Why CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) has not made any more draws from Express Entry since April 17th, 2015?Express-entry-halted

CIC has an annual target number (not a quota, but a rough number only) of immigrants to bring into Canada.  For 2015, it is between 260,000 and 285,000.  Out of that total rough number, CIC is looking to select about 65% for economic applicants.  The initial plan was to select them (roughly 185,000 economic immigrants) via new Express Entry system.  So, why has CIC not selected applicants via Express Entry since April 17, 2015?

One of the main problems is the backlog in application processing – those applications were received by CIC until December 31, 2014.  CIC anticipates more than 50% of 2015 economic immigrants would be covered by those backlogged applicants.  Therefore, in fact, there is less than 90,000 applicants CIC would seek via Express Entry; if you take into account for any provincial nominee programs that are outside of Express Entry system, the number is much less than 90,000 applicants.

Furthermore, CIC anticipates to draw between 15 and 25 times in 2015.  If 15 is the more accurate number of draws, then CIC already have done more than 50% of draws – 8 out 15.

Finally, a lot of provinces are still working out how to incorporate their provincial nominee program into Express Entry, such as Ontario.

With all these factors, CIC is cautious as to when to make next draw and how many applicants to invite because they wish to meet their promise of “6 months or less processing time” under Express Entry system.

So don’t be anxious about when and how they will make their draw.  Instead, make your express entry profile as best as possible and seek ways to improve your comprehensive ranking score to be higher than your current score.

If you have any individual questions or concerns, please contact our office for more customized consultation for your unique situation. Please note that this posting is for general information only and is not to be considered binding or official legal counsel since situations will vary and can be complicated. The content in this post is current as of the day of entry. Due to the changing nature of Immigration law, the information in this entry may or may not still be applicable.