Canada’s immigration system application Express Entry issues 3,250 permanent residency invites: Report

Canada’s Express Entry, an online system to manage immigration applications, carried out a draw, inviting 3,250 invitations to apply (ITA). The ITAs have witnessed an increase of 500 this time, Hindustan Times’ business website Livemint reported.

According to the report, the number of candidates receiving invitation to apply has grown by 250 until the draw on August 31. Last week, 500 more ITAs were issued to applicants. The previous Express Entry draw witnessed 2,740 ITAs being issued.

The Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) cut-off score stood at 511, a Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) stated. The CRS score is basically a points-based system used to assess and score the profile of applicants and subsequently rank it in the Express Entry pool. The system is used to assess the applicants’ skills, education, language ability, work experience and other factors.

There has been a decline in the minimum CRS score, which has lost 8-9 points in each draw. This time, there has been a five-point decline, the Livemint report stated. There is no programme specified for the Express Entry draw, which means that the invitations were issued to the candidates from the Canadian Experience Class, Federal Skilled Worker Programme and the Federal Skilled Trades Programme.

The Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada had paused all the Express Entry draws for 18 months starting December 2020. At that time, only those candidates who were eligible for permanent residence under the CEC or the provincial nominee programme were invited for application. The CEC draws were paused in 2021.

This year, Canada welcomed 40,785 immigrants via Express Entry. If this immigration continues, the immigration levels plan target of 4.32 lakh might exceed.

The Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada has already announced that it is likely to bring in massive changes in the Express Entry draw in 2023 which will help them to issue invitations to apply (ITA) to target individuals with specific work experience, education or language ability groups.