+1(514) 937-9445 or Toll-free (Canada & US) +1 (888) 947-9445
toby said:
Except that Beijing (China) is a LOT quicker at processing applications than Hong Kong, and Hong Kong applicants would certainly be considered lower risk than Mainland Chinese applicants. I am assuming that a lot of the applications Hong Kong processes are from Hong Kong itself, while the majority of applications processed by Beijing would be from mainlanders.

My point is that the apparent riskiness of the country does not always correlate with longer processing times.

No, for sure there would be countries (like Hong Kong) that might have higher volume and there for longer wait times. I just meant more if you consider the wait times a long with some of the things iarblue mentioned, you can get a pretty good idea of the unofficial list of high risk countries.

cheers,

Lynn
 
toby said:
Except that Beijing (China) is a LOT quicker at processing applications than Hong Kong, and Hong Kong applicants would certainly be considered lower risk than Mainland Chinese applicants. I am assuming that a lot of the applications Hong Kong processes are from Hong Kong itself, while the majority of applications processed by Beijing would be from mainlanders.

My point is that the apparent riskiness of the country does not always correlate with longer processing times.
Hong Kong is a bit of an anomaly. Ordinarily the poorer the country the more likely it is that there are marriage scams. Hong Kong is a lot richer on average than the mainland, but nevertheless is considered high risk for fake marriages. As well, Hong Kong processes cases from southern China, which is also a hotbed of marriage scams - more so than northern China.
 
canadianwoman said:
Hong Kong is a bit of an anomaly. Ordinarily the poorer the country the more likely it is that there are marriage scams. Hong Kong is a lot richer on average than the mainland, but nevertheless is considered high risk for fake marriages. As well, Hong Kong processes cases from southern China, which is also a hotbed of marriage scams - more so than northern China.

Interesting. Maybe my wife should move back to her home town, in the North. No .... it's too cold up there!!!

Where do you get this information from, Canadianwoman? I'd like to read further. Thanks.
 
canadianwoman said:
Hong Kong is a bit of an anomaly. Ordinarily the poorer the country the more likely it is that there are marriage scams. Hong Kong is a lot richer on average than the mainland, but nevertheless is considered high risk for fake marriages. As well, Hong Kong processes cases from southern China, which is also a hotbed of marriage scams - more so than northern China.

very interesting!
 
The Hong Kong visa office has a 40% refusal rate, approximately, for spousal sponsorships, about the same as Accra's, the highest in the world.
Of course, to be fair, just because a visa officer thinks a marriage is fake doesn't mean it is. Maybe the visa officers just think that southern China is a hotbed of marriage scams. Still, if my spouse were Chinese I would certainly hope he could apply through Beijing, not Hong Kong. Beijing is a lot faster and the refusal rate is a lot lower.
 
canadianwoman said:
The Hong Kong visa office has a 40% refusal rate, approximately, for spousal sponsorships, about the same as Accra's, the highest in the world.
Of course, to be fair, just because a visa officer thinks a marriage is fake doesn't mean it is. Maybe the visa officers just think that southern China is a hotbed of marriage scams. Still, if my spouse were Chinese I would certainly hope he could apply through Beijing, not Hong Kong. Beijing is a lot faster and the refusal rate is a lot lower.

Where do you get your statistics? Certainly this is not on the CIC website!! :-)