Posts about Canadian immigration law, policy and Access to Information Act results. I am a Partner at Larlee Rosenberg, a Canadian immigration law firm.
I am also the co-host of the Borderlines Podcast. These posts are not legal advice.
Start-Up Visa Approval Rates, 2022 - 2023 (Jan-April),
Sorted by country of residence. Limited to countries with 10 or more decisions.
The full dataset, which includes data from 2017 - 2023 (Jan-Apr), for all countries and includes number of applications received, approved, refused and withdrawn, can be found here - https://meurrensonimmigration.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/suv-approvals.pdf
Federal Court grants mandamus in a study permit application that was submitted on July 13, 2022, and remained stuck in a background check for more than 15 months. Justice Gascon ordered IRCC to finish processing within 30 days.
A September 2022 Memorandum to the Minister states that after 2023 in order to increase Francophone immigration IRCC is exploring doing more Francophone-only Express Entry rounds of invitation, establishing a French-only TR-to-PR pathway and working with provinces and eventually municipalities to incorporate Francophone migration into their programs.
The decision in the 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan to freeze overall immigration levels while increasing Francophone immigration numbers, inevitably making immigration harder for non-French speakers, is going to likely be the immigration story a few years from now.
February 2023 IRCC Memo states inventory levels and processing times in the Parent and Grandparent Program have risen yearly since 2019. No draws in 2023 are needed to hit levels in 2024 and 2025. Any applications received in 2023 will take 2 to 3 years to be processed.
IRCC Memorandum to the Minister on not increasing the right of citizenship fee from $100 to $104.04.
Revenues from the right of citizenship fee are deposited into Canada's Conslidated Revenue Fund (like a tax) and are not directly allocated to citizenship program delivery.
From 2002-2022 11,512 permanent residents in Canada were issued a removal order because of a conviction inside Canada for serious criminality.
Here are some Start-Up Business Class success stories.
From 2019 - 2021 (Oct) the eTA approval rate for applicants with Family Class applications in processing was 93%. For TRVs it was 48%.
In 2020 IRCC introduced guidance to officers supposedly to increase TRV approval rates for these situations. There is no indication it worked.
There does not appear to be a big difference in approval rates between Family Class applications processed in-land vs. overseas. From 2019 - October 31, 2021 the approval rate for in-land was 95%, while the approval rate for overseas was 93%.
The TRPR pathway opened on May 6, 2021. It received 40,000+ applications that day, and 77,000+ total. IRCC's goal was to finalize 35,000 to 44,000 applications in 2021. As of September 5 it had opened 20,256, did completeness checks on 12,730, and passed eligibility for 889.
IRCC's goal is to process 80% of caregiver applications within 12 months of the received date. The table below demonstrates the actual percentage of applications finalized by received month.
Here is a copy of the IRCC Training Manual (August 2018) Temporary Resident Processing: Temporary Workers, Module 1 - Authorizing Employment section on Work Permit Exemptions.
A September 3, 2021 Briefing Note states that IRCC anticipates that its processing inventory will be 760,000+ people by year end, with 360,000 in the economic class. The immigration goal for 2022 is 411,000, with 110,500 in the economic class. There is almost enough inventory for 2023 as well without any new applications.
IRCC REQ Q&A 2020-2916
Does IRCC accept cryptocurrency holdings towards settlement funds?
Answer - No.
Here is the IRCC Memo on prioritizing the call center and case specific enquiries to matters involving the situation in Afghanistan. This does not appear to have been a popular measure, but the memo provides context on why it was implemented. The delays in Case Specific Enquiry have likely only worsened since this measure. Hopefully there is flexibility on deadlines as IRCC is experiencing several week delays in reviewing CSEs.
Federal Court rules that an international student who studies part-time during an authorized leave of absence by a school can remain eligible for a Post-Graduate Work Permit. https://t.co/2Sj8asLAX1?amp=1
The Final Report of the IRCC Anti-Racism Employee Focus Group indicates that some employees believe that "overt and subtle racism they have witnessed by both employees and decision makers can and probably must impact case processing."https://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/pwgsc-tpsgc/por-ef/immigration_refugees/2021/122-20-e/POR_122-20-Final_Report_EN.pdf
The Liberals have been in government since October 2015. Since then Canada's visitor visa approval rate has significantly decreased compared to when Stephen Harper had a majority. It is not clear why since this certainly does not match rhetoric.
Source - https://meurrensonimmigration.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=12351&action=edit
The Federal Court has released a decision which highlights the importance of immigration practicioners understanding criminal law. The Court conducted an in-depth analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada decisions in Beatty and Roy to determine that the Immigration Division improperly assessed whether someone had the mens rea for dangerous driving. The standard requires a "marked departure" from the norm and not carelessness. https://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fc-cf/decisions/en/item/514607/index.do
Here are some statistics on the number of study permit applications that IRCC received from Chinese citizens from 2017-2019.
Have made available for download on my blog a PDF which shows the number of temporary residence applications (broken down by visitor, worker and student) received, approved, refused and processed by each IRCC visa office by month for January 2020 - March 2021.https://meurrensonimmigration.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Processing-Data-TR-2020.pdf
Here are three tables which show statistics on the number of immigration applicants who are self-represented vs. those who hire a representative. From 2016 to 2019 the absolute number and percentage of permanent resident applicants who hired a paid representative decreased, while the absolute number and percentage of temporary resident applicants who hired a paid representative increased.
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