The following are five Access to Information Act results on work permit processing manuals in India. The first pertains to general instructions to visa officers who process work permits at the Canadian visa office in New Delhi. It is current to April 12, 2022. The second are instructions specific instrcutions for open spousal work permits. The third is instructions for caregivers. The fourth PDF is instructions for truck drivers. The fifth PDF is instructions are agriculture workers. The following is the IRCC Country Information Library for India.
Borderlines Podcast #67 – Is IRCC Systemically Biased Against People from Africa, with Gideon Christian
A discussion about Canada’s low approval rates for study permit, work permit and temporary resident visa applications for people from Africa. Professor Christian can be found on Twitter @ProfXtian. The IRCC Anti-Racism Employee Focus Groups Final Report referenced in this episode can be found here – epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/pwgs…al_Report_EN.pdf
Borderlines Podcast #65 – AMA – Processing Delays, IRCC Transparency, AI, Family Class Issues and More
We took to Twitter to get listener questions for our first Ask Me Anything episode. Will a gay refugee be deported if her sexuality changes? Does Deanna have any insight or information into what is going on with caregiver applications? Why are local visa offices not processing already approved express entry applications? How do you think realistically IRCC should change their workflow and file processing? Do we need to mention previous visa rejections in spousal sponsorship applications? Why can spouses from visa exempt countries easily reunited with their loves ones in Canada while those who need visas cannot? Why is there a particular hatred towards outland spousal apps? What do you think about the IRCC’s local 3.5 workers to every 1 Canadian employed at the VO’s? Is this appropriate? Why does artificial intelligence refuse so many applications? Why is the IRCC so secretive?
Deemed Rehabilitation
An individual who is criminally inadmissible to Canada may be deemed rehabilitated depending on the crime that was committed, the amount of time that has passed since the crime was committed, the maximum term of punishment for the crime and whether the person committed one or more crimes. Regulation 18(2)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations states: Rehabilitation 18 (1) For the purposes of paragraph 36(3)(c) of the Act, the class of persons deemed to have been rehabilitated is a prescribed class. Members of the class (2) The following persons are members of the class of persons deemed to have been rehabilitated: (a) persons who have been convicted outside Canada of no more than one offence that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an indictable offence under an Act of Parliament, if all of the following conditions apply, namely, (i) the offence is punishable in Canada by a maximum term of imprisonment of less than 10 years, (ii) at least 10 years have elapsed since the day after the completion of the imposed sentence, (iii) the person has not been convicted in Canada of an indictable offence under an Act of Parliament, (iv) the person has not been convicted in … Read More
WatchTower / Lighthouse / Integrity Tend Analysis Tool
The following is a summary of information about an Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (“IRCC”) tool called Lighthouse. Lighthouse is a prototype risk detection tool developed by IRCC’s Advanced Analytics Solution Centre (“A2SC”). Lighthouse aims to automatically identify and summarize historical risk patterns for IRCC officials. It can be used to support frontline decision makers or to understand historical risk patterns. As the Memorandum to the Director General, Operational Planning and Perfromance Branch memo notes below, it is essentially a data-mining tool that identifies and presents fact-based information. The pattern reports that are used in Lighthouse are intended to provide sufficient evidence of any individual pattern. All patterns are “self-contained” in that they are intended to stand on their own merit regardless of the rest of the system. Encrypted data and model information is currently being retained to allow A2SC to recreate a model on-demand and provide the underlying data to explain how Lighthouse patterns were produced and why applications matched against these patterns. In 2020 Lighthouse uncovered over 800 unique risk patterns, some of which led to identification of larger-scale fraud trends.
The Family Class
Legislation Regulation 1(3) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (the “IRPR“) defines a family member as being: the spouse or common-law partner of the person; the dependent child of the person or of the person’s spouse or common-law partner; or a dependent child of a dependent child referred to in paragraph (b). Regulation 117 of the IRPR lists the following as being members of the Family Class. Spouse, Common-Law Partner, Conjugal Partner Dependent Child Adopted Child Parent, Grandparent Orphaned Brother, Sister, Niece, Nephew, Grandchild Other Relative Process The typical application process for a Family Class application is: Sponsorship and applicant’s permanent residence application is sent to the Case Processing Center; The Case Processing Center determines if the sponsor is eligible; and Applications are triaged by the Case Processing Center to be either processed inside Canada or overseas. The following was obtained through an Access to Information Act request.
IRCC’s Risk Assessment Unit
People reading Global Case Management System notes may come across the acronyms RAU or RAO. RAO stands for Risk Assessment Officer. RAU stands for Risk Assessment Unit. The following is a summary of a PDF obtained through ATIP about IRCC’s Risk Assessment Units. In 2016, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (“IRCC”) established a Regional Assessment Office model to establish Risk Assessment Units in a third of IRCC’s overseas visa office. As of August 2021, there are 19 Risk Assessment Officers overseas who are supported by locally engaged staff. Risk Assessment Officers are responsible for: anti-fraud; document verification; security reviews; strengthening the integrity of overseas program delivery; risk and intelligence reporting; and operational partner liaison. The goal of IRCC’s risk assessment functions are: support delivery of the IRCC mandate to manage Canada’s migration programs for the social and economic benefit of Canada by ensuring that all persons who apply for migration to Canada, whether for temporary purposes or permanently, are both eligible to do so and admissible, and meet all the criteria in the category under which they have applied; to help IRCC to maintain public confidence in Canada’s immigration system, which includes the continuum of immigration, refugee, citizenship, settlement and … Read More
New Regulations to Protect Foreign Workers
On September 26, 2022, regulatory changes to Canadian immigration law took effect with the goal being to increase protections for temporary foreign workers. All employers who currently employ, or wish to employ, foreign workers should understand these changes. In order to understand the changes, it is necessary to understand the distinction between the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (the “TFWP”) and the International Mobility Program (the “IMP”). In brief, the TFWP is a method of hiring foreign workers in which employers need to first obtain Labour Market Impact Assessments to demonstrate that the entry of the foreign workers will have a positive or neutral impact on the Canadian labour market. This is typically done through recruiting on prescribed locations for a four week period prior to applying, although there are recruitment exemptions. The IMP consists of workers who are exempt from the requirement to obtain a Labour Market Impact Assessment. Examples include free-trade agreements, International Experience Canada, provincial nominees, charitable and religious workers, and more. Many more, in fact. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has almost one-hundred exemption categories. Providing Information to Foreign Workers About their Rights The change which will likely take most employers by surprise is that employers must provide … Read More
Temporary Residence Training Guide
The following is a 2014 training manual for processing temporary residence applications. Although it is quite old it is one of the better pieces of training materials that I have seen, and I recommend it for anyone looking to understand temporary resident processing, or a refresher.