Celebrating a Benchmark

As many people in Canada celebrate the long 3 day weekend, I wanted to stop and share a bit of our own news as a benchmark will finally come to a close soon.

The letter from Canadian Immigration for Decision Made finally came in the mail on Friday. Yes it took a whopping 4 wks and 1 day to arrive after they had posted the decision had been made into ECAS. We were not worried of any other outcome since I had already been given my work permit and my Approval in Principle back on Dec. 1st, 2006 (1 year after applying).

What was very fishy is that they told me the decision had been made back on Nov 28th, 2006, which is pretty impossible. Now anyone doing the math knows that a first decision can't be made after a second decision but they sure think they can time warp back into the past!

The interview is set up for the beginning of June so it's about 3 more weeks to wait. It should be very uneventful and take a few minutes time, I hope. After that point, I have to wait another month or so to get my permanent resident card in the mail before I'm aloud to travel via plane.

If I'm not mistaken, I'm aloud to travel via border crossings into the States. We will be making a trip down to California to get all of my goods to follow list ready since we do things backwards here in Canada and I can't go down there to take inventory before landing in Vancouver. Well technically I could, but I couldn't get back into the country.. We haven't decided our mode of transport yet but we are actually leaning towards driving instead of flying.. All depends on vacation days we will take.

So as Queen Victoria celebrates her birthday this long 3 day weekend on Monday for Victoria Day, we celebrate our good news of things to follow. Please feel free to see what I wrote last year for this holiday from the 2006 Victoria Day post.

Needing a Vacation

I think I'm in desperate need of a Vacation! We actually haven't travelled outside our normal city limits since December now. I didn't even go skiing this year. And the snow was probably the most awesome it's been in years.

(pic of sunset Friday eve, west Vancouver)

So with the below post and people everywhere talking about vacations, I'm starting to get vacation fever. Now my biggest problem is being able to take one, and figuring out where to go. We are going to stay close to home but I guess the furthest we would travel is either Banff or California. I'd like to do both, but don't know what we will be able to do at this point.

That all depends on how fast this slow moving letter from CIC gets to me. It's been 3.5 wks (April 18th was when it changed on the web) and I still haven't gotten the letter. I've tried calling the call center but they weren't of any help. I tried to tell them I haven't gotten a letter. All they would tell me is "sorry I'm not able to give you any information about that"....

Well why don't you keep diggin Watson because if a DECISION MADE is what I see on the Internet, you'd at least think you'd try communicating with me on when my landing interview was... I'm not incompetent.

Oh wait, I forgot, you're too incompetent to put two and two together, but like to make people sit and miss their landing interview dates... Yup that's Canadian Immigration for ya.. Hard dumb ones at work...

Anyhow - after a week of sunshine, all spirits around here are much higher. I'm going to try bringing out my camera more on my travels as I've had some awesome views and keep missing the shots sans camera.

Allusion in Immigration Canada

Allusion With Canadian Immigration...
The Saga... The more I learn about CIC incompetence...

I'm really tired of the crap CIC tries to pull on people. Well it's been well over 2 wks time and a good 10 plus mailing business days and it's still a no show for the "decision made" letter that has supposedly happened. As I mentioned first, I wouldn't be holding my breathe for this since I have absolutely no faith in their incompetence. I couldn't call this week but P tried for me. What a waste as he's not aloud to do anything even after answering all security questions.

To top things off, their website is so inaccurate it really pisses me off. Why CIC Immigration do you have to allude and lie to people??? Don't put inappropriate information on your website when you know it's completely false..

And anyone if you actually happen to try want to call CIC for information they claim you can attain via the phone, stop wasting your time. It doesn't work.

Here's the detailed Call Centre link which is a waste of time.

Our automated telephone service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you have a touch-tone telephone, you can

• listen to pre-recorded information about Citizenship and Immigration programs,
• order application kits, and (Sorry can't do that unless you speak to an agent.)
• check the status of your application. (Sorry can't do that unless you speak to an agent.)

Don't bother Calling CIC unless its a week day! I'll update you when I have something better to say but sorry guys, since waiting from October 2005, I have a reason to be impatient...

Decision Made

As you know I haven't had too much faith in my Canadian immigration case. Since I'm getting impatient about my case because of personal issues and needs, I haven't been up for looking at the status of my case.

Well today, I logged into my account and found a big DECISION MADE sign to click on. They updated the news very oddly, stating they had made this decision way back before they told me I got my initial Approval in Principal. So obviously there's a mistake there.

This is what it read.

We sent you a letter on November 28, 2006 to YOUR ADDRESS, British Columbia, Canada, about the decision on your application. If we have sent the letter to the wrong address, please contact us... (please note this is a flat lie and or mistake because we never got this letter!)

So, what's next? I hurry up and wait for about 2 weeks until the letter arrives. Hopefully it was mailed from Vancouver which means I will get it much faster. I'm willing to guess it's telling me to come in for my final immigration interview for landed immigrant.

What else might it mean? We might be able to go to Seattle in May still if I can get my entries in before the deadline. And once I get things finalized, then I can travel again...

Holding onto hope, but not holding my breath yet.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

As most of you guys know, I've had quite a long wait to finally become recognized as a landed immigrant here in Canada. No of course the process is not finished. I'm just waiting and loosing faith in the Canadian immigration system.

For me, CIC seems to be a never ending battle. So here's an update on what Immigration Canada hasn't done. I'm writing this post in hopes that many other countries and people see what is going on with Canada's immigration process.

For many other people who immigrate to other countries, such as Switzerland, being recognized as a landed immigrant takes merely a marriage certificate/ceremony and a few other forms. THAT'S IT! You can get on with your life, find a job and can travel.

This is definitely not the case in Canada. Some 2 years of almost planning our immigration, we are still waiting to see the landing papers. It's not a fun process. I'm wondering if we might make it to our 2 year wedding anniversary before this process is completed!

In fact, there are many horror stories of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) from honest people like myself who is from the US originally. I think the worst, is a 4 year wait time at one of the local immigration offices.

So you can imagine my grief right now as I see more and more people becoming landed immigrants much after the time which I applied. My application was received in Jan 2006!
So why not work on the backlog!!! Backlog people at CIC, backlog!


Can't we just work on making a decision instead of waiting around CIC Vancouver!

A former Washington DC'er who is in the immigration process had a few unique quotes which I totally share in agreement. "The way CIC handled my concern makes it crystal clear that things are not always done in the best interest of the clients to whom they are providing a service for; instead it appears that CIC, at least in this example, does what is in the best interest of themselves."

Which absolutely is leading me to believe this is happening with us. First off, I was denied AIP in September because of a mix up of addresses. Now who in their right minds from people that know us would ASSUMED P and I don't live together???? An immigration officer did when she caught me off guard at work one day not remembering my address... Really remembering 3 addresses can be challenging at times folks! What other mistakes are costing it to take so long?

To make matters worse, I've seen people who applied in Feb, to July already get their landing papers.. What about going in order for your applications? Does the nice guy always have to get screwed? OR better yet, why not concentrate on cases which you know need thorough background checks, so you don't deal with the immigration problems later on? Stop the backlog!

My point is that I've become part of Canadian society, yet I'm still not accepted by CIC. In fact, right now I've had to postpone representing Canada Masters swimming at the US Nationals in Seattle, Washington next month because I can't leave the country. It's said that I can't travel for swimming as a result of a long wait on Citizenship and Immigrations part...

If I actually had an answer why immigration was taking so long to do my background checks, I'd be happier. But a response of yes we are still working on it when CSIS had finished their checks since Jan 2007 and my application was in process since June 2006. Any logical person in a real work environment would be fired for such poor turn around time...

Maybe someone at Citizenship and Immigration Vancouver will read this and see that P and I are actually a genuine couple (married in fact) and that all we want is to have my status changed to landed immigrant. After 1.5 years, is that too much to ask for?

Read this post on The Backlog Problem - Canada Immigration Backlog Not a Priority Despite Statistics Canada Data?

And how Media Attention gets things done - Media Helps to Progress Canadian Immigration Status?

I'm wondering still what has to be done before this situation gets better.