Where Should I Apply to Immigrate?

People are often confused about which Canada Immigration Office to apply at when they are not living in their country of birth.

The rule is that you may apply in one of two places: the Canada Immigration Office responsible for your country of citizenship or your country of residence.

However there is a catch: you have to be legally admitted to your country of residence for at least twelve months to apply to the office responsible for that country.

This rule has some great advantages. For example, if your country of citizenship has long wait times, it would be prudent to get a work permit for a country with much shorter wait times.

A good strategy would be to get a twelve month work permit for Canada which would allow you to apply through Buffalo, New York, where wait times are generally shorter than any other office.

Why would you apply through the US if you are resident in Canada? As strange as it seems, no permanent resident applications are processed in Canada.

One last tip - you need not have lived in your country of residence for twelve months before applying, you only need to have been admitted for twelve months. This means you can apply for permanent residence as soon as you arrive in your country of residence with your twelve month work permit.

CAIPS and Canada Immigration

CAIPS stands for "Computer Assisted Immigration Processing System" and contains all the determinations made by a visa officer reviewing your file, as well as concerns the visa officer may have.

It is always a good idea to request the CAIPS notes on your file if processing is taking longer than expected. For example, perhaps Citizenship and Immigration Canada is waiting for information from you and you never received the request. Or perhaps the visa officer has a concern about the validity of a document but you were never informed.

CAIPS allows you to see issues with your application which you can quickly address by communication with the office handling your immigration application.

If you are scheduled for an interview you should get your CAIPS which will likely reveal why the interview was called and which concerns the visa officer will raise with you.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada will only send CAIPS to a Canadian address or to a representative in Canada. If you are not in Canada there are several firms who will obtain CAIPS for you for a fee.