Fed.court: 1101 days, missing passport...

This is really "guilty until proven innocent" then let's say you don't renew the passport because you DON'T TRAVEL, you would need a letter from your country embassy that confirms that you have not been issued a new passport.

cvv31: This is really "guilty until proven innocent" then let's say you don't renew the passport because you DON'T TRAVEL, you would need a letter from your country embassy that confirms that you have not been issued a new passport. This is crazy!

It is not really so draconian as it may appear.

It really is not crazy.

A lot depends on all the rest of the circumstances, on the overall impression made. Appearances matter. Impressions matter. How all the details fit into the whole matters.

CIC perceives reason to be more suspicious of some. Not good to be looked at with suspicion.

Let's be clear: many, hundreds if not thousands of applicants do, indeed, arouse more suspicion. The problem is differentiating those who warrant CIC's closer, more thorough examination, those who are indeed suspicious, from those who are qualified and who play by the rules. Some of the latter do get trapped in CIC's suspicions nets.

Some may think that CIC apprehends reason to be suspicious of some applicants for little or no reason. I highly doubt that. Perhaps in some individual cases.

But, generally, as I have often said:

CIC generally gets it. They connect the dots. There are clues and they have the background, the experience, the knowledge base, the contextual understanding, to put things in perspective and to follow clues. Where the clues leads varies, and varies extensively.

Naysayers will dismiss this observation. They do so at their peril. They miss the point. They fail to take note of what really matters, how decisions are really made.

Anyone who has spent much time in a POE secondary, doing some eavesdropping, can get a glimpse of how this process works. CIC, like CBSA, have the training and experience to differentiate and compare and contrast and assess very detailed bits of information in an overall picture and in that to be reassured or to have concerns. Answers to questions can either resolve the concerns or can lead to additional questions. CBSA and CIC personnel are screened, educated, trained, and experienced in making these sorts of differentiating decisions.

Anyone who denies that CIC has the capacity to identify and unravel clues, and from those to rationally follow where the evidence leads, and that this is very, very often what underlies distinctions between one applicant (most) sailing through the process problem-free, versus another getting bogged down in a more strictly scrutinized track, is avoiding reality.

Yes, of course, this process is overinclusive. This process bogs down more than just those who will eventually be denied approval. How overbroad is it? I do not know. I have been steering clear of trying to assess that much, mostly because it does not matter relative to questions about how an individual should approach the application process and navigate their way through it. (It is more about the political, policy side, the what-should-be side, which is for others to discuss.)

But the reality is that there are criteria and reasoning skills and rational differentiation underlying CIC's approach to assessing applicants, and CIC does put things in perspective.

In other words: it is not so much whether one's passport is expired, as it is how that individual's whole case appears and how the individual details factor into the whole picture.

One person with an expired passport may indeed trigger concerns that that individual has obtained some other travel document to use when traveling abroad, one that they are not disclosing, and indications that an applicant has failed to disclose a relevant travel document is a huge red flag, a blaring alarm, for CIC. While, in contrast, another person may appear at the test and documents check with an expired passport, no replacement, and raise no concerns at all. It depends, it depends on all the rest of the circumstances, the totality of details.

This carries over into the RQ process, and can loom larger in that process, the dichotomy persisting, one applicant being treated very differently due to CIC apprehending that the individual has some alternative, undisclosed travel document, versus another who has not presented a currently valid travel document from his or her home country but for whom CIC is not all that concerned.

Overall: There is NO one-size fits all characterization of many individual details relevant in a particular person's case.

Again, I know that many here dismiss the idea that there are indeed rational reasons underlying the different views CIC has of some applicants, but to not recognize the reality of this is to miss the point, to handicap oneself in dealing with CIC. Some of this is rooted, of course, in frustration felt by those who know they solidly met the qualifications and who thus feel victimized by being subject to the inconvenience (a major inconvenience on multiple levels) of the extended and highly intrusive RQ process. To observe that a process like this inherently involves collateral-damage may seem callous, but that is far more the problem, that the criteria being employed by CIC sweeps into its net more than just those gaming the system, not that CIC is capriciously, arbitrarily, or maliciously targeting innocents.

Forgot to emphasize, too, that dated photo-copies are better than not having the document altogether. And, again, one can take a photo-copy to a notary (or someone with comparable authority) and have it certified (upon comparision to the original) as a complete and accurate copy of the original as of that date.

An applicant does not have to be at the mercy of chance in this regard.

Of course those who have lost their passport, or have had it stolen, are indeed at a distinct disadvantage. Even though not their fault, this is something that appears to make it very likely that RQ will be imposed, and in the RQ assessment process something that imposes more stringent demands on the extent of evidence the applicant practically needs to submit. Circumstances, and believeability of the story, probably have more than a little influence in how the "lost" or "stolen" passport situation unfolds . . . and of course, as always, how well the case is otherwise documented will make a big difference.

The reason for this I have explained elsewhere, but it is fairly simple: the burden of proof is on the applicant. Travel documents are considered essential items of evidence. The failure to have this evidence must be compensated for, by the applicant, in some other way.

Reading through the thread made me to imagine the following scenario: a Canadian PR person (not a US Citizen or PR) with expired passport (which is not renewed), yet he did not leave Canada since his first entry, then CIC denies granting his citizenship based on that he does not show his renewed passport.

Vancan2012 wrote: I don't think the scenario you are describing was ever alluded to here, in this forum. CIC does not ask you to produce things that don't exist. At least I hope not. If you haven't renewed your passport, I don't think anyone will ask for it (since it doesn't in fact, exist, in the first place). We are talking about the expired passports that did exist at some point, and that have been "lost", or "eaten by the dog", or whatever excuse some applicants have told CIC.