ARCHIVED – Operational Bulletin 365 - December 6, 2011

Economic Class Applications from Venezuela – Transfer from Caracas to Mexico City

This Operational Bulletin has expired.

Issue

This Operational Bulletin (OB) describes the transfer of new and pending economic class applications from Caracas to Mexico City, for residents and citizens of Venezuela, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.

Background

Effective December 6, 2011, economic class applications for residents and citizens of Venezuela, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao will be processed at the visa office in Mexico City instead of Caracas. Economic class applications submitted to Caracas before December 6, 2011 will be transferred to the visa office in Mexico City for processing.

Caracas will continue to provide its expertise and selected services to support the processing of these applications in Mexico City.

Processing Instructions for Economic Class applications

As the intake of applications has been centralized in Canada for the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) Program and the Federal Immigrant Investor Program, residents and citizens of Venezuela, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao applying under one of these economic classes will continue to apply directly to the Centralized Intake Office (CIO). Effective December 1, 2011, the intake of applications for the Quebec Skilled Worker Program (QSW) and the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) was also centralized at the CIO.

As of December 6, 2011, new applications from residents and citizens of Venezuela, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao under the self-employed class and applications from Quebec-selected Business applicants must be submitted directly to the visa office in Mexico City.

In support of these operations in Mexico City, Caracas will conduct verifications and site visits; provide advice to officers; print visa counterfoils and Confirmation of Permanent Residence documents (IMM 5292 form); and conduct other verifications as required (e.g. DNA testing). Should an interview be required, applicants will have the option of travelling to Mexico City or will be provided with alternatives, including Caracas.

Other categories

The visa office in Caracas will continue to process applications for the family class, dependants of protected persons (DR-2), live-in caregivers (LC2) and adopted children.

In 2010, some of the pre C-50 FSW files were transferred from Caracas to the Case Processing Pilot in Ottawa (CPP-O). These files will continue to be processed and finalized by the CPP-O and will not be part of the transfer of economic files from Caracas to Mexico City.

Communications

The Citizenship and Immigration Canada website and the websites for the Canadian Embassy in Caracas and in Mexico City will be updated to reflect this change in processing.