Communicating with IRCC About Your Immigration Application
If you think that the hard work is now done and you can just relax and wait for your application to be approved, think again.
This part of the process is as important as putting together and submitting your sponsorship application.
Using your GC Key account along with your email address that you’ve given to IRCC you must monitor and quickly respond to any messages, alerts, or requests from immigration officials.
Tip: also check out Tips and Tricks for Checking Your IRCC (CIC) Application Status
Failure to do so will result in delays or sometimes even cancelled applications in the worst of cases.
If you have a paid representative, then they will link your application to their own online account. If you have an unpaid representative they cannot use an online account and they should instead monitor their email account that they gave to IRCC for any alerts or requests.
- You should check your status daily, once you have received the Acknowledgement of Receipt, to ensure that no important communications go unread for days.
- Remember IRCC will be sending you what they call time-sensitive communications and that means you will have a deadline by which you must respond. This can be vital, especially if you need to provide additional information.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have appointed a representative DO NOT link your personal account to your sponsorship application. This will be done by your representative, NOT by you. In this case, what you can do is confirm with your representative that they have provided their current email address, phone numbers, and mailing address to IRCC – especially if you have an unpaid representative.
If you have family or friends who have submitted similar sponsorship applications around the same time as you and they get responses sooner than you do, DON’T WORRY. This is typical and depends on the complexity of your case relative to theirs.
Remember, the real work by IRCC only starts after you submit your application. They have to carefully review your package – all the forms; all the supporting documents including photos etc. – and assess whether you meet the requirements for a successful application. There may be details in your application that they have to confirm and that take a little longer than other similar applications. This is quite normal so don’t panic, please!
In general, IRCC will contact you about the following sorts of issues:
- A request for more information to enable processing of your file
- When an update or alert on some matter is available
- When a decision has been made
- If your file has been transferred to another office for processing (which is normal).
However, if you have appointed a representative, then they will be contacted by the IRCC on any matter related to your application and your representative in turn will keep you informed.
We hope you found this content to be helpful.
At Immigroup we provide do-it-yourselfers with clear and accurate information. (For best results, we recommend using the government’s website in conjunction with our ours. For answers to specific questions, please check out our forum. Do these simple things and you’ll be far ahead of the pack!)
For those who want more expertise and support, we offer a broad range of paid services. Let us be your immigration ally, and you’ll see why most of our clients are clients for life.
