An internal IRCC briefing memo, released last week, caused some speculation and confusion about how the Canadian Immigration Department handles express entry Invitations for the Federal Skilled Workers Program (FSWP) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) since September.
The briefing has been extensively edited, and no clear conclusions can be drawn from it. Despite its ambiguous nature, the briefing stipulates that the pause is intended to allow the IRCC to clear the application’s backlog and will eventually process the Express Entry applications within 6 months.
To support their immigration goals, the IRCC has issued several ITAs to CEC candidates and created a permanent residence (TR to PR) route from a special temporary residence. The focus of applications in Canada has been at the expense of applicants who have submitted express entry applications abroad due to the significant increase in processing time. As the IRCC is considering options for the 2022-2024 Immigration Level Plan, Express Entry Permits “are likely to face significant reductions to meet the priorities of other ministers and sectors.”
The Ministry of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship wants to reduce the backlog of Express Entry by more than half before considering expanding the Express Entry draw again. The reason for this is that IRCC wants to be able to process invitee requests more quickly. IRCC has the potential to reduce the backlog of express entries by more than 50% by early 2022, based on its recent ability to complete more than 16,000 express entry applications per month.
The memo states that the current processing criteria is about 8 months for CEC candidates and about 20 months for FSWP candidates. This is even though the IRCC website continues to publicly state that the express entry processing standard is 6 months.
Immigration occurs after the Express Entry candidate first receives an invitation to apply for permanent residence and then submits and processes the application for permanent residence. When the person comes to Canada from abroad and lands as a permanent resident, entry is complete.
It is also possible for temporary residents of Canada to change their legal status to permanent residence. Due to the length of this process, IRCC will continue to issue express entry invitations for the foreseeable future. Upon receiving the completed permanent residence application, the IRCC can process it immediately, similar to pre-pandemic practices.
Alternatively, the IRCC may start processing the application at a later date because it is currently running to respond to changes in the pandemic situation and to address changes in policy priorities. The case for resuming Express Entry invitations to FSWP and CEC candidates sooner than later It is in Canada’s policy interests to resume Express Entry invitations to FSWP and CEC candidates in short order.
Upon its launch in 2015, Express Entry sought to invite the highest-scoring candidates to apply for permanent residence. Its dynamic nature sought to end backlogs since IRCC only needs to process the applications of those it invited, rather than processing every application it receives. Unfortunately, IRCC has departed from inviting the highest scoring candidates and backlogs have grown due to it shifting its resources to prioritizing permanent residence applications submitted within Canada as well as the processing of Afghan refugee applications.
