Study results from actual immigration offices, deciding if couples are "genuine"

[CdnandTrini]

Very interesting articles (links pasted below) based on interviews conducted with staff and senior management at 11 overseas Visa Offices (VOs.)

Some insights as to how visa officers think, how they judge and how they make decisions regarding the authenticity of your relationship being "real and genuine". A must read for anyone deciding to take on this sponsorship challenge.

The first link below is to the Toronto Star article (Feb. 1st 2014) introducing the topic ("A rare look inside the ‘black box' of Canada immigration" - McMaster University's Vic Satzewich got access to Canada's overseas visa posts to study how officials decide who deserves to come here).

http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2014/02/01/a_rare_look_inside_the_black_box_of_canada_immigration.html

and the second link below is to the results of Satzewich's work in the field (Jan. 2014 published but work undertaken between 2009 -2012) "Canadian Visa Officers and the Social Construction of “Real” Spousal Relationships". You can skip the first few pages to get right to the specifics starting halfway down page 4 in the section titled: Data & Background".

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cars.12031/pdf

Keep in mind that each overseas office and the people working there will operate somewhat differently and it is still important to gain the mostly valuable advice and/or suggestions from forum members that have gone through the visa office you have applied to.

 

[canadianwoman]

Great post. Thanks!

 

[CdnandTrini]

Great post. Thanks!

you are most welcome CW. I wish I had of seen this myself at the beginning! Might have saved me many needless hours of worry and sleepless nights of trying to figure out how the heck immigration works! The only conclusion I was able to draw - it is a stressful moving target of many confusing parts that almost made me "cry uncle" ( at several stops along the way! ) But I have survived to tell the tale. Blessings

 

[blueangel371115]

I'm also on a Facebook group that apparently one of them has an article where a visa officer was quoted saying something to the effect of 'if the sponsor is 'ugly' and the applicant is 'hot', they question the validity of the relationship, meaning that it's likely just for the sole purpose of the applicant gaining a visa as 'how could someone that good looking like someone that ugly?'. No joke. And they're hiring young students with three days training to review files.

 

[CdnandTrini]

I'm also on a Facebook group that apparently one of them has an article where a visa officer was quoted saying something to the effect of 'if the sponsor is 'ugly' and the applicant is 'hot', they question the validity of the relationship, meaning that it's likely just for the sole purpose of the applicant gaining a visa as 'how could someone that good looking like someone that ugly?'. No joke. And they're hiring young students with three days training to review files.

Yes here is the actual quote from an immigration officer (one of the Caribbean offices) that participated in the study:

"If the woman who is a sponsor is really ugly, and the guy is good-looking, he has all the right assets. The woman travels to the Caribbean and marries the cool guy. I can't say she is ugly and he is too good-looking for her. I will say
something like they do not appear to be physically compatible, or something like that. (Field Notes, December 14, 2010:17)"


as well as the links to the original article and resulting report:

here is the link to the article:
http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2014/02/01/a_rare_look_inside_the_black_box_of_canada_immigration.html

And the link to the actual report referenced in the Toronto Star article above:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cars.12031/pdf - Scroll to page 4 and start reading about midway down.

 

[keesio]

To be (somewhat) fair to CIC, they are going by standard western sentiment. I mean how many of us think Anna Nicole Smith got married to that old billionaire for love? Or was it a marriage for money? We all know what it was about...
http://dlisted.com/tag/anna_nicole_smith/

 

[CdnandTrini]

To be (somewhat) fair to CIC, they are going by standard western sentiment. I mean how many of us think Anna Nicole Smith got married to that old billionaire for love? Or was it a marriage for money? We all know what it was about...
http://dlisted.com/tag/anna_nicole_smith/

lol......this is true

 

[blueangel371115]

To be (somewhat) fair to CIC, they are going by standard western sentiment. I mean how many of us think Anna Nicole Smith got married to that old billionaire for love? Or was it a marriage for money? We all know what it was about...
http://dlisted.com/tag/anna_nicole_smith/

I agree but there IS another component to relationships other than looks is personality, whether they get along or not. I'm not pretty, I know that and most would say I'm not and I find my husband attractive and most people do. So is it too far fetched to believe that just because the visa officer thinks one of the couple is ugly that the couple actually finds each other attractive? It's a slippery slope to go down. I know that they want to remove the MOC component but I don't think looks should really be part of the criteria personally. Looks is very subjective.

 

[screech339]

I agree but there IS another component to relationships other than looks is personality, whether they get along or not. I'm not pretty, I know that and most would say I'm not and I find my husband attractive and most people do. So is it too far fetched to believe that just because the visa officer thinks one of the couple is ugly that the couple actually finds each other attractive? It's a slippery slope to go down. I know that they want to remove the MOC component but I don't think looks should really be part of the criteria personally. Looks is very subjective.

While looks is very subjective, it should not matter if the relationship is genuine. They should have no trouble proving their relationship by providing proofs if CiC VO officer had any inkling of doubt of relationship based on looks. I wouldn't like it if a CiC used "looks" as part of the equation but that wouldn't matter if I have the proofs to back up my relationship.

If my marriage was based on MOC and the agent used "looks" as part of the equation, I would have trouble coming up with proofs of our relationship.

 

[tink23]

Interesting read. Thanks!

 

[CdnandTrini]

I agree but there IS another component to relationships other than looks is personality, whether they get along or not. I'm not pretty, I know that and most would say I'm not and I find my husband attractive and most people do. So is it too far fetched to believe that just because the visa officer thinks one of the couple is ugly that the couple actually finds each other attractive? It's a slippery slope to go down. I know that they want to remove the MOC component but I don't think looks should really be part of the criteria personally. Looks is very subjective.

Agree that this is a very subjective and slippery slope. I know because my husband secretly believes he is prettier than me ....lol.

We can only hope (and pray) that most IOs would have a bit more common sense than this. Although having our application processed from one of two overseas Caribbean offices (Port of Spain office in Trinidad and Kingston office in Jamaica) I am familiar with many of the experiences that forum members have had on both of these threads. And sadly this attitude does not surprise me.

As my grandmother always use to say, "there's a lid for every pot"

 

[draxz1289]

very interesting read

 

[CdnandTrini]

While looks is very subjective, it should not matter if the relationship is genuine. They should have no trouble proving their relationship by providing proofs if CiC VO officer had any inkling of doubt of relationship based on looks. I wouldn't like it if a CiC used "looks" as part of the equation but that wouldn't matter if I have the proofs to back up my relationship.

If my marriage was based on MOC and the agent used "looks" as part of the equation, I would have trouble coming up with proofs of our relationship.

I agree that if there is substantial proof in material areas, that should suffice. I just find it hard to believe that when this IOs supervisor read a draft of the report they did not delete this comment and set this person straight. That tells me that this is an acceptable approach. Particularly given that CIC would have had to authorize the publishing of this report and it would have had to go through many levels of sign-off. ???

 

[CdnandTrini]

Interesting read. Thanks!

You are most welcome tink23.

 

[fiza11]

Very interesting.read....thanks for sharing.

After reading the report, I think me file is still under investigation lolz!