Sponsoring parents in 2019
Sponsoring parents within a few months is now a reality. If a few years ago, such sponsorships may have taken from three to five years, now, in our practice, our clients go through the whole immigration process literally within a few months. One of the reasons explaining such excellent processing times is that Immigration Canada has recently increased the intake quota of sponsorship applications significantly. Hopefully, this trend will continue in 2019 with the Immigration Department making changes to the application procedures as well.
Immigration Canada has officially confirmed that it will put an end to its controversial practice of randomly selecting applicants for the Parents and Grandparents Program. It is anticipated that in 2019, applications will be accepted and processed on a first-come, first-served basis, whereas the intake quota will be increased to 20,000 sponsorship applications.
The new process will likely look like this: if you wish to sponsor your parents/grandparents in 2019, you will have to complete an Expression of Interest to Sponsor online request form. This form will be available to sponsors at the beginning of 2019. In 2018, the online requests were accepted between January 2 and February 1. In 2019, Immigration Canada promises to accept everyone until the cap of 20,000 is reached. More details about the process and the dates will be published by the end of this year.
If you wish to receive updates regarding this program, please write to us and we will contact you as soon as Immigration Canada releases new information. We have created a list of individuals interested in sponsoring their parents/grandparents, and we will provide preliminary instructions and draft application forms to these clients before the registration opens so our clients have all the necessary information and supporting documents ready for submission and be first in line among the 20,000 applicants.
For more information about sponsorship applications, please feel free to contact us.
