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Wonder what really happens at the consulates? Find out in the Isaac Brock Society’s Consulate Report Directory, currently 274 pages of first-hand accounts of renunciation/relinquishment appointments, arranged by consulate location, along with links to further information and the required Dept of State forms.
Reports are updated as consulate visit stories are posted on the website.
You can post here or elsewhere on the site (we’ll keep an eye out for them). Some comments may be excerpted or condensed slightly in the consulate reports. The original posts and comments remain on their threads are not edited.
Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences…and keep ’em coming! It’s a new experience for everyone and your information is really helpful.
To change or delete your report in the Directory, you can post the change as a comment on this thread or e-mail Pacifica@isaacbrocksociety.ca
Click here for the Consulate Report Directory
2013.02.12. As of today, this discussion now continues at Part 2. Please click here to go to Consulate Report Directory (Brockers describe their Consulate Meetings) Part 2.
Thanks to all of you for your help in this matter. And I especially want to send special thank you to Petros for guiding me through some bleak times over the past year on the phone and through email. A true friend and brocker.
For anyone going to Halifax, these folks are very professional and curteous, a very good experience overall.
I look forward to helping others in need of information and direction
Congratulations, @mach73. How long did the Canadian citizenship application process take, from start to finish?
*Mach73, Wow that is FANTASTIC!! I am so happy for you!! Now you can celebrate, have a Wonderful Holiday and New Year!!
@mach73, congratulations on being free at last! Thank you for sharing those valuable details – for all the many other relinquishers to come – who will need to study and absorb. I share your thanks to Petros for the same. And owe a debt to others here. Many a day I’ve looked to IBS, and Brockers for solace, advice and information, and I am certain that there must be many other silent ones we’ll never know about.
@broken man, I heard first hand recently, that for some it appears to have moved faster than was posted on the Immigration Canada website – ex. an actual 12-13 months mailing to ceremony, vs. the projected 19 or 21.
Well done, mach73! I will make sure that when his time comes my husband is as well versed as possible about relinquishment vs. renunciation. It’s all about having your ducks in a row isn’t it. Glad you were on the east coast and not the west though. It seems the Vancouver consulate is having a tough time climbing a certain learning curve.
Thank you all again.
It may sound strange to people who have never had to go through the emotions and life credit units we have been forced to confront just to hold onto what we have.
The feeling one gets when finally being ‘free’ cannot be described to anyone who is outside this circle.
At the time , I could not really enjoy the Canadian citizenship ceremony as it meant very little to me until I was free from the United States, It now means everything to me.
@A broken man on a Halifax pier
The citizenship process took around 14 months from start to finish.
@badger – For simple cases (long-term PR applying for citizenship, no doubt about the 1,079 days, too old to have to take the citizenship test) a year or so is in line with what I’ve heard, too.
I’ve often thought that this site was the natural bookend to the IBS:
http://www.immigration.ca/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=3&SID=a8297za81268795feebz7ab34835zacz&title=canadian-citizenship
*@A broken man on a Halifax pier, I am at 13 month’s and waiting. I mailed my application about 6 weeks after Mach73. I am hoping to hear soon. I was hoping to hear before 2013 but I guess it is not going to happen.
*Congrats mach73. Here’s to freedom. Cheers.
@saddened123,
With regards to your citizenship application, does your status page on the CIC website say ‘in progress’ or still ‘received’.
If it still says \received’ i would contact someone…whether or not you get any response from that is probably doubtful…but your file should be in the works by now.
I will say that once you are ‘in progress’ things happen pretty fast. In fact..after the exam, they told me that it would be 2 to 4 months before the grant of citizenship through ‘ceremony’ and it was less than 1 month that I got called.
You could look at this another way…no news is good news…as a lot of people have been asked to provide extra information and some even fingerprints. If you have been waiting this long, doubtful they need any extra information from you.
*@Mach73, It has been in the Processing Stage since August. Did you receive a email or letter in the mail with the date for the Citizenship Ceremony??
*I don’t know how to correct an earlier post of mine (Dec 8), but the 2012 Form 8854 links posted by @notamused are 100% correct now. They are:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8854.pdf
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8854.pdf
@saddened123
Yes. They will contact you by mail for both the exam and the ceremony
*@Mach73, So they do not email and mail, just mail??..I will not have to take the test I am way over 54. I was hoping to get a email also, because we have a different mailman it seems like every other week and they are always making mistakes, by putting our mail in someone elses box. I don’t think they can read or just don’t want too..
@saddened123
In my case they only mailed it…and it does not come registered mail either, just normal mail. Since you do not have to write the exam, you might still have to have an interview with a citizenship Judge before the ceremony…or maybe not, depending on if they require a confirmation of your documents or additional questions.
I can give you an account of my experience in Halifax…when I wrote the exam there were only 4 of us, at the ceremony there was over 100. They don’t have ceremonies all the time, so I think they wait until they get a gaggle of people then put one on.
I o now recall talking to a number of individuals at the ceremony…some had been waiting less than 14 months and some had been waiting 21 months to get there citizenship..there seems to be no reasoning behind the time difference.
If you feel it might have gotten lost in the mail somehow, I would use that excuse to call and get an update.
*@Mach73, Thanks for letting me your experience. I am very happy for you. I know you wanted to Relinquish before the end of the year. I really was surprised to hear that you Relinquished today. That is just Great!! I know you must be on Cloud 9..
If I don’t hear something in the next week, I may just give them a call.
@ saddened123
In a recent e-mail to Citizenship & Immigration I tried to explain that there could be a surge in applications for Canadian citizenship due to the overreaching and onerous demands of FATCA and the US tax system. I was thinking of you waiting for your citizenship approval (and my husband too) and how there is now a sense of urgency developing. I concluded by saying …
“In light of all this I am writing to urge the Dept. of Citizenship and Immigration to at least consider fast tracking the citizenship applications of Americans who have chosen to make Canada their home IF appeals to the Canadian government to NOT sign any IGA with the USA regarding FATCA do not succeed.”
@ Em,
That’s great what you wrote to them. Fast-tracking US-citizen PRs’ citizenship applications would be a marvelous move onCanada ’s part to provide protection to these people.
@Em and anyone else concerned about fast-tracking Canadian citizenship applications from US-person permanent residents in Canada: I think you’re likely to have more traction on that request if you write to the Minister (Jason Kenny I believe) rather than to the Department, but I’d suggest also writing to the NDP and Liberal opposition critics and to your own MP and make it clear to the Minister that you’re doing that. This at least would raise the profile of the request. Maybe also cc the Finance Minister and the Finance critics, at least as long as the IGA negotiations are still underway, to perhaps stiffen a few backbones and highlight that fact that a lot of USPs in Canada are very serious about the repercussions of FATCA and are taking whatever steps they think are needed to protect themselves. Maybe cc the CCLA on this too, while you’re at it.
If you can think of a sympathetic Canadian journalist who is familiar with the issues, writing to them about this might not hurt either …
I don’t think the department (read bureaucrats) have any discretion on fast-tracking citizenship applications, certainly not under the control-freak cabinet we seem to have now, but in reluctant fairness I have to say I doubt any previous cabinet under any previous government would have delegated that kind of discretion to the bureaucrats in Citizenship and Immigration. Of course whoever in the department ends up with your letter might bump it up to the Minister’s attention, but I don’t think that will have the same impact as if you write directly to the Minister and your MP (depending on how on-the-ball your MP is; some actually do believe it their job to represent their constituents’ concerns with government ministers, regardless of political affiliation, and some don’t seem to bother much …) And, being cynical, I suspect some MPs may not care what a resident of their riding thinks, if that resident isn’t a citizen and can’t vote (mind you, even under current slow-track processing you’re likely to have citizenship and voting rights by the time 2015, the generally believed date for our next likely federal election, rolls around).
I doubt any of this will have any practical impact before FATCA and/or IGA kick in, but I could be wrong. I’m cynical and dubious your request will get much priority with the present government we have.
So many Congrats in order! Myst, Dunja, C Borneman & Partner, NewB.Thanks for the descriptions as well, it’s good to see how things are working in places other than Canada.
Mach3-am especially glad for you. Been a long haul since ExpatForum, eh? Somehow, it’s extra-delightful to learn of yet-another long termer getting free! Hooray!
…and usxcanada, too, is free. Congratulations to all!
*@ Em, Thank you so much!! I think it was a great idea. Lets hope it works. I may send something as well..How long has your husband been waiting now??
@ Schubert
Actually that was an e-mail to Jason Kenney because he is the minister in charge of Citizenship & Immigration. No reply yet but that’s par for the course. Your other suggestions are good too. Thanks.
@ saddened123
My husband has been waiting since April. So far the website only says “Received”. We just checked it today.