Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Canada is committed to reaching its immigration targets for 2020. The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) have announced two Express Entry draws in the past five days.
The first draw (139) was held on March 18th for Express Entry candidates with existing provincial nominations. 668 candidates received an invitation to apply (ITA) that had a minimum Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 720. The CRS score may seem high but candidates with a provincial nomination receive an additional 600 CRS points which explain the spike in required points.
IRCC has applied its tie-breaking rule with the timestamp of March 19, 2020, at 02:04:06 UTC. This simply means that all candidates with a CRS score of 720 or above, and previous candidates with a score of 720 or above who entered their profile in the Express Entry pool before the selected tie-breaking date and time will receive an invitation in this round.
The second draw (140) was announced today, March 23rd, 2020. IRCC invited 3,232 applicants with a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 467 or higher to apply for permanent residence. The most recent draw brings bring the total number of invitations issued in 2020 through Canada’s Express Entry system to 22,600.
If you have any questions about express entry, permanent residence, provincial nominations or COVID-19 please contact us directly.