Update on Fingerprints

So I finally received a return phone call from the RCMP.  It took 8 emails and 4 phone messages before I received this phone call. 

This RCMP officer told me that although they had received his information April 5th, they did not assign it to anyone until June 18th.  From the date of June 18th it will take in EXCESS of 140 days to process!!! So I guess that RCMP officer that I spoke with over 3 weeks ago did lie to me then. I am such a fool, I didn't ask his name. He had told me that we should be recieving the fingerprints in 1 week's time. So this "limbo time" is at least four months long - I daren't think of how much longer it may actually take. The most annoying thing is that if he were here in person, he could have done his fingerprints electronically and it would have taken them 24 hours to process. 

I explained our situation again and asked politely if there was anyway of speeding it up a bit for him, since the majority of people requesting fingerprint clearances are living in Canada.  Unfortunately, she was not one of these people who is able to think outside the box and have a bit of  a heart.  I have emailed my MP to see if they can assist at all in speeding this up, but I don't have very high hopes for this.

Once we receive these fingerprints, the next departmental application has a noted waiting time of 6-12 months, although in a phone conversation with them, they assured me that it would probably be a 6 month waiting time. Once they have completed their processing, it then all goes back to the Guatemala Immigration department - at that office I am completely in the dark as to how long it would take them to finalyze his Spousal Application. His medicals expire in September, so we are now going to have to redo these again! So bloody annoying.

Obviously this saga is taking much longer than we had originally anticipated.  The inefficiency of each Department that we come up against and rely on for processing has forced my hand. So, I have arranged for an official "leave of absence" of one year starting on Dec. 1st, 2010 so that we can all be together as a family while we wait for Douglas' Canadian Permanent Resident card.