IRCC says they will contact expired COPR holders once they are approved to move to Canada
According to a government media release issued on January 5th, expired Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR) holders cannot use the webform to contact the immigration department.
As per the new program delivery update of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship (IRCC), an expired COPR who are ready to move to Canada should no longer be contacted through the webforms or processing office email.
IRCC says they will contact applicants after they are approved to travel to Canada.
In July 2020, Expired COPR holders were asked to use the webform in order to inform IRCC if they were ready to land in Canada. COPRs are issued after an immigration application is approved for permanent residence. Generally, these approved permanent residents only need to come to Canada and finish the landing process.
Nevertheless, the coronavirus outbreak ruined people’s intention to travel in the initial few months of the pandemic. Many people were not able to travel because of reduced flights and other factors in their native land, though Canada’s borders were still open to applicants who had approved COPR before March 18th.
During this period, numerous COPRs expired before their travel to Canada. Due to expired documents, foreign nationals cannot come to Canada. This rule has been in place preliminary to the pandemic. To allow expired COPR holders to request an authorization letter to travel to Canada, IRCC, therefore, announced a new process of webforms in July, which they could use to board a plane as an official letter. However, IRCC did not initiate providing authorization letters until September even though the ready to travel webforms process was launched in summer.
IRCC’s assistant deputy minister, Daniel mills indicated 10,000 instances of expired COPR holders whereas speaking at a federal immigration committee assembly within the fall. IRCC had contacted about 6,000 of them and had issued 500 authorization letters, by November.
Many expired COPR Holders who were not issued the letter received responses conforming that their file was in processing, even though they had completed multiple webforms stating they were ready to travel. With no given timeframe on when they would receive their authorization letter and no ability to come to Canada, many aspirants were stuck in a state of uncertainty, not able to decide plan in their native land or Canada.
Earlier it was told that the department had opted to issue letters of authorization separately rather than in masses given the health and safety provisions. Besides, the validity of COPR is tied to a few documents, they also need to authenticate that passport and medical exams.
We are waiting for a further update from IRCC and will notify the story when new information becomes available.
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