Family Sponsorship
Canada launches two new initiatives to improve family reunification for protected persons
The Government of Canada has been making significant improvements in its immigration policies over the past few years. Recently, it has announced that it will soon take measures that will make it easier for foreign nationals having the protected person status and their entire family to apply for permanent residence if they are already living abroad.
The Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) defines a protected person as someone who has been able to provide a credible reason and proof as to why they fear persecution in their own country of origin. It can be traced back to issues related to religion, race, nationality, political opinions, or involvement in a particular social group.
More often than not, protected persons have family members who are dependent on them and living abroad in dangerous situations. According to the IRCC, this makes it an ordeal for immigration officers when they try to get in touch with the family members as part of the permanent residence application process.
In order to resolve these challenges and make the process simpler, the IRCC has come up with two new initiatives. There will be a centralized intake process allowing protected persons who have dependent family members living abroad to submit all the permanent residence applications together. This means that they will be able to submit their own applications and those of their family members at the same time at a single location, which is the IRCC Case Processing Centre in Mississauga.
A one-year Centralized Concurrent Processing Pilot has been put in place, and it will be in charge of processing the permanent residency applications of not only the protected person but also their overseas dependent family members simultaneously. The IRCC has said that the new centralized process will give a chance to the protected person in Canada to stay in touch with IRCC on behalf of the family.
