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!
