5) I don't really have strong conclusions about what is happening with the applications that are left after this 'cleaning out'. The processing of those remaining files (say, 100-500 per cohort) doesn't fall to zero, the rate might still be in that 5-10% or so per month, but I can't say. (Again, wasn't looking at files this old before).

In terms of 'big conclusions', really only two:
-the fear that people are in cohorts that aren't even looked at until they're really old does not seem to be true - the rate of clearance is reasonably steady, albeit slow after about 12 months of processing.
-there DOES appear to be a flurry of activity for files at about 30 months out - probably some process at IRCC to clear the decks a bit for files that have been in queues waiting with nothing concrete being found. (I don't think IRCC is 'waiting' to deal with these files, in other words). This might be the age of files at which IRCC reckons that mandamus applications will be approved and they can save themselves court time and money by narrowing the number of files remaining.

I don't know if any of these thoughts are useful, but for what it's worth.

 

[m34]

I've done my update of my spreadsheet that's tracking these updates and what they tell us. It's a mixed picture.

1) Yes, for March 2025, 'two months' remaining. Unfortunately there are fully SEVEN months (March through September, inclusive) for which 'two months' is the official line.

This is, to put it bluntly, nonsense. There's no way to justify this foolishness.

On the other hand, those of us remaining in the March 2025 cohort MIGHT see the 'expected remaining time' drop to just one month - and probably be one of THREE months with only one month remaining.

2) From what I can tell now, there are ~3000-3500 members of the March 2025 cohort. And right now, ~250-350 are graduating each month (i.e. getting the oath invitation. Call it 5-10% per month.

3) In future months, if our month follows the pattern of previous months, the number being approved will drop each month - both as the number of remaining members of the group falls, but also some further shrinking in addition - closer to and probably a bit below that 5% per month figure.

4) There does APPEAR to be a bit of an effort by IRCC to clean up files / approve those that are roughly in the November '23 - Jan '24 cohorts - or roughly those that are 30 months out. This more or less (if it is in fact a pattern, I wasn't looking at those months before) amounts to ~25% of each cohort in those three months being approved each month, which really does amount to a big drop of about 60% of one month's cohort over those three months.

Conjecture, but I'm assuming that IRCC and the security side do this 'clean up' for those that have been in security review for a long time, and they 'pass' those that really don't have any serious adverse info /that they can act upon/ - or that they at this conclude that the risks related to these applicants are actually reasonably low (and more time is not going to provide a lot more information).

5) I don't really have strong conclusions about what is happening with the applications that are left after this 'cleaning out'. The processing of those remaining files (say, 100-500 per cohort) doesn't fall to zero, the rate might still be in that 5-10% or so per month, but I can't say. (Again, wasn't looking at files this old before).

In terms of 'big conclusions', really only two:
-the fear that people are in cohorts that aren't even looked at until they're really old does not seem to be true - the rate of clearance is reasonably steady, albeit slow after about 12 months of processing.
-there DOES appear to be a flurry of activity for files at about 30 months out - probably some process at IRCC to clear the decks a bit for files that have been in queues waiting with nothing concrete being found. (I don't think IRCC is 'waiting' to deal with these files, in other words). This might be the age of files at which IRCC reckons that mandamus applications will be approved and they can save themselves court time and money by narrowing the number of files remaining.

I don't know if any of these thoughts are useful, but for what it's worth.

I agree with the last point - not sure how the background screening works but after an additional 24 months or so, what is ircc waiting for from 3rd parties on security check? Its like they give themselves this 24 months period to check if anything pops up - if it doesnt within this timeframe, they proceed to close their files and applications progresses. Like you say, at that point, mandamus might work and they avoid it by simply approving the file. If ever they get audited, they have a proof that they’ve done a background check for a period of 24 months.