US Visa Rejection

Q99) Can US Visa Rejection in past affect Spousal Application's BackGround Security Checks (BGC)?

TBH, visa refusal is very minute thing in BGC ... and frankly speaking, US visa refusal or even Canadian Visa refusal has very little impact on your Permanent Residence application. There are multiple secret services involved on many levels corroborating everything you have declared on your form. The screening of potential immigrants to Canada is a complex process that involves several government departments and agencies such as IRCC, Health Canada, Human Resources Development Canada, and RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] and CSIS, each of whom has specific responsibilities. A culmination of what these agencies do determines admissibility based on medical, criminality, security etc. They look at things like espionage, instigation, subversion, being danger to any country, acts of violence, endangering lives or safety of fellow citizens, being member of banned outfits or have engaged in prohibited activities. IRCC will independently review CSIS's non-binding assessment in final review before giving approval.

Data is collected and then analyzed by CSIS both from within Canada and abroad. If they have any concern with person's history, travel logs, connections, political involvements ,etc... they can seek further clarification from foreign government under Section 16 of CSIS Act.

There is no recent data released by CSIS on the processing times. However, in 2014-2015 CSIS processed 33,900 permanent resident applications and in 2015-2016 it processed 56,500 applications. As per the old data from early 2000s, the average processing time for security screening requests is 62 days. Fifty-one percent of all cases were completed within this time frame. The remaining 49 percent of requests averaged 110 days to complete. Less than one percent of all cases took longer than twelve months. With the introduction of biometrics for citizens from select countries, the processing times are expected to decrease. Given that the economic immigrants are a low risk category, the processing times usually range from 25 – 90 days after the introduction of the express entry for most applications.

In the past CSIS has been criticized for racial profiling applicants based on country of origin, race, religion, travel history, political affiliation, but these factors are the primary means of conducting security screening. Applicants from countries known to harbor terrorists, from unstable countries, of some specific religion and faith, with specific political affiliation are more prone to undergo stringent security screening. This also includes travel history to countries linked with terrorism, drug source countries, inter-religion or inter-nationality marriage etc.

If your file is stuck in BGC for like 3 to 5 months, you can contact CSIS directly by giving:

1. full name,
2. date and place of birth,
3. the signature of the applicant, and
4. a return mailing address as replies are not sent by email or fax.
5. If you are enquiring on behalf of another person, the request must be accompanied by the "Consent Form to Disclose Information to a Designated Individual"
6. Mail or fax the request to CSIS at the attention of:

Assistant Director, Operations

Canadian Security Intelligence Service

P.O. Box 9732, Station T

Ottawa, ON

K1G 4G4

Fax: 613-369-2954​

(It takes CSIS 8 weeks to process these requests)

If CSIS has finished the security screening, then your file is pending final review with IRCC. There is nothing much you can do at this stage. However, there is anecdotal evident that ordering GCMS notes does initiate the process. This is because every time you order GCMS notes, an agent will review the notes before releasing them. If the file has been reviewed by the Agent, and is pending posting the update on the system, the same will be done by the agent when he is reviewing the notes and this will move your file ahead.​

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To the attention of: Assistant Director, Operations

Canadian Security Intelligence Service

P.O. Box 9732, Station T

Ottawa, ON

K1G 4G4

Fax: 613-369-2954

Dear Sir/Madam,

I, the undersigned, kindly request the status of my immigration screening file performed by CSIS, for which I provide the information below:

Full name: xxxxx

Data of birth: xxxx

Place of birth: xxxxx

Return mailing address: xxxxx

I am a resident of xxxxx since xxxxx under an open work permit that expires on xxxxx. I qualified for the Permanent Residence by being nominated by xxxxx province and applied for Permanent Residence trough the Express Entry stream on xxxxx under file number xxxxx.

I thank you in advance,

Best regards,

______________________________________________

xxxxx