Hi, my name is Michael Niren and I'm an immigration lawyer and founder
of VisaPlace.com.
Recently, there was an article in the Toronto Star about
the inner workings of immigration and what red flags officers consider to
be of concern that result in possible refusals of cases.
And it's very interesting because for years, we've been
processing immigration cases.
And we kind of know what fact situations will
result in some concerns by the officers when they process cases.
But there was a study by a professor at McMaster University, who was
granted access into the processing departments of Canada immigration.
And he found a few red flags or concerns that
officers typically have.
And so, I'm going to list them for you.
It's pretty interesting.
One is if you apply for a visitor visa from a poor country or a country
where there is a lot of fraud, it's common sense that that application will
likely be heavily scrutinized.
And it could be any type of visa.
So if you're applying for a visa from a country
where there's concerns and there's issues, even though your case may
be very, very clean, a very good case, you may be subject to a higher level
of scrutiny.
Another red flag is in the sponsorship area.
If the applicant and the sponsor, there's as large
age gap between them, that's going to cause some concern on the part of an
immigration officer.
And we know that.
Also, if they don't know about each other very well, they can't answer questions
about their lifestyles and details about themselves, that could also
raise a red flag.
Another interesting point that was raised in the article was the number of
people at the wedding.
In some cultures, you know that there are hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of people, typically, at these weddings.
For example, in the Indian culture, they tend
to have very large weddings.
So in cases where the cultural norm is to have
a lot of people at the wedding, and an application is processed where there's
not very many people, that could raise some issues on the part of the
officer who thinks that there could be something strange going on.
Another interesting point was love letters.
When you file an application for sponsorship, you typically show that the
couple generally cares about each other.
They love each other.
And sometimes you can show some letters of affection
between the couple.
If it's overdone, it was argued that if there's
too much of it, the officer may think it's being manufactured and it's
not genuine.
So that's a really interesting finding.
So, if you're going to submit love letters, don't go
overboard.
Another point was the timing of the application.
For example, if an applicant is in Canada already, and is facing
immigration removal, the process of deportation issued against that person,
and then they subsequently get married and file a sponsorship.
Well, it's common sense that an officer will be very
skeptical about that.
The timing is very suspicious.
So those are some of the red flags.
We know about those red flags.
And also you should know that just because your case may be of
concern.
For example, if you didn't have a lot of people at your wedding or that
there is a big age gap between you and you spouse, it doesn't mean that
your application is going to be refused.
What it does mean is that you should address it head on well before an officer
starts questioning it.
So this way you can explain the unusual circumstances.
And then in most cases, that should alleviate the concern of the officer.
If you need any more information or you have some questions, feel free to
go to our website at www.VisaPlace.com.
Thank you and have...