Federal government will let international graduates stay in Canada another 18 months
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser has announced that beginning this summer, international students who have graduated from Canadian post-secondary institutions are allowed to stay in Canada longer now that the government has proposed a temporary program to help students to qualify for permanent residency (PR).
This means that graduates with work permits that expire in 2022 will qualify for an extension of 18 months. The Immigration Minister is reopening express-entry for immigrants to become permanent residents.
What is the express entry program?
The Express Entry Program is an online system that the government uses to process applications from skilled workers that want to acquire Canadian permanent resident status. The government manages three immigration programs:
Canadian Experience Class: For workers who have Canadian work experience
Federal Skilled Worker: For workers who have foreign work experience
Federal Skilled Trades: For workers who are qualified in a skilled trade
In order to qualify for any of these programs, the individual needs to meet certain requirements depending on the program they are interested in apply. Also, the only people that qualify for express entry are individuals with post-secondary institution degrees, skilled work experience, and proficiency in English or French.
If you want more detailed information about the requirements of the programs, click the link attached. Also, there is a tool to check your eligibility to apply for any of them.
What happened with the Express Entry program during the pandemic?
Before the pandemic, the IRCC would invite the highest score candidates to apply for immigration. But after the pandemic started, IRCC put an emphasis on inviting Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates to achieve a record-high number of immigrants in a single year; Canada received a total of 405,000 permanent residents in 2021.
This week, the government made an exception to their PGWP system by offering a work permit of 18 months to give immigrants time to complete the work experience required to be able to apply for permanent residency. The IRCC is looking to land approximately 55,000 Express Entry residents in 2022.
If you want more details about the process and the IRCC's last updates for the Express Entry program, please visit the CIC News website. If you have any enquiries about the immigration process, please contact us.