Today’s Express Entry draw has resulted in invitations to apply for Canadian permanent residency for 3,508 immigrant candidates and their families.
Canadian Experience Class (CEC) program candidates with Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores as low as 431 have received invitations to apply (ITAs) for Canadian permanent residence. It was the lowest CRS for CEC candidates since the May 31, 2017 draw for Canada, which had a CRS of just 413.
Today’s draw followed the 392 ITAs issued yesterday to candidates for the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), taking the total number of ITAs issued over the past two days to 3900.
Currently, Canada’s Express Entry system manages the profiles of candidates for three primary economic-class immigration programs — the Federal Skilled Worker Class (FSW), Federal Skilled Trades Class (FST) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC).
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has targeted CEC and PNP candidates throughout the last three months as they are more likely to be in Canada and thus least likely to be impacted by the current restrictions on coronavirus outbreak. Since travel restrictions were introduced, the CRS cut-off scores for CEC candidates declined in each single CEC draw.
Today’s draw saw the tie-breaking provision being enforced at 12:56:32 UTC on 3 April 2020. This means that, in this invitation round, all candidates with a 431 Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score who sent their profile before that date and time earned an ITA.
The draw cut-off score of 431 today, was 6 points lower than in the previous CEC Express Entry draw, which was 437. After the onset of the pandemic, there has been a major downward trend in CRS cut-offs and, considering that they have fallen in any single CEC draw in recent months, there appears to be potential for scores to begin declining.
Under the CRS, all eligible Express Entry candidates are given a score based on factors such as age, education, skilled work experience and English or French proficiency.
Unlike all-program invitation rounds that draw from the entire Express Entry pool and appear to result in higher cut-off scores, narrow drawings may yield lower cut-off scores for a particular group like CEC candidates because they seek a narrower pool of candidates.
Although IRCC has not yet given specifics about when the next FSW draw will occur, prospective Canadian immigrant candidates are urged to continue to send profiles to the Express Entry pool. This not only means that they will be in the system whenever an FSW draw is conducted, but also that they will be accessible to the provinces and territories of Canada when granting provincial nominations that are linked to Express Entry.
Candidates who receive a nomination from a province or territory in Canada earn an extra 600 points for their CRS score, effectively increasing their odds of being included in a subsequent Express Entry draw.
So far in 2020, Canada has issued 49,900 ITAs.
This was the 21st round of Express Entry invitations in 2020, and the 154th overall.
Despite the higher admission goals for Canada ‘s three federal qualified immigrant programs in 2020 and 2021, IRCC is likely to perform more regular and larger draws in the weeks and months to come.
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