Beijing VO closed for family class applications

[BrianDell]

Mississauga isn't sending applications to Beijing anymore, and apps currently in Beijing have been sent to Hong Kong as well, according to reports. Beijing sent my spouse a notice saying her application is now in Hong Kong's "inventory." No comment on whether they opened it during the two and a half months it was in Beijing.

 

[ABCml]

Mississauga isn't sending applications to Beijing anymore, and apps currently in Beijing have been sent to Hong Kong as well, according to reports. Beijing sent my spouse a notice saying her application is now in Hong Kong's "inventory." No comment on whether they opened it during the two and a half months it was in Beijing.

Sorry to hear.. Have you gotten your GMCS notes yet? I noticed sometime in the last couple of months that Hong Kong's processing time had jumped from 7 to 9 months. When my wife went for her interview in Dec., she said it appeared that Beijing was doing only 2 interviews per day, which seemed kind of slack - maybe a complete staff overhaul was due...

 

[Rob_TO]

Several years ago there used to be visa offices in Korea and Japan... then they closed them and consolidated them all into the Manila office.

I'm actually surprised they've had 2 unique visa offices (BJ and HK) supporting just 1 main region, for this long. It actually makes more sense in terms of resources and overhead costs, that CIC just has 1 main office processing all China (HK and mainland) applications.

 

[mcdouga99]

Oh that is why my wives application was sent to Hong Kong instead of Beijing like it should have been. Hopefully they can increase capacity at Hong Kong to reduce waiting times.

 

[ABCml]

Several years ago there used to be visa offices in Korea and Japan... then they closed them and consolidated them all into the Manila office.

I'm actually surprised they've had 2 unique visa offices (BJ and HK) supporting just 1 main region, for this long. It actually makes more sense in terms of resources and overhead costs, that CIC just has 1 main office processing all China (HK and mainland) applications.

..If they can handle the workload

maybe Beijing is just dropping family class apps as Brian indicated

 

[BrianDell]

Someone in a Chinese language forum called CIC and was reportedly advised that they simply moved files to Hong Kong (and not just family class applications) because Beijing was significantly more backlogged. That sounds reversible and/or repeatable at any time, but I think there's more going on than just that, as it appears that Beijing hasn't just slowed down but has been at a complete halt since late January and that happens to coincide with Mississauga starting to send all China applications to Hong Kong and to Hong Kong only.

Also, March 25 apparently wasn't just one more day in an ongoing process of distributing files between Hong Kong and Beijing, but saw an e-mail notice go out to a huge number of people saying their applications were being transferred to Hong Kong. I've looked through the Chinese forums and there aren't any reports of anyone NOT having their application moved. Everyone from July applicants to January applicants say they got the email saying that henceforth their office is in the former British colony (most Beijing applicants who mailed their applications in June or earlier got their visas in January or earlier).

Bad news for Hong Kong applicants is that they may be put on hold to do these incoming Beijing files until the wait time (based on when first sent by Mississauga to either Hong Kong or Beijing) for a Beijing and Hong Kong applicant is roughly similar. I can't imagine that these Beijing applicants would have to start over in terms of wait time, because it would just be too harsh for those who applied last summer to lose a half year in queue.

One thing I am not inclined to doubt with respect to that reported call with CIC is being told that 7 to 9 months should be considered more like the average than the 80th percentile, given the situation.