November 1st, 2016

A year ago the WCI community worked alongside St. Jacob’s Calvary United Church to respond to the Syrian humanitarian crisis.  We successfully embarked upon the path to a private refugee sponsorship as a way our WCI students, staff and families could take practical action in the face of a global refugee crisis. As expected, you, our amazing WCI community, responded in a spectacular way.  We easily raised over $35,000.00 and collected huge amount of household items, in order to support a family that we would welcome in what we thought would be in the weeks ahead

Our sponsorship story continues to have a delayed happy ending.  After a timeline of weeks became months, last spring we were told we might have to re-match with a family from a different part of the world. After some tough dialogue with MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) and Calvary United Church we decided to do so.  We are still waiting for that match to become a reality.

Our sponsorship will be a reality, but at this time, we would like the WCI families to have the full information that has been shared with us.  Please find the update received this week from MCC below this message.  In the meantime, your donations are safely in storage or in the Calvary designated bank account. If you would like to donate with a tax receipt for this fiscal year, please contact Craig Nickel at WCI for more information on how do so.  100% of these future and existing funds will be used to help our new family re-settle in Canada as soon as they are on our soil.  We look forward to the day when we can notify you of their arrival!

Sincerely,

The WCI Refugee Sponsorship Committee

 

Greetings Friends,

We want to give you an update on the stuck cases for the Blended Visa Office Referred (BVOR) program.  As you are likely aware, there were many BVOR cases provided for consideration at the end of last year and the beginning of this year.  MCC was able to get quite a number of these files to try and meet the demand of the people who were coming to us wanting to help in this way.

Many of these refugees came quite quickly and now with the help of our many constituent groups are settling in their new homes.  However, there were a substantial number that ran into processing problems and are still awaiting a decision by a visa officer.   Many of these problems are complicated to sort out. It can involve getting information from other sources or the refugee themselves.  Communication in the region can be challenging as people move and phone number can change often.

Because of the long delays, Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) decided to start offering replacement cases to groups that did not want to wait for a decision on their original case.  That process started in early September and is continuing.  They have not given a timeline in terms of finishing the replacement cases, because it is not predictable.  But they certainly want to put this all behind them, so they are doing what they can.

Where is IRCC in the process?

There were about 150 cases that were “stuck” and IRCC is about one-third through the list at this point.  The groups that have been waiting the longest are getting the first chance at replacement case, and they tell us they have worked their way up to cases that were submitted sometime in late January at this point.  They are not going exactly in order since they wait for a case to be available that matches fairly closely the one that they are replacing.  When they get to the next Constituent Group (CG) in the queue, they make a quick determination if the case can be quickly finished.  If it cannot, they look for a similar sized family in their referrals from the UN Refugee Agency to offer the group a replacement.  These cases have passed all the screening and are expected to be able to travel shortly.  When they find a good match, they send an email to us and give us one week to decide to cancel the original sponsorship and take the replacement.  We will help you in making that decision at that point.

What happens to the original sponsorship?

If a group decides to take a replacement case, the visa office will continue to process the case that has been withdrawn by us and if they are eventually approved they will come as a Government Assisted Refugee (GAR).  Some groups have asked if they could take on the replacement group and the original case.  We have pushed IRCC on that, and they say they are not able to do that.  There are logistical challenges in part because BVORs take longer to process than GARs because of the connection that need to made with the groups.  The visa offices involved have a lot of pressure to send as many refugees as they can, so the added work that a BVOR takes stands in the way of their overall goal.  However, the government thinks this program important for other reasons, and so they are committed to sending a certain number of BVORs.  They want to get through the stuck cases as quickly as possible.

We thank you once again for your continued commitment to the cause of refugees. Thanks for the patience in navigating this bureaucratic process. We assure you our continued support till your family arrives and settles.

Bryan Dyck, MCC Canada National Migration and Resettlement Program Coordinator