Steven Meurrens on Canadian Immigration Law

23/01/2025

I continue to think that IRCC IT issues can explain many delayed applications.

Here, the GCMS team flagged an issue in Dec 2023 where eDocs were being misassigned. Visa offices were instructed to pause processing. By March 2024, the problem remained unsolved, and the applications sat.

22/01/2025

In November 2022, an internal IRCC email revealed a concerning issue within Canada’s immigration system: 42 family sponsorship files, where appeals were successful, had not been processed further, with delays of up to two years. This was attributed to a "coordination gap" regarding which visa office was responsible for the files and a "lack of clear guidance."

20/01/2025

In July 2022, in an effort to streamline resources, IRCC's Litigation Management Branch decided that it would no longer monitor most cases sent back for redetermination after judicial review and would leave the responsibility to processing offices.

Prior to this, the LMB would monitor cases and send reminders where cases under redetermination may not have been reopened or were stalled in processing.

14/01/2025

Borderlines Podcast #142 - Lisa Brunner, PhD, RCIC and I discuss the situation facing international students and graduates in 2025, how some in British Columbia are taking leaves of absence from their jobs to study French, while others are claiming asylum.

Listen to #142 - Options for International Students Narrowing in 2025, Asylum Claims Increasing, with Lisa Brunner from Borderlines. Lisa Brunner is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Centre for Migration Studies.We discuss the current situation international....

08/01/2025

Under the 2025-2027 Immigration Levels Plan IRCC plans on admitting 21,200 people through the H&C and Public Policy category.

As of September 2024 there were 5,432 such applications in the Landing Inventory, 59,782 in the Processing Inventory, and 3,316 in the Prospective Inventory.

Keep in mind the Immigration Levels Plan measures people, while the inventory consists of applications, many of which were submitted by families.

Unless something changes that's basically a 9-year processing time for new applications.

The 2025-2027 Immigration Levels Plan also forecasts IRCC admitting 4,000 people through the Federal Business category, which includes the Self-Employed Class and the Start-Up Visa PRogram.

As of September 2024 there were 1,983 such applications in the Landing Inventory, 20,830 in the Processing Inventory, and 23,827 in the Prospective Inventory.

That's an 11+ year processing time for new applications.

https://meurrensonimmigration.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/September-Inventor.pdf

06/01/2025

IRCC Manager Guidance for officers processing visitor visa applications states that when assessing an applicant's salary, their socioeconomic status, purchasing power and the existence of multigenerational wealth should also be considered.

Chinook appears to have a template refusal reason of "applicant's employment situation does not show that they are financially established."

This Manager Guidance is hopefully helpful in pushing back on such refusal reasons.

02/01/2025

August 2024 IRCC Memo to the Minister on Options for Managing Work Permits Issued to Family Members of Temporary Foreign Workers

The Option that was chosen was to limit open sposual work permit access to spouses of high-skilled foreign workers, where the principal foreign national has work authorization valid for at least 16 months and is in a management (TEER 0) or professional (TEER 1) occupation, or shortage sector.

There is a further part of the chosen Option that is redacted.

"This approach would ensure that employers who rely on highly specialized and globally mobile professionals (e.g., academia, research, transnational/high-growth corporations) remain competitive in attracting talent such as C-suite executives, scientists, engineers, lawyers, professors, technicians, and a broader range of construction workers. It would also complement other initiatives, like the Global Skills Strategy [REDACTED] and proposed Post-Graduation Work Permit Program reforms."

The required work permit length for principal foreign nationals will be increased from 6 months to 16 months.

Spouses covered by free trade agreements, or family members of principal applicants transitioning to permanent residence, will continue to be eligible for open spousal work permits.

Please note that a September 2024 Memo states that further restrictions are necessary to obtain the government's 5% temporary resident target, but the September memo was redacted as to what the further restrictions would be other than "change restrictions only to spouses of international students enrolled in Master's or Doctoral programs longer than 16 months in length."

https://meurrensonimmigration.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Open-Spousal.pdf

29/11/2023

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

28/11/2023

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.

21/11/2023

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.

02/11/2023

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.

03/10/2023

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.