A few years in the past, on a street journey dwelling to Vancouver from Regina, I finished at one of many nation’s immigration case-processing centres in Vegreville, Alberta. This workplace closed in 2018, with a lot of the employees being relocated to Edmonton. Previous to this, it’s the place many individuals desirous to immigrate to Canada would have submitted their purposes.
Centralization and ‘cost-cutting’ is nothing new, however AI is presenting novel adjustments with regards to case processing efficiencies.
This weblog publish takes a take a look at the human aspect of Canadian immigration case processing. Half 2 will take a look at its rising digitization and the way a machine remains to be more likely to suppose like a human because it has been created by one.
The significance, I imagine, of this weblog publish is it highlights the work of a case processing officer and the necessity to your software to be detailed in the way you meet this system requirement and supported with as a lot proof and documentation as attainable if you wish to efficiently immigrate to Canada.
As soon as Upon a Time within the West
The previous case-processing centre at Vegreville handled Household Sponsorship, Everlasting Residency and Momentary Residency purposes.
I arrived at 7.30 am. I meant to only drive across the block, but it surely was such a fantastic morning I believed I’d get out and take some photographs. As I did so, the immigration division staff began arriving for work: primarily middle-aged ladies with their Tim Horton’s espresso cups, replete with ID lanyards round their necks. As I took photographs, the centre supervisor got here out and requested if I used to be press or if I had submitted an software to this Canadian immigration centre. He talked about that individuals would drive throughout the nation to search out out the standing of their Canadian immigration software.
I answered his questions and instructed him that I used to be a regulated Canadian immigration advisor, that we (Miho and myself) had purposes in course of on the centre, and that I used to be passing by and needed to check out this fabled establishment for myself. It’s price noting at that time limit, we had been sending almost all our purposes to Vegreville. This Immigration.ca article does an excellent job of explaining the work carried out on the centre and the way it helped individuals immigrate to Canada.
In the meantime, again in Vegreville… As soon as he [the manager] knew I wasn’t press or a disgruntled shopper, he invited me in for a tour of the services and to see for myself Citizenship and Immigration processing in motion. He walked me via the processes concerned from begin to end.
A Bureaucratic Journey: How Visa Officers Used to Course of Your Immigration Utility
The primary cease was the mailroom, the place all incoming purposes had been acquired, date stamped and picked up into bundles to be assigned to visa officers.
After seeing the entry level for Canadian immigration purposes, we walked via an enormous workplace, lit with overhead neon lights, that was divided into cubicles containing giant tables. Visa officers, with glasses perched on their noses, sat with their coffees in entrance of them, with purple pens in hand, ticking, crossing and annotating paper purposes that had been being cross-referenced for completeness in opposition to a guidelines.
As a result of Canadian visa officers have an outlined quota of purposes they should course of every day, the completeness examine is an integral a part of how IRCC staff strategy their job. It’s far faster to return an incomplete software than to examine off quite a few full purposes. Due to this fact, they search for anomalies so as to fulfil their quota. The purpose of highlighting this isn’t to discredit visa officers however to underscore the necessity for candidates to submit full and correct purposes. That is the place we may also help.
After this walk-through, we went to his workplace, drank espresso and talked in regards to the reverse ends of the identical business wherein we work. We mentioned points equivalent to program integrity, processing occasions, and IRCC communications that I can bear in mind.
All instructed, this tour and dialog lasted lower than an hour, but it surely gave me a useful expertise into the working of the very system that’s Miho’s and my lifeblood.
I share this story for numerous causes:
- Firstly due to the invaluable perception into the workings of how the Canadian authorities processes individuals’s purposes to immigrate to Canada.
- As a result of it underscores the individuals processing your purposes are as human as you and I.
- That focus to element, evidencing relationships, and submitting data in a well timed method are extremely necessary.
- Finally, visa officers are searching for causes to refuse an software, not as a result of it’s private, however as a result of it helps them obtain their each day work quota.
The arrival of AI (synthetic intelligence) and machine studying will expedite this course of however not exchange humanity’s involvement, nor will the portals and on-line harvesting of data be good, nor change the actual fact your software must be full and decision-ready.
The place on-line submissions have helped candidates, both by submitting their very own purposes or via utilizing registered Canadian immigration consultants, is that you just can not submit an incomplete software on-line, whereas one might be mailed, then returned to you, then resubmitted. All of which added money and time to the method.
Partially two, nevertheless, we’ll take a look at the problems online-only purposes have when, for instance, you’re locked out of your account and are unable to submit data earlier than the deadline.
If you happen to really feel {that a} Canada immigration session can be useful, get in contact with us.
