Why hiring a professional?

Why hiring a professional?

In Canada, anyone who wants to provide Canadian immigration or citizenship advice or representation for a fee (or for any other benefit) must be one of the following:

· A licensee in good standing with the College

· A member of a Canadian law society, or

· A member of the Chambre des notaires du Québec.

A designated representative is either an RCIC (Registered Canadian Immigration Consultant), a federally licensed professional or a member of a Canadian law society, or A member of the Chambre des notaires du Québec. Please check CICC's website to verify your consultant. (https://college-ic.ca/protecting-the-public/find-an-immigration-consultant)

For many newcomers to Canada, working with a professional immigration or citizenship consultant is a step toward a brighter future. One of the benefits is that you can have someone professional and authorized to access your file and help you maintain communications with IRCC or get the newest updates from IRCC. Especially during the pandemic, IRCC has over one million backlog cases that haven't been processed. If you don't designate an authorized representative when submitting your application, the officer will not share any information on file until they can validate the person's identity.

Canada is an immigration country. Our country is built over generations of emigrants. Thus, we have a robust and rigorous immigration system. However, even though most general information about an application can usually be found on the IRCC's website, clients often find out they got outdated information because our policies and systems are constantly updating and adapting. In addition, many clients tend to be confused about what supporting documents would benefit the application or raise concerns to the officers. And for immigration purposes, terms used in the jurisdiction can have different meanings for immigration.

Hiring a professional will significantly reduce the risk of misrepresentation, which sometimes can be caused by providing wrong answers that the client forgot or submitting false documents that contradict some questions. Misrepresentation is a serious offence under Canada's immigration law; such an offence will result in a FIVE-year ban on the client's profile, and you won't be able to submit any application during the ban. IRCC can even revoke your status, including Permanent Resident and Citizenship status, if you previously provided false information when obtaining your status.

With AI's increasing role (Artificial intelligence) in visa processing, the application that used to file with a generic template doesn't work anymore. Instead, the application now requires consultants to take a deeper look at each client's situation, especially for those who previously received refusals on the applications before. Therefore, professionals should reassess and address the problem before submitting a new application. "It always costs double to fix a previous problem than do it right the first time." Therefore, hiring a professional RCIC will help clients save time and money and develop a more solid and concrete pathway to their permanent residency in Canada.