Mary Keyork immigration lawyer one of the most frequent questions and
immigration is what is the processing time for my application in order to
answer this question I advise clients of a couple of different things first I
tell clients that the processing time is listed on the Citizenship and
Immigration Canada website this is a location where we can see an average
processing time. The times that are posted are approximation it's very very
important to understand that often my clients will look at the processing time
and they'll count day to day why didn't my application arrive, why didn't I get a
decision it has been exactly seven months unfortunately immigration doesn't
work that way and it says it on the website as well the processing times
that are posted are approximations and they can vary depending on the back log
of the embassy or the High Commission. What I also tell my clients is you can
look at the processing time but you should also not really look at it
because you're going to be disappointed, often than not, it'll be a
little bit more than the posted processing time and throughout the
processing of your application the processing time will change so if you
started the application for example January 2015
spousal sponsorship for example and it said 17 months for London, United Kingdom
then you look at your you on June 2015 you look and now it says 23 months then
it the processing time has gone up does it mean that it's going to take 17
months or 23 months usually in my experience it's going to take a bit
longer however there are a lot of cases that are processed much faster than the
23 months and sometimes even faster than the 17 months sometimes an embassy can
say 13 months processing time and then it'll be six months but what I tell my
clients is that it's better to hope for the best but be prepared for the worst
embassies in Canada don't have unfortunately a lot of staff processing
applications I have visited a lot of Canadian embassies overseas and there's
often one or two in officers for a year or two year period
of time and they're processing thousands of applications so most often than not
it's not humanly possible for them to process these applications faster than
what is posted it's always best to kind of forget about it ensure that your
application you prepared a strong application, you submitted all the
required documents you've hired an expert for example to do it and then you
kind of forget about it until it's been a couple of months following the posted
time I usually tell my clients six months after the posted processing time
now is a good time to follow up to see what's happening with your
file but it's very normal that it could take longer than what is expected it
doesn't mean that there's something wrong with your file or an issue it
simply means that it's in the line up with all the other files waiting to be
processed by the officer, one of the advantages of having a lawyer is that
the lawyer can also give you estimated processing times of what
happens in in their law firm so for example in my office often spousal
sponsorship for example from India will be a year a year and a half even though
on the website I'll say a bit longer so what I tell my clients is okay on the
website it says for example 20 months but in my office for the last three four
or five six years it's been about a year so I give them both both information so
I'll tell them on the website it says this in my office is this but know that
it could be six months it could be very short and that'll be wonderful or it
could be much longer sometimes it could be to two years years and a half and
there's unfortunately not much we can do about that we have to be very patient
what I tell my clients is that immigration is a long term investment
for your future it's unfortunate that the system takes so long but we have to
be patient and one day the decision will come hopefully it's sooner than you expected