To succeed with an Immigration Application watch for Misrepresentations

Every year Citizenship and Immigration Canada receives hundreds of thousands of immigration application for all types of immigration programs.  Every year, CIC also inevitably flags some of the applications as containing a misrepresentation. The consequence of making a misrepresentation in your application can be severe: the applicant can be banned for years from being able to apply to immigrate to Canada.  It is, therefore, essential to understand how to avoid making a misrepresentation in your application.

Of those applications that are tagged with misrepresentations, many are innocent misrepresentations where the applicant is unaware that what was included in his or her application would end up being construed as a misrepresentation. However, even if the misrepresentation is innocent you will nevertheless often be banned for five years.

There are many different types of misrepresentations that can occur. Some, for example, have to do with employment history. When you are writing out your employment history make sure to check every date and compare all these dates with what is written in your employer support letters. Make sure as well that the position and type of work you did all match.

One thing that few people realize is that CIC can and often does try to match info in your application with info in places like LinkedIn or your company’s website. If the info in your application does not match what is on your employers website or in your LinkedIn profile then you may be facing a ban.

Another area that people get caught with misrepresentations is in connection with travel history and family members. In many immigration applications it is necessary to list your travel history and where you lived during the past 10 years. You need to verify all these dates and make sure that they are correct. CIC has the ability to check where you lived and travelled. It’s worthwhile to spend the time to accurately write out your precise travel history.

One last area worth mentioning is with respect to security questions and whether you ever had illegal status in any country. Sometimes people don’t even realize that they, for example, overstayed their visa while visiting some country. You should be as honest and accurate as possible when answering such questions.

CIC does have the resources and ability to verify almost anything that is in your application so it is prudent to be very detail oriented when preparing your application. In some cases it may take substantial effort to figure out things such as your precise travel history over the past several years. However, it is not advisable to estimate because it is very easy to make an error when you are trying to determine dates from several years earlier by relying only on memory. The cost of double-checking is easily outweighed by the benefit of having a clean and accurate application.