What’s new in global immigration?

This week, the Global Immigration team at Smith Stone Walters would like to highlight the following recent updates from Canada, Malaysia, Portugal and the United States.

Canada: Change to health insurance requirement for super visa

Effective 28 January 2025, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is allowing super visa applicants to purchase a private health insurance policy from companies outside Canada.

The super visa is a multiple-entry visa that allows parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens and permanent residents to visit their family in Canada for longer periods of time: five years per visit, with the option to extend their stay while in Canada.

Super visa applicants must prove they have a minimum level of private health coverage to be granted a super visa, as they are not eligible for provincial or territorial health care plans. Previously, proof of health insurance could only be from Canadian health insurance providers.

To be eligible as valid health insurance coverage, the policy from a company outside Canada must:

• Be issued by a foreign insurance company authorized by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) to provide accident and sickness insurance.
• Appear on OSFI’s list of federally regulated financial institutions.
• Be issued under the company’s insurance business in Canada.

Applicants can check whether a foreign insurance company is authorized to provide accident and sickness insurance by visiting the OSFI website. More information on these changes to the super visa can also be found on IRCC’s website.

Super visa holders should have a valid health insurance policy for the duration of their stay in Canada. If coverage expires before they leave Canada, super visa holders may need to renew their health insurance during their stay. Private health insurance must be valid for each entry to Canada.

Canada: 2025 provincial and territorial allocations under the international student cap

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced provincial and territorial allocations for 2025 under the international student cap.

In 2024, IRCC capped the number of study permit applications that could be accepted for processing, reducing the number of international students coming to Canada by about 40%.

For 2025, IRCC plans to issue a total of 437,000 study permits, which represents a 10% decrease from the 2024 cap.

Since the introduction of the cap last year, most study permit applicants have been required to submit a provincial attestation letter or territorial attestation letter (PAL/TAL). This requirement now extends to master’s and doctoral students, as well as most applicants applying from within Canada.

To support this change, IRCC is reserving spaces specifically for graduate students. Additionally, a new exemption is now in place for exchange students, ensuring that Canadian students can continue to benefit from reciprocal agreements to study abroad.

The following groups continue to be exempt from submitting a PAL/TAL:

• primary and secondary (kindergarten to grade 12) students
• certain Government of Canada priority groups and vulnerable cohorts
• existing study permit holders applying for an extension at the same designated learning institution (DLI) and at the same level of study.

Of the 437,000 study permits expected to be issued in 2025, 120,724 are expected to come from PAL/TAL-exempt students, while 316,267 are expected to come from PAL/TAL-required groups.

Allocations are based on the average approval rate for each province and territory from 2023 and 2024.

DLIs, provinces and territories cannot carry over unused allocation spaces or PAL/TALs from the previous cap year.

With the coming-into-force of new regulations in November 2024, designated learning institutions (DLIs) are now required to participate in student compliance reporting, as well as the letter of acceptance verification process. Failing to do so could result in a DLI being suspended for a period of up to one year, during which it won’t be able to receive new international students.

Malaysia: Updating sample documents for PVP application to align with the latest requirements

The MYXpats centre of the Expatriate Services Division (ESD) of the Immigration Department of Malaysia has announced that it has updated the sample documents for Professional Visit Pass (PVP) applications in the ESD Online system.

The following sample documents have been updated to align with new requirements, improve and streamline their formatting with feedback received, and ensure a more comprehensive sample is available for reference:

• Application Letter
• Personal Bond Ref. No. (P.L.N. 228/63)
• Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) duly stamped by the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRB), if applicable

Effective immediately, all PVP applications must follow these updated sample documents.

These documents and the ESD Online Guidebook are available on the ESD Online system for reference. Users should log in to their ESD account and navigate to the Application menu to access them.

Portugal: New procedure to expedite processing of pending expressions of interest

The Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) is changing the procedure to schedule the service needed to obtain a residence permit, to speed up service scheduling and enact the new rules that were introduced in early 2024.

All foreign citizens who have submitted an expression of intention in the old SAPA Portal prior to 30 April 2023 will receive an e-mail from AIMA. Asking them to change their password in a new service platform. This is necessary because many users may no longer have the password used to create an account in the dedicated web portal.

Next, they will be asked to generate a Single Billing Document (DUC), in order to pay the fees, which will have to occur within the following 10 days. Having paid the fees, they will receive a scheduling proposal within the next 20 business days, indicating day, time and place.

After scheduling, and before the scheduled date, they user will receive a link by email that will allow them to resubmit all the updated information and documentation, in order to speed up the process and simplify service.

This procedure implements the new rules that came into force in early 2024, where it is stipulated, among other things, that the payment of the fees shall occur upon submitting the request, and not after a final decision is granted. This is applied to both new and pending requests.

This procedure was designed to give answer as quickly as possible to the hundreds of thousand requests submitted that await decision. With the new procedure, the applicant will receive a scheduling proposal after paying the fee.

The new procedure aims to be:

• Simpler and more accessible, because it runs solely on the internet until the moment the scheduled service happens.
• Safer, because it assures that all communications are made in a safe environment and because and, by anticipating the payment of fees, it does not require cash
• closing operations in the front office (which also enables a faster and more efficient service).
• More agile, because it allows for the submission to be analysed under the most recent information. Because some expressions of intention were presented a considerable time ago, it is possible that some of the submitted documents are out of date. Thus, the service provided will be made simpler and a final decision will be granted faster.
• More effective, more efficient, because it makes it possible to eliminate some applications that no longer correspond to the interests of the person who submitted them – they may have moved to another country in the meantime. In this way, it will be possible to make vacancies available to more people and more quickly.

The fees are the same as those charged previously by SEF, with the annual update due to inflation. For example, the fee for Expression of Intention is EUR 56.80 for nationals of Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP), or EUR 397.90 for all other cases (resulting from the application of the 25 per cent discount on the EUR 530.50 fee). This fee is exactly the same as the one that was charged over the counter and is the result of an update in line with inflation, under the terms of article 3 of Ministerial Order 307/2023 of 13 October.

It should be noted that in the previous procedure, the user could receive an appointment in a very short period of time (within one, two or three days, for example) and have to pay the fees at that time. This situation could be more inconvenient than having to pay the fees within the 10-day period now granted after receiving the e-mail.

United States: Update on Form I-134A

Due to the 20 January 2025 Executive Order, Securing Our Borders, USCIS is pausing acceptance of Form I-134A, Online Request to be a Supporter and Declaration of Financial Support, until it reviews all categorical parole processes as required by that order.

A better way to manage global immigration

Smith Stone Walters is now part of Envoy Global, the leading corporate immigration services provider committed to delivering a better way for companies to manage global immigration.

This partnership will greatly enhance our global footprint and enable us to meet the growing needs of our clients even more effectively.

If you would like to find out more about the enhanced level of global immigration services now available to your business, please contact us today.