Naija - Aluta Continua!

[tito]

Its been a while, just thought I should drop these few lines for whatever its worth.

The landing was long done, this is the return! We are back fully, rented a house and furnished it (haven't been a tenant in several years), kids started school and we have purchased a vehicle for the navigation. The process of integration is ongoing, the Canadians are nice and always wanting to help. Life is expectedly better here just cost a bit more (current exchange rate in naija is just crazy and Canadian dollar is still strong).
Am not looking for work yet, there are issues with the Canadian experience; it wont come easy except you are super good or could be the next best thing after Bill Gates. But things will fall into place at some point, we are naijas and we run things!
It has cost so much to settle down up to this point, basically because of the desire to provide a reasonable comfort level to make the relocation less stressful - the move was made because of the kids (we the adults are already "crayfished"). It is advisable for those waiting for the PR to start planning for the move, the best time to start preparing is now! It helped us because we landed in 2007 and returned to naija almost immediately, we planned and gathered money for over a year before this return. We have been paying cash for almost everything since we came with no credit history that could be accepted here but we brought so many items from naija to avoid unnecessary purchase here.
Its been fun for everybody so far except that I am always missing naija. Not sure of how that country will be rebuilt but we need to do it fast, it will always be my home.

Will be back to update as necessary.

 

[Neyo]

Nice one Tito, your story line is excited and funny, I can't wait to move on as well.
Also a naija, married with 3 kids but live in Finland.

Victoria ascerta!!!!

Which province are you?

All the best

 

[don_c]

Thanks for this. What issues are you having with jobs? As in when you apply what do they say? Are you in I.T? I am in the Uk and hope to be landing in October with a wife and three kids.What will you do about the Canadian experience?I have some former colleagues there who said they got jobs within one month of coming.Need to know in advance.

 

[mot]

Hi Tito,

so ggod to hear from you. Been wondering what's up with you guys. Congratulations on yr final landing. May God make it a land of honey and milk for you guys and may He speed things up for you. We're still on the queue, hopefully before the end of this century, by His Grace, we will join you. Where exactly are you located? why didn't you buy a house instead or is it that its not possible? What were you able to take with you? Furniture, pots, T.V etc and how? Warm rgds

 

[joogle]

Pardon my French, but what najia? Is it a place, food, person or what?

 

[soj]

@joggle naija for nigeria.Tito i will soon join u,still in naija

 

[soj]

Tito,are u in toronto.i heard that alberta gives free health from day one unlike ontario.My wife wld probably deliver our second baby when we come early next yr.

 

[canadaforsure]

that is really encouraging but then what happens to those of us who filed since oct 2006? it seems they have forgotten us or they dont want us anymore. the recent applicants are just being answered within a flash that i feel they dont need us anymore

 

[barsindoo]

Be encouraged. Your miracle is on the way. Though it tarries it shall surely come.

Peace

 

[Odeks]

Hello Tito,
Its great to read all these. If i may ask u, whenever one get across to Canada,one can as well come back to Naija to arrange things for a period of time --- like u stated! Also what and what is ideal to get across to Canada cos u are SENIOR! lol! The minimum rent in BC is what? Though na suburb me wan go ooo.(Butter no be food for monkey), na interior i wan go to hustle.
Thanks.

 

[megastu12]

@tito and soj,

I have applied for PR since February 2007, at berlin office because i used to live in holland. After going through the process, up to submission of documents, which i did last week. I received a letter from CIC, berlin, that they cannot continue proceesing of my application as i am not a national of germany or netherlands, and i had not been admitted for at least a year before my application. It further stated that my application will be sent to accra office. Now, i am so devastated, as i do not know if accra office will just continue with the processing as i have submitted all my updated documents and also paid all government processing fees, or it will place it on a queue, again.

How long do you think the whole process will take, as i ought to have been finalised within the next 6 months, if it were to remain in the Berlin office.

Thanks for your anticipated answers.

 

[soj]

megastu12,quick question?were you admitted into germany legally.do u ve a permanent resident permit in germany or are you a student.

 

[oceana]

@ tito and soj,

I have applied for PR since February 2007, at berlin office because i used to live in holland. After going through the process, up to submission of documents, which i did last week. I received a letter from CIC, berlin, that they cannot continue proceesing of my application as i am not a national of germany or netherlands, and i had not been admitted for at least a year before my application. It further stated that my application will be sent to accra office. Now, i am so devastated, as i do not know if accra office will just continue with the processing as i have submitted all my updated documents and also paid all government processing fees, or it will place it on a queue, again.

How long do you think the whole process will take, as i ought to have been finalised within the next 6 months, if it were to remain in the Berlin office.

Thanks for your anticipated answers.

Apologies to posters on this particular thread, i do know this wasn't addressed to me, but i would like to shed some light on this as someone who's had a first hand experience of the mis-application of the rules. This part of the one year residency requirement has been misinterpreted by CiC many times. This is what the rules actually say

"R11(1) requires that all applicants for permanent residence (other than applicants who come
under Part 8 of the Regulations – Convention Refugees Abroad and Humanitarian Protected
Persons Abroad) must submit their applications to the visa office responsible for:
• the country where the applicant is residing, if the applicant has been lawfully admitted to that
country for at least one year; or
• the applicant’s country of nationality, or if the applicant is stateless, their country of habitual
residence other than a country where they are residing without having been lawfully admitted"

The issue here is that Visa offices often misinterprete "lawfully admitted" to mean the applicant must have resided legally for over a year, whereas what the manual explicitly says is that the applicant must have been given lawful admission of over a year, hence Mr XYZ can apply in his third month of his two year work permit in say - UK for example. The deciding factor is the length of admission stamped onto the applicants passport. So, it all depends on how long you were admitted for in Holland, and on what basis? If it was as a visitor, then CiC has taken the right decision;if it was on some sort of work permit of a year plus, then u might have a leg to stand on. But the bottomline is that either way, it won't be that easy to ask them to send back your file to Berlin, since you are no longer resident in Holland. Most of the checks will have to be done by the Accra office for what CiC calls Program integrity reasons.

To your last question, the procedural manual says that files being transferred to other visa offices have to maintain their original application date as their lock-in date, so you will be squeezed in to the Accra queue as at the time you applied in Berlin, which means that you'll be on the same level as those that applied in 2007 in Accra, and that is just no good. Two people i know suffred the same fate from london visa office, but it worked out in their favour cos they got their PR in 6months from Accra, but thats under bill c-50 - the new rules.
Have a look at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/op/op01-eng.pdf for more information about this.
And lastly, if your occupation happens to fall among the list of 38, i would re-apply under the new rules if i were you, and see how it goes. It is allowed to have two applications running at the same time, and you will be notified to withdraw one when you get to the finals of whichever file gets processed quicker. This suggestion is on the basis that funding wouldn't be an issue for you, cos I do know that it is an expensive venture.

 

[megastu12]

Dear All,

I have had one year of residency in Holland. My MVV visa was granted on September 16, 2006. My dutch residence permit was valid till August 2007, and there was also a temporary permit sticker on my passport valid till November 2007.

In total, I had 14 months of lawful residency. i will include all those stickers and permits and ask them to re-send my file to berlin. As for accra, i do not think i have that patience to wait. This last two years wait is already devastating, not to talk of another additional two years.

I do not live in holland anymore. I live in naija, and really, almost all my documents are fom naija, and like you rightly said, for personal intergrity issues, accra is the best office to do verification, BUT LAW IS LAW, and as such berlin office should deal with my application.

Comments, suggestions? thanks all.

 

[oceana]

Dear All,

I have had one year of residency in Holland. My MVV visa was granted on September 16, 2006. My dutch residence permit was valid till August 2007, and there was also a temporary permit sticker on my passport valid till November 2007.

In total, I had 14 months of lawful residency. i will include all those stickers and permits and ask them to re-send my file to berlin. As for accra, i do not think i have that patience to wait. This last two years wait is already devastating, not to talk of another additional two years.

I do not live in holland anymore. I live in naija, and really, almost all my documents are fom naija, and like you rightly said, for personal intergrity issues, accra is the best office to do verification, BUT LAW IS LAW, and as such berlin office should deal with my application.

Comments, suggestions? thanks all.

I do feel you on this one, it is hard to take. You might want to seek some expert legal advise on this issue. Shame, Mr Cohen does not accept to take on cases halfway. Try to take some time to go through the manual posted above, it is very rich in content, and sections 5.16 & 5.17 specifically addresses the issue at hand, it also highlights avenues to lodge complaints if you do feel your application has been treated in a way that is contrary to laid-down procedures.

IMHO, it appears CiC has misapplied the rules, and the reasons they have given for the file transfer(less than 1year residency) does not seem applicable to you, so you might have a case. BUT then, after pointing out the folly in their actions, they can still turn around later and insist that their visa office is ill-equipped to process it under the PROGRAM INTEGRITY factor, and there is nothing anyone one can do about that, it would be a dead end. See below, an excerpt from the manual Section 5.17

“Change of status during processing of application
For applicants whose legal status in the country where they made their application changes or
expires before the processing of their application has been completed, processing will be
completed in the office where it was submitted.
However, if an office concludes that it cannot continue to process the application without
jeopardizing the integrity of the program, that office must notify the applicant that it cannot process
the application and that the application will be transferred to the office that handles the new
country of residence or nationality”

So, to me, it’s a bit dicey. They have transferred your file to Accra for the wrong reasons, but in getting them to correct that – you will also be alerting them to a strong and foolproof reason to transfer the file to Accra, and once they invoke the program integrity clause - its non-debatable.

If you’ve the time to engage them, by all means carry on, all the information you need is in the manual, you’ve got nothing to lose by the way. Make your submissions, and forward it to them, and you may also state in your submission that you expect them to comply with the standard response times stated in the manual, failing which you would have to escalate to a higher level as stated in the procedural guide. And if you’ve got the dough to engage a consultant, do so, but check whatever the consultant says along with the Procedural manual to be sure.

Hopefully, some other folks will share their own thoughts with you, on this matter. My own suggestion is just based largely on the little i have read, and what i have seen happen in a few cases. Its largely theoretical, and i've always been reminded that there is a wide gulf between theory and actual practice. Wishing you all the best.