March 22, 2012

Processing of Successful Appeal Cases

We received the following response from CIC to inquiries seeking clarification on the process following successful appeals from the IAD, and when the Case Processing Pilot – Ottawa (CPP-O) is involved:

Case Processing Pilot – Ottawa (CPP-O) is currently responsible for processing the immigrant files from Cairo, Islamabad and Port-au-Prince.  CPP-O does not process allowed appeals related to determination of status.  For all other cases, contact the visa office only if a client has not heard from CIC after the appeal was allowed. You should consider a reasonable period of time covering the file transfer from the CBSA to CPP-O to the visa office, such as 2-3 months, along with reasonable time to contact clients.

Visa offices process allowed appeal cases as a priority. Updated application forms, documents and new medical exams are normally requested from clients at the same time on a case-by-case need. However, updated photos may be necessary to issue new medical forms. Please take note that CPP-O has no monitoring role over visa offices.

CIC does not currently track processing times of allowed appeals by various visa offices. However the Case Processing Pilot office in Ottawa (CPP-O) is very involved in this process.  CPP-O has been receiving appealed cases from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) since April 2011. As a standard procedure, the office creates allowed appeals – provided that they do not already exist in the processing system – and sends the files to the appropriate visa office within a week of being received. Files are sent by FedEx and usually delivered within 3 or 4 business days. There are only four exceptions where FedEx is not an option: Mexico (sent by diplomatic bag), Havana (using a different courier company), Cairo and Islamabad  (for whom we process allowed appeals).  The representative of FedEx comes to our office once a week to take delivery of files. Overall, a visa office should get a file within about two weeks after CPP-O has received it from the appeals office.

We do note that some files are transferred to us several months after the appeal decision. Unfortunately we have no control over the CBSA for forwarding files expeditiously. In recent weeks, we noticed a sudden increase in the number of files forwarded to us but we are making every effort to maintain our service standard.

Visa offices normally keep a copy of cases being appealed. If for some reason there is an inordinate delay between the appeal decision and the return of the original file, the visa office might still be able to resume processing of that case, provided that they get a copy of the IRB decision. In such situations, counsel should contact visa offices directly.