What happens if there is not enough space to answer questions in an immigration application?

What happens if there is not enough space to answer questions in an immigration application?

All immigration forms have a limited amount of space for a person’s answers. If an answer requires more space, what do you do?
Just because an immigration form has a limited amount of space does not mean that you should shorten your answer to fit the space. In any application, it is important that additional pages be added to include all relevant information and that these pages are clearly references. Failure to do so could result in an application being refused.

What happens if I do not put in a full answer?
Earlier this year, an immigration applicant took a case to court after his application was refused. In the case of Shah v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Mr. Shah applied to immigrate to Canada. Because his job duties took up more space than what was in the immigration form, Mr. Shah stated that added an additional page listing all of his duties. On the immigration form, only two duties were listed. On the additional page, Mr. Shah stated he listed his 17 other duties.

The application of Mr. Shah was refused because the immigration officer did not believe that Mr. Shah did the duties required of the position. In refusing the application, the officer claimed that this additional page Mr. Shah said he included was not actually there.

In his decision, the judge found that he had no reason to disbelieve either Mr. Shah or the officer. However, because it was impossible for the court to determine whether the addition page was included or not, the court accepted that the page was not in front of the officer. Because of this, the judge said that the officer did not make an error and Mr. Shah lost his case.

If I need to add an additional page, how do I do it?
In Mr. Shah’s case, the judge noted that Mr. Shah did not put anything on the immigration form that would have alerted the officer that there may have been an additional page. As a result, if you need to add additional pages to an immigration application, it is important to reference on the actual immigration form that additional pages have been added. If more than one page has been added, the number of additional pages should be indicated.

In addition, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has instructions as to how to attach additional pages to an application. It is important that these instructions be followed so that errors such as this do not result in refused applications.

This Article is prepared for general information purposes only and is intended to provide comments for readers and friends of the Filipino Journal. The contents should not be viewed as legal advice or opinion.

Reis is a lawyer with the law firm of Aikins, MacAulay & Thorvaldson LLP and practices in the areas of immigration law. His direct line is 957-4640. If you would like to know more about Reis or Aikins you can visit the firm’s web page at www.aikins.com, follow Reis on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/ImmigrationReis, or connect with him on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/reispagtakhan