Hello! new to forum

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Welcome to VJ!!! This is a coooool forum.

L.

[Delicia 1]

I have given up on the Canadian immigration completely. I will not receive a refund except for the right of landing fee, so I see no incentive to withdraw my application. I am continuing my job search in the U.S. and will move there as soon as I get something and my husband will follow when the U.S. immigration allows.

I have started a blog about my Canadian immigration experiences: http://deliciasblogaboutcanada.blogspot.com/. I do not mean to offend any Canadians here, this is just my experiences in Canada so far. Sadly, I do not have much good things to write about, but that could be due to my 'tainted vision' at the moment. Please feel fee to post comments on the blog.

[Reba 2]

Don't judge the entire country just on the inadequacies of one governmental office.

heck, if we all did that...

Yeah, CIC sucks, and you should get a refund if you withdraw. My husband and I did, and the cheque was sent to me in about a month I think it was after my offical request for refund. I sent them a letter, with a copy of our file receipt.

We'd been in it over a year and a half, and were expecting for it to drag out another 4 years or so after that (due to the need for additional paperwork for him, because of a misfiled juvenile criminal charge here in the US). We gave up, but fully intend to re-start it sometime we have the money for the processing fees and whatnot.

There are others stuck in the system a heckuva lot longer than 1.5 years unfortunately. CIC is probably THE MOST inefficient office within the Canadian Government (other than Harper's ) with backlogs going back to about 5 years for some applicants now. They're terribly understaffed and they just can't keep a freakin' Immigration Minister in the office for long. Heck, just the year and a half my husband were trying, we saw 3 or 4 of them get shuffled through, not to mention policy and forms changes that backlogged them further.

Yeah, they suck, but they are certainly not indicative of the entire country. Just as USCIS is not indicative of all of the US.

Is your husband not eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship now? Just curious.

[misa 2]

Sorry to hear that your CIC experiences have been crappy but defintiely brace yourself for USCIS... and don't bother calling USCIS' 1-800. They're known around this site as the "mis-information line".

[Delicia 1]

Don't judge the entire country just on the inadequacies of one governmental office.

heck, if we all did that...

Yeah, CIC sucks, and you should get a refund if you withdraw. My husband and I did, and the cheque was sent to me in about a month I think it was after my offical request for refund. I sent them a letter, with a copy of our file receipt.

We'd been in it over a year and a half, and were expecting for it to drag out another 4 years or so after that (due to the need for additional paperwork for him, because of a misfiled juvenile criminal charge here in the US). We gave up, but fully intend to re-start it sometime we have the money for the processing fees and whatnot.

There are others stuck in the system a heckuva lot longer than 1.5 years unfortunately. CIC is probably THE MOST inefficient office within the Canadian Government (other than Harper's ) with backlogs going back to about 5 years for some applicants now. They're terribly understaffed and they just can't keep a freakin' Immigration Minister in the office for long. Heck, just the year and a half my husband were trying, we saw 3 or 4 of them get shuffled through, not to mention policy and forms changes that backlogged them further.

Yeah, they suck, but they are certainly not indicative of the entire country. Just as USCIS is not indicative of all of the US.

Is your husband not eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship now? Just curious.

My husband is eligible for citizenship and has recently applied for it. That process takes about 1 year. We decided that we might as well do that so he doesn't have to worry about losing or trying to maintain his PR status when he moves to the U.S.

According to CIC, the spousal sponsorship takes 9 months to AIP, and from what I have seen http://www.immigration.ca/discussion/ and http://www.roadtocanada.com/forums/index.php, those time lines are fairly accurate (except in my case, of course). People who are applying as independent immigrants (no family in Canada) do take 5 years, but CIC advises of that on their site as well. I just wanted to be treated like the majority of the other 'immigrants' and to date, I have not found a spousal sponsorship case that has taken over 12 months before AIP was granted or was denied.

But read my blog, I will be getting to the MP part soon and what a joke that is.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Delicia