[JayBee]

Hello everyone and Merry Christmas
Still awaiting a decision from our EOI ....we did get a little excited last week as we had a letter from Immigration (dated 13th november!!!) but it was just to say our EOI has been forwarded to London branch.
Anyway, tentatively planning ahead and gathering documents etc but I was wondering how long we might be without our passports if these go with our (fingers crossed) ITA ? Or can you get them back if needed?

thanks
Jaybee

[migratory birds]

Unless procedure has changed since May 2007, we submitted ours only after completed ITA had been submitted/reviewed/PR granted - I waited nearly the full six months after all was approved to send them off to get the permanant residency visas placed in them. We were without them for only a week while they were sent to/from London/US.

Passports were not sent with ITA - only photocopies. Not to say that you couldn't send your passports with the ITA but I wouldn't - too long to be without them. And you sometimes don't know whose desk they're going to be sitting on or for how long.

I started working with Dave Someone, sent off my ITA, never heard a word, finally sent an email only to have a canned reply stating he was no longer there. Contacted a supervisor who, only then, assigned my case to a wonderful, on-the-ball Someone Else. Had I sent our passports with the ITA they could've been sitting who-knows-where for awhile until I figured out that my case was not moving anywhere and asked for someone else to pick it up.