Q35) How long does background checks take?
Q85) How long does it take for Background Screening (BGC) to complete?
We have no clue about it. It takes as little as 2 days for some, while other have been stuck at it since months and years. No one can tell for sure.
Guide : Everything you Need to Know about Background Checks : Anatomy of Background Checks
This is the bulk of your processing time. So, naturally, the more straightforward your application is, the faster it is going to be processed. If something is not clear, wrong, etc, and we will talk about that later, it will cause delays.
Background related factors:
- The number of dependents: This has been reported to affect your application, especially if your kids are older. For spouses, the same principle applies, the easier it is to check on the other applicants, the faster it will be.
- The country you were born in: Because the security background check depends on external security agencies and partners, the diplomatic relationship between your country and Canada will affect this. If your country is in good diplomatic relationship with Canada, it will be faster. If not, they will have to use other means to confirm you are not a criminal. They will basically spy on you.
- The country you were born in again: Your application is analyzed by specialists for a cluster/region. That means they speak your language, know your government website addresses, know how things look like, fake website addresses, universities that do not exist, companies and cities. They know everything. That means that, to have those specialists available, that will depend on how many applicants from that region CIC is getting, in other words, if they have 3 employees, the processing time will change if they take 300 or 1000 application per month, plus, how easy it is to verify that information for everyone, meaning, people with delayed applications will cause a delay for everyone. The problems for that country or cluster of countries will be a common problem for everyone in the cluster. That doesn't mean that, if your country get fewer applicants (let's say you are from Monaco, San Marino or the Maldives) it will be faster, because they will probably also have fewer employees or third parties of that cluster since they don't pay for people to do nothing. According to the immitracker, the paper-based inland applicants getting the fastest MR were from USA, China, Korea, Ukraine, and India. If you have been to Canada, I believe it will be quite obvious that Indians and Chinese applicants are not few. Despite that, their applications were going somehow faster, probably because they have more specialists.
- How tech savvy is your government: If you police certificates can be checked online, if they have a barcode that the CIC agent can use to confirm the veracity of the information you provide by going to the federal police of your country and check that your police certificate is original, it is faster.
- Previous jobs: How easy they can verify will affect your time. If they can easily verify the companies you worked with exist, or that your number of years of experience are accurate
- Education: If your university is a big and good one, it is easy to check, because they have a good online presence. In some of them, the diplomas come with a code, and this code can be used online to check if your diploma/certificate is original. That speeds things up a bit.
- Involvement with the army: If you were male, 18, had to go to the mandatory army and then left, you show this document and that is it. But if you were a Sargeant, then your application processing time will obviously change if you were a Sargeant with the US or UK armies, or if you were Sargeant in Iraq, Russia, or North Korea.
- Religion: Well, sad to say, but it will change if you are a Muslim. Everybody knows that but nobody wants to talk about it. It is the big white elephant in the room. It will never show up in nobody's GCMS notes.
- Past involvement with drugs: Do you smoke pot? If you do, you probably bought it from the narcotraffic. That means you know some stuff and somehow contributed to the proceedings of the crime because drug dealers don't simply sell recreation. They destroy families. It may delay your application. Although alcohol is also a legal drug and cigarettes are as bad as pot, you should consider quitting everything. It is bad for you.
- Criminal background, criminal activities, general activism, political involvement: If you have a criminal past, please, don't go to Canada. Now, if you were unfairly jailed for a day or went to the station because you were protesting for a transgender thing, free education, whatever, and there was a clash with the police, you were young and stupid, don't try to hide it in your application. If you got a dangerous driving ticket, or even if you punched someone in self-defense, don't hide anything. Anything hidden will severely delay your application.
Now with that said:
-Countries were you live and worked in: Everything said above will apply to each country. I believe it is done simultaneously, so the slower country will be the culprit for your processing time, but I have seen people that live in too many countries having longer processing times.
-Dependents and applicants: Everything said above will apply to each dependent. Unless they are 4 years old.
-Past employment and additional document requests, travels (schedule A): If you change anything that belongs to your background, you have to update them.
Additional documents request - ADR:
-Did you answer yes to all the questions before you proceed?
-Did you get an ADR?
If you answered yes but got an ADR, you either made a mistake or should have answered NO. This is already a sign that you are prone to have your application taking longer. ADRs are either sent because your documentation was incomplete, or because you were not careful enough and made a mistake.
Got and ADR? Do what they request as soon as possible. If your application is honest, I don't see any reason why additional documents should take too long. Therefore, send it in less than 30 days or you will raise flags. That will severely delay your application. Even if you are too busy to do it, work overtime, don't sleep, drink more coffee or red bull. Use the web form. Link your application to your myCIC profile (leave the city your were born blank, some required fields with asterisks are not actually required). Then check if they received.
CIC will always send a receipt of additional documentation and if you went ahead and did or got an ADR, there will be a message in your profile page. If you did not get the message, they did not get it, upload it again, better safe than sorry.
Each ADR will delay your application in about 2 months.
Change in personal information or update to sent documents:
-Had a new baby?
-Changed address?
-Change jobs?
-Traveled abroad?
-Married or divorced?
-Got a new phone number?
-Got a new degree?*
That means the documents you sent need to be updated. If you didn't know that, go back a few steps, read about it above, but I will link this again.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=021&top=4
That part that says "tell us of any changes to the personal information on your application, such as changes to your" means that you have to tell them of any change. Any. And that you have to click on the link, Anyway: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=43&top=4
If you live in Canada and went to the US for a black Friday border crossing shopping spree, even for 24 hours, don't you new stamps in your passport? And didn't you have to send pictures of all the pages or list all the countries you visited and lived in, with the date of the stamps? Well, then you have a new stamp and that means a new Schedule A must be uploaded.
Use the web form.
Don't wait for them to ask for additional documents. at the moment you step in your new house, update your driver's license address immediately and tell CIC.
Upload your new docs asap, because if the agent sees the original documents and the updated documents, he/she will not send an ADR and you will save about 2 months!
Now, some cases will really delay your application. We'll talk about it in the mistakes, but if you go to Canada, tell them your spouse is not coming with you, but after you got the PR, you want to sponsor him/her to come from your previous country, after staying 4 years apart, and you can't prove you dated before, that will raise flags. Likewise, if your application is in process, you then add a spouse, maybe because you two weren't married before, the application took too long that you got married in between, well, that will raise flags, but sending proof of marriage is not a problem, after all, who doesn't have a signed document, pictures of the marriage, of, because marriage parties are super expensive, even or pictures of you two together, drinking a coke together, don't hesitate to send it along with a plethora of proof that will not leave a shadow of doubt.
Read these article about marriage and judgment issues:
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/facing-deportation-after-officials-question-marriage
*If the application takes about 2 years to be processed and your 17 yo son finished high school, I don't believe you have to tell them because they can figure it out, but I don't see a reason not to.
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FINAL WORDS AND ADVICE
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Well, let's all be honest. Living here in Canada as an immigration candidate, I have struggled to get enough points for EE, build my career, get more points for EE and etc. But what pisses me off is seeing people trying to cheat. It varies from small stuff to big stuff.
DON'T DO THAT!!! You will only harm yourself and delay everyone else's application.
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MISREPRESENTATION
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Misrepresentation, cheating, and things I have seen or heard:
-People offering a change in job position, title and description, a higher (fake) salary, to fit a province stream: Your boss is a nice guys and want to help you immigrate. To fit a job offer stream, he changes your title and salary ON paper, and pay you above the average for that province (but ask you to return the difference), so that all is good to go. DON'T DO THAT! That is a misrepresentation. Plus, you will harm yourself too much, pay taxes as if you were earning $20/h when you make $15. And you risk losing everything. Find a new job instead, there are plenty. In one year, you become eligible, plus, you will be really employed in a betrbe job, and probably with a better, honest, employer.
-People lying on EE profiles to get an ITA: I have seen people saying that they worked for 2 years in a very nice position just to later admit they were studying their masters and did some lab work with a stipend, or volunteered in some companies, not being paid FT job, or got a scholarship funded by a company or government agency and said he worked for the people paying the stipend without being actually employed by that agency. DON'T DO THAT. This is the reason why a job experience in Canada is worth so much, and work experience in other countries is not worth many points. Because of that, skilled immigrants that did not have the opportunity to work in Canada are at disadvantage, and you are basically making the system slower for all other applicants, because it may take a while to figure if someone really worked for the last 10 years in aa compan that is not visible, which leads to an ADR, someone having to look at it, and delays.
-People lying to the province about the job offer: I saw a few cases on this forum because people sometimes ask weird questions that give away that they are doing something wrong. In one case, a person clearly lying about being a manager in a place where he/she was hired by probably a friend or family. This place hired mainly immigrants from the owner's country. The job was probably horrible, so they couldn't manage to hold Canadians employed there for too long so to have a 3:1 Canadian-to-Immigrant ratio and obey provinces. Don't do that kind of deal with these small business owners. They may try to help you, but will end up in jail. Look for a NOC B job instead, or get a job in the trades and get the certificate you need to get more 50 points on EE, improve your IELTS score, etc. You won't regret.
-Fake marriage: Ugh.
-Marriage for interest (innocent in 40s rich guy vs young 20s hottie): Ugh!
-A fake made-real marriage of current real couples in-love: one of the couple goes to Canada to study or something else, and later wants to bring the partner he or she misses. They legally marry. This is not forbidden, But if you marry, you better love. Plus, it may lead to a longer application.
-False/inexperienced consultants: I don't know if some of you noticed, but I have seen members with a lot of posts here, asking some weird questions. In one case, the person said his/her timeline or stream was X and asked for help. Later, this same person posted a completely timeline and province stream, Y. Then it changed again to Z. Normal people can't leave in AB, PEI and NS at the same time or will hardly be eligible to nominations in all of them, although provinces may fight for this candidate. But the person was describing different periods and different cases. So basically this person is not an immigrant, but a consultant taking money from people, then coming here asking for advice when he/she don't know what to do. If you need consultation, hire a reliable service (they have to be registered), otherwise, if you hire someone who consults in the forum - something you could do by yourself - you will end up paying for the immigration consultant's mistakes, because if something goes wrong and 2 years later you lose your chance to immigrate, all they will say to you is "sorry!" and will not return your money. Now you are older and short of 5k + processing fees, while you could have invested in education and information yourself. Don't hire these people: They will be the cause of your longer processing time and make mistakes that delay everybody else's application.
Basically, the general causes of long processing times are:
- applications that are not straightforward
- ADR
- mistakes
- The system is jammed/backlog
- Misrepresentation
Delays will feed more delay to the system and slow the flow, pushing the average up.
For cases where the person is not thorough with the documentation, or not honest with CIC (and probably not honest in this forum), or if someone is not completely satisfying CIC when additional documents are requested, this makes matters worse. That will obviously be delaying the application and increasing the average processing time for everyone else.
Misrepresentation will never pass.
Tax declarations, T4, amount and proof of unencumbered funds, education, age, previous jobs, travels, visited addresses, how your visited addresses matched the information you gave to the official at a border of countries like US, differences in age of married couples, political views, religion, race, education and age profile, physical appearance, body modifications, social media, and even your phone location will be used by them to judge your application, and believe me, this will not be in the GCMS notes. That is why it takes 6 months! They do not simply check if the police certificate is real and issued by an authority! That would take a few minutes! They do not simply check if the company you said you worked with exist, or if your employment letter is real, or if your degree is not fake. Those things are easy to check and anyone can do it just with Google. What they will do is, they will really know if your worked there and from when to when.
They know everything and they will not be guilty and stupid by giving away their intelligence methods or putting racist notes on the GCMS, they will use technical terms such as "was not able to fully satisfy/prove/convince the officer and more documents were requested" and that is it! If you think you can slide any lie through the system, save yourself some time and money and don't apply!
Do as you say, live an honest life. If you said you were going to a Marriot at an specific address in US, you better go there and log in to that hotel wifi and you better upload your travel photos to Facebook! Or if this information does not match what you told the official... oh boy, you are doomed! If you stayed at another hotel, you better have an explanation ready. You have a half brother who was convicted of a crime? And you thought about not mentioning him in your application? You think you don't need to worry about that because he is not in your friend on Facebook? Well, if he is the son of your father's previous marriage, all they need to do is check your father's son's, his brother and cousins, and see if anyone was ever convicted. That is made by computer and it takes seconds. Be honest and add your half brothers/sisters, adoptions, and anything else that may look negative. If it is not your fault, it is not your fault.
Do not lie, do not cheat, and send a clear and easy to analyze application, otherwise, you will delay yoursy and everyone's application.
MISREPRESENTATION HURTS EVERYONE!
Thank you!
Source : BACKGROUND CHECK by TommySan