Kareem El-Assal - 25 November, 2020
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has recently doubled the number of spousal sponsorship applications it is processing.
The coronavirus pandemic resulted in a decline in application processing.
Before the pandemic, Canada sought to admit 70,000 new permanent residents under the Spouses, Partners and Children immigration category. The new 2021-2023 Immigration Levels Plan states this goal will be increased to some 80,000 annually.
This category is mostly comprised of the wives, husbands, and partners of Canadian citizens and permanent residents that sponsor them.
Following the slowdown in processing, IRCC announced in September it would expedite up to 6,000 spousal sponsorship applications per month for the remainder of 2020.
New IRCC data shows that it has completed over 4,000 applications in September 2020 compared with around 2,000 in July.
In-land and overseas applications have both benefitted, with significant increases in applications processed under both categories.
Sponsorship applicants should see further improvements given IRCC's commitment to expedite processing for the rest of this year.
Step 1: Make sure you are eligible. Sponsors must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents that are at least 18 years old, do not receive social assistance other than if they have a disability, and have the financial means to provide the basic necessities to their partners. Eligible partners include your spouse, common-law partner, or conjugal partner.
Step 2: Make sure your partner is eligible. They need to be at least 18 years old. Your spouse must be legally married to you. You must have lived with your common-law partner for at least 12 straight months. You must have been in a relationship with your conjugal partner for at least 12 straight months but you are unable to live together due to major obstacles.
Step 3: Download the sponsorship application and permanent residence application from IRCC's website and prepare them at the same time.
Step 4: Pay the applications fees on IRCC's website.
Step 5: Submit the two applications together to IRCC via mail (both the sponsorship and permanent residence applications).
