2023 - Immigration Lawyer Vancouver, Canada | Sas & Ing Immigration Law Centre
 

Home2023 - Immigration Lawyer Vancouver, Canada | Sas & Ing Immigration Law Centre

On December 7, 2023, the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship announced that, starting January 1, 2024, international students will be required to have more funds to be granted a student visa to ensure they can afford the costs of living in Canada. Speaking to reporters, the Minister acknowledged that there may be unintended consequences arising from the increase in financial requirements, which are more than doubling from $10,000 to $20,635 to cover the first year of living expenses in Canada, but he felt it was necessary so that students will not feel forced to work to make ends meet. There is already a debate about whether the Minister’s announcement will lead to a noticeable decrease in the number of international students in Canada and whether those who meet the higher financial requirements will truly benefit from this change. In this blog post we will review some of the experiences we have had at our law firm working closely with international students.

On November 16, 2023, the Province of British Columbia (the Province) announced the prioritization of 25 construction occupations through the BC Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP). The BC PNP is an economic selection program that provides an opportunity for employers to nominate workers who seek to immigrate to British Columbia (BC). Let’s see how employers and construction workers can benefit from this new BC PNP priority program.

In our immigration law firm, we are often consulted by persons with criminal records facing deportation from Canada. Deportation is the severest penalty a person can face under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (“IRPA”). For most individuals who are found inadmissible to Canada, there are immigration options such as Criminal Rehabilitation, a Temporary Resident Permit or a Humanitarian and Compassionate application for permanent residence in order to remain in Canada.

At our immigration law office we frequently consult with clients about spousal sponsorships, which involves an application by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to sponsor their spouse or common-law partner for permanent residence in Canada. These applications are quite commonplace and represent a large proportion of approvals each year. To illustrate, in 2021 over 69,000 foreign nationals were admitted to Canada as permanent residents under a spousal sponsorship and this represented about 17% of the total admissions approved for the entire year.

When Canada’s Start Up Visa (SUV) was first introduced in 2013, the uptake from applicants was very slow with few applications in the first several years. Things started picking up by 2018 and 2019 with the program building up momentum, largely due to immigration lawyers and consultants becoming more familiar with the program and recommending it to aspiring business immigrants. One of the most attractive features of the program was that SUV applicants would be given permanent residence (PR) on a proposed innovative business concept and that applications would be approved quickly - within 12 months or less. Then the global pandemic hit and immigration processing ground to a halt. Yet the momentum of ongoing SUV applicants continued unabated. By October 2021, “LexBase” editor Richard Kurland reported a backlog of approximately 6700 applicants and opined that the processing of applications would take several years. His prediction has come true! The combination of an increased number of applications and lengthier processing times of several years, has changed the way that SUV applications are assessed by visa officers and current and prospective applicants should be aware that the SUV playing field has changed!

There is a constant discussion in mainstream media about the need for foreign workers to maintain and support the Canadian economy. Practically, however, it is not that easy for employers to bring foreign workers to Canada in a timely fashion. At our immigration law firm, we find that employers are often surprised at the numerous steps that they need to take to bring foreign workers to Canada to assist them with their business obligations. What does an employer need to know to be able to streamline the process of bringing workers to Canada?

The term “digital nomad” has been in use for over 25 years to describe a person who supports themselves by working remotely, rather than at a fixed location, which allows them to freely travel the globe. With ongoing technological advances and a rise in digital nomadism due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the term has gone mainstream and has made its way into the vocabulary of Canadian immigration law ever since a June 2023 announcement by our government that they are actively marketing Canada as an attractive destination for digital nomads. In this article, we will review the government’s latest policy announcement and discuss the pros and cons of coming to Canada as a digital nomad.

On September 8, 2023 Canada’s newest Minister of Immigration, Mark Miller, announced the re-opening of the Parents and Grandparents program (PGP) signifying the fourth consecutive year that the pool of sponsors would be selected from those who registered their Interest to Sponsor (ITS) in 2020. Practically this means that no new sponsors could even register for have their parents or grandparents immigrate to Canada for four years. What does this mean for permanent residents or citizens who are seeking to bring their parents or grandparents to live with them in Canada?

One of the most onerous, harsh and negative provisions in Canadian immigration law is a misrepresentation determination. A finding of misrepresentation comes with a five-year ban of applying to come to Canada. What options do you have when a misrepresentation determination has been made against you?

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