September 2020 - Citizenship Applicants

[andrew-brit]

Still no update for me, I passed my test in September 2021. Applied August 2020. Calgary office.

Language, physical presence, prohibitions are still in progress, with background and test set to complete. Ceremony not started

 

[sayedsameer84]

Application sent end of August 2020.
Received on September 2nd, 2020.
Background completed (without fingerprint request) at the beginning of September 2021.
It is a family application (2 adults, 2 minor kids).
Still waiting for the fricking test invite.
Yesterday we called IRCC. Because our case is not one of the priorities listed on the phone, we were not able to talk to an agent.
I am sick and tired of this non-responsive, non-transparent processing system of IRCC. This is simply not acceptable. I am mad, frustrated, disappointed.

In the same boat. Coincidentally, mine is also a family application of 2 adults + 2 kids.

 

[sayedsameer84]

Hi! I'm starting to get a bit concerned.. not sure if anyone else in the same timeline, but I sent my application Sep 2020, they received in January, I received my AOR in Feb, in March background check approved, and that was the last thing I heard.. no updates ever since. Anyone else in a similar timeline? Thanks!

Yes. Same boat. Only difference is bg check was approved in Sep.

 

[rajkamalmohanram]

Alright folks, after going back and forth with them, I have finally received the IRCC corporate records pertaining to the citizenship program. I believe this file contains data up until August 25th, 2021.

Here's the link to the file =>

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aCg_6UPD2gIHto33Vhz6RM1EQ_L4dYnu/view?usp=sharing

Good luck!

 

[varlam]

Alright folks, after going back and forth with them, I have finally received the IRCC corporate records pertaining to the citizenship program. I believe this file contains data up until August 25th, 2021.

Here's the link to the file =>

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aCg_6UPD2gIHto33Vhz6RM1EQ_L4dYnu/view?usp=sharing

Good luck!

thanks for sharing this with us Raj, what would this tell to us, like to me, Dec 2020 paper applicant? any estimate when i can expect from Hamilton office?
like my current expectation is i may get oath invite sometime in 2023 or 2024. any other optimistic estimates? ))

 

[rajkamalmohanram]

thanks for sharing this with us Raj, what would this tell to us, like to me, Dec 2020 paper applicant? any estimate when i can expect from Hamilton office?
like my current expectation is i may get oath invite sometime in 2023 or 2024. any other optimistic estimates? ))

Its a long document with more than 250 pages. You'll have to go through it and consolidate data .

 

[varlam]

Its a long document with more than 250 pages. You'll have to go through it and consolidate data .

i've tried to look thru it, but could not understand it correctly...

 

[Taddy]

My status for language skills, physical presence and prohibitions changed to completed on December 31st.

 

[dsanchez]

thanks for sharing this with us Raj, what would this tell to us, like to me, Dec 2020 paper applicant? any estimate when i can expect from Hamilton office?
like my current expectation is i may get oath invite sometime in 2023 or 2024. any other optimistic estimates? ))

Probably my takeaway would be extreme pessimism looking at this report. If you look around page 175, you will see they were scheduling 60+ citizenship ceremonies per day in early 2020. A year later in September 2021, it's around 20 per day maximum, with many days in single digits (page 180). For January 2022, it's 2-3 per day.

There's an interesting tidbit on page 190 that in April 2021, they did a blitz to try and move as many people to the testing stage, especially if the application was 13+ months old, including allowing people to write the test while clearances are still pending, and that they should be following: test invite, test written within 21 days, 30 days to move to decision made, and 7 days to invite to ceremony.

Page 194 mentions that there is an inventory of over 360,000 applications and a processing time of 19+ months.

Page 217 shows the increase in processing time caused by the pandemic on a per case basis;
Pre-testing preparation has gone from 1.5 hrs to 3
Testing has gone from 1.5hrs to 6 and requires 3 staff instead of 1
There's a note in one of the annex that "time to process a citizenship file for knowledge testing and ceremonies has increased by ~300%

There's lots more but it all just basically says the same thing; there's a ton of applications, they are taking longer to process. They were never really set up to work this way and haven't done a great job building an infrastructure to handle remote working, and like everywhere else in the world, people are getting burned out by pandemic fatigue.

 

[FutureImmi]

Probably my takeaway would be extreme pessimism looking at this report. If you look around page 175, you will see they were scheduling 60+ citizenship ceremonies per day in early 2020. A year later in September 2021, it's around 20 per day maximum, with many days in single digits (page 180). For January 2022, it's 2-3 per day.

There's an interesting tidbit on page 190 that in April 2021, they did a blitz to try and move as many people to the testing stage, especially if the application was 13+ months old, including allowing people to write the test while clearances are still pending, and that they should be following: test invite, test written within 21 days, 30 days to move to decision made, and 7 days to invite to ceremony.

Page 194 mentions that there is an inventory of over 360,000 applications and a processing time of 19+ months.

Page 217 shows the increase in processing time caused by the pandemic on a per case basis;
Pre-testing preparation has gone from 1.5 hrs to 3
Testing has gone from 1.5hrs to 6 and requires 3 staff instead of 1
There's a note in one of the annex that "time to process a citizenship file for knowledge testing and ceremonies has increased by ~300%

There's lots more but it all just basically says the same thing; there's a ton of applications, they are taking longer to process. They were never really set up to work this way and haven't done a great job building an infrastructure to handle remote working, and like everywhere else in the world, people are getting burned out by pandemic fatigue.

Another point is that they will have a backlog of 400k+ applications by end of 2022. Also they are working to reduce the average processing time to 12 months (pre-pandemic) levels and it certainly won't happen in 2022 but anticipated to be reduced by 2023, given that there are no additional curve balls like extended pandemic ( we already have Omicron). With this I expect paper applicants to slow down a bit more for next few months because it involves their employees physically going to pick up files.

They plan on completing applications in the range of 142k-165k but more likely will stay near the lower range.

There is a lot more useful information regarding the backlogs and the issues IRCC is facing during processing. The IT infrastructure is being updated as we speak. Since this report has estimates from pre-omicron days, the outlook looked a bit rosier even though the backlogs will still persist. But the impact of omicron is not documented within the provided report.

Hopefully things are not as gloomier as they were.

 

[omarnabsws]

Alright folks, after going back and forth with them, I have finally received the IRCC corporate records pertaining to the citizenship program. I believe this file contains data up until August 25th, 2021.

Here's the link to the file =>

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aCg_6UPD2gIHto33Vhz6RM1EQ_L4dYnu/view?usp=sharing

Good luck!

Hi Raj

Any idea what Under Review means in the weekly production achievement report (eg: page 132) . is that a stage after the test?

 

[rajkamalmohanram]

Hi Raj

Any idea what Under Review means in the weekly production achievement report (eg: page 132) . is that a stage after the test?

It probably means the review time between the test and DM (to check physical presence, Language and Prohibitions). Not sure though.

 

[newbutterfly]

My status for language skills, physical presence and prohibitions changed to completed on December 31st.

Mine too. Received oath invitation today for a January 12 ceremony.

 

[Adam1979]

Hallelujah! I finally did the test today! Passed but it said the score needs to be verified.

Does anybody know how long that takes?

(also please update spreadsheet)

 

[UnBip]

Mid August I had an update on my profile to let me know my ceremony was scheduled January 13.
On December 13 there was an update on my profile and the ceremony information disappeared.
January 13 is next week and I haven’t received the invitation to the ceremony by email.

Does anybody know what is happening ? Is it normal?