Sunday, April 24, 2016

News -- Nouvelles -- Noticias -- Nachrichten -- Nuacht



I've got some pretty exciting news to share with you guys!
So a little over a month ago, March 16th to be exact, we submitted our application for Permanent Residency/ Outland Spousal Sponsorship to Canada. On April 13th, my husband received an email from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) stating that they have received our application. This is known as Acknowledgement of Receipt, or AOR. That's only 28 days! Current processing time listed on CIC website is 39 days.


THEN, not even a week later, on April 19th we received another email from CIC that my husband was approved to sponsor me!! 


Since we will be living in Quebec, the CIC also instructed us that we would need to submit our "undertaking application" to Ministère de l'Immigration, de la Diversité et de l'Inclusion (MIDI) at this time. This application is basically for Quebec to make their own approval of the sponsor and sponsored person. It was pretty easy to fill out, but it does need to be completed in French. My husband and I were able to complete the entire thing in about an hour. This application has a processing fee of $275 CAD for which you must submit a Credit Card form, money order, or certified check (can't pay it upfront online at this time).We mailed it on April 22nd. Since this was a Friday, we are hoping for the package to be delivered on April 25th or 26th. The processing time is about 30 days. So hopefully by the end of May will we know something.

Other good news in the email was that my application for Permanent Residency was forwarded to my Visa Office which is Ottawa, Ontario. This is good news because Ottawa processes applications fairly quick. So while Quebec is processing our Undertaking Application, Ottawa will be processing my application for Permanent Residency!! We *COULD* know the final decision by June!


...but that's a best case scenario...

I will update again once we get more news!


Below is an updated list of costs and the current total amount of money spent on the process thus far. All monetary conversions are based off of the exchange rate at the time the blog entry was posted.

ITEM                                COST         SENT          DELIVERED     RECEIVED

FBI Background Check -- $18.00 --- 7/17/2015 ---- 7/22/2015 ---- 10/29/2015

VA Police State Check -- $20.00 --- 7/17/2015 ---- 7/20/2015 ------ 8/13/2015

Fingerprints (#1) ---------- $5.00 ---- 7/17/2015

Postage --------------------- $11.50 --- 7/17/2015

Passport Photos (4) -------- $27.36 --- 7/30/2015

Court Documents ---------- $2.00 ---- 7/30/2015

Passport (booklet) --------- $110.00 -- 8/7/2015 ----- 8/9/2015 ------- 9/15/2015

Postage/Money Order ----- $7.00 ----- 8/7/2015

DMV Driving Record ----- $8.00 ----- 8/7/2015

Fingerprints (#2) ----------- $10.00 ---- 8/10/2015 

FBI Background Check --- $18.00 ---- 8/13/2015 --- 8/17/2015 ------- 11/14/2015

Postage ---------------------- $5.75 ----- 8/13/2015

Criminal Rehabilitation --- $200.00 -- 12/18/2015----- 12/18/2015 ----- 02/21/2016
Application Fee                   (CAD) or $160 USD

Passport style Photos(6) --- $34.36 ---- 03/07/2016
                                            (CAD) or $25.87 USD

Medical Exam ------------- $334.00 -- 03/07/2016
                                            (CAD) or $250.00 USD

Permanent Residence -----$1040.00-- 03/14/2016 ------- 03/16/2016
application fee                   (CAD)  or $783.00 USD


Postage --------------------- $18.00 --- 03/15/2016
                                            (CAD) or $13.55 USD

Undertaking Application-- $275 ---- 04/22/2016
                                           (CAD) or $217.00 USD

Postage --------------------- $20.03 --- 03/15/2016
                                            (CAD) or $15.81 USD



Current Total = $1707.84 USD

Thanks for reading! I hope you find this and future entries helpful!