Immigration Minister Marc Miller stated yesterday at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM) that of the 38,000 visas for Indians that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) expected to process by December, the department will only be able to process 20,000.
He claims that only five IRCC members are currently able to conduct the on-the-ground work in India required to process applications. According to IRCC, as a result, there will be slower:
· overall processing times
· responses to enquiries
· getting visas or passports returned
IRCC now anticipates a backlog of around 17,500 Indian applicants at the start of 2024.
The department intends to process 80% of all applications in accordance with service standards. These standards differ based on the application. When an application is in the backlog, it has not been processed in accordance with service requirements.
An international student visa from outside of Canada, for example, should be handled within 60 days, a family-class sponsorship application within 12 months, and an Express Entry application within six months.
In-person services are temporarily suspended
According to IRCC, all in-person services at consulates in India have been temporarily halted until further notice, however applications from India will continue to be accepted and processed. Certain application requirements must be fulfilled on-site or locally in a secure environment.
The staff decrease caused by the expulsion of 41 Canadian diplomats has caused the pause.
The remaining five IRCC employees in India will concentrate on in-country work. This includes expedited processing, visa printing, risk assessment, and oversight of important partners such as visa application centres, panel physicians, and clinics that conduct immigration medical tests.
The IRCC expects that Indian visa application processing would return to normal by 2024.
According to senior IRCC officials, the government is trying to resume normal processing of Indian applications in early 2024.
To the agency, the 22 immigration employees who were withdrawn from India will resume their jobs in Canada and the Philippines.
According to an IRCC statement about the workforce decrease, the vast majority of applications from India are already processed outside of the country, with 89% of Indian applications processed through the worldwide network.
Diplomatic issues
Canada and India are now resolving a diplomatic issue stemming from the June killing of a prominent Sikh leader in Surrey, British Columbia.
In September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the issue, stating that there is reliable intelligence confirming that Indian government agents were engaged in the assassination. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly denies this.
Since then, India has temporarily shuttered its visa processing centres in Canada and asked Canada to remove 41 of its diplomats from the country.
