Hello everyone,
1. Two weeks after the big announcement, the CPC Mississauga is still "processing" applications from the same date - June 24, 2003. The processing time has actually INCREASED to 22-23 months.
2. The situation overseas is not better. Fax sent from the Beijing Embassy on April 26 (8 days after the announcement) advised an applicant that "We are currently finalizing applications received in 2002 and will NOT CONTINUE processing applications received in 2003 UNTIL 2006 OR 2007. Applicants in the parents and grandparents category are experiencing longer processing times and the processing times may continue to GROW LONGER. Given the importance of meeting our target of economic immigrants, the goals of our humanitarian program, and the priority we place on processing close family members first, we have to make difficult choices. This means that, at this time, applicants in the parents and grandparents category are experiencing longer processing times and the processing times may continue to GROW LONGER.?/SPAN>
3. A phone conversation that happened TODAY between an applicant and CPC Mississauga. It took 3 DAYS for the call to get through!
Q: Could you please tell me the estimated new processing time for the parents' sponsorship applications?
A: We have not implemented the new procedures, yet and are waiting for the instructions on how we are going to speed-up the process.
Q: A new policy regarding a multiple-entry visa has been announced. My parents have contacted the Embassy in. They've been told that no instructions have been issued to the overseas officers and those who had applied for the immigration could not apply for the visitor's visas.
A: We advise that you refer these people to our web-site that provides for the new announcements, i.e. fax them this information and let them know about the changes.
Q: It looks like it will take 6 years (110,000-backlog divided by 18,000-new quota) to get the approval.
A: We have new information here that it will take 4 years to process the application.
Q: But how are you going to clean up the backlog and make it 4 years, when the actual calculation is 6 years? This way they will have to allow more than 18,000 applications to be processed!? Mr. Volpe has never mentioned this.
A: Well, actually 4 years is the new processing time that includes the processing time overseas. So, it is 2 years here in Mississauga and 2 years overseas. This is the new information that we have now. I don't know how the backlog will be cleaned up. This is something that we don't have the answer to.
Our comments:
1. Nothing has changed. Same old stuff about ?ifficult choices?
2. We (not the immigration department) have to let the overseas officers know about the changes?
3. People in CPC Mississauga have been told to lie once again.
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