For almost a year, Hung Yin Tsang and her Canadian husband religiously checked the immigration website for updates on her spousal sponsorship application.

The Markham couple was stunned to receive a rejection letter in February from Citizenship and Immigration that said Tsang had been turned down because she did not respond to requests for her passport and police clearance from Hong Kong — demands the couple said they never received.

Instead of using their discretionary power to reopen Tsang’s application, said lawyer Avvy Go, immigration officials would rather waste government resources to have the couple go through a lengthy appeal process — estimated to take at least two years — for a case in which the family would certainly prevail.

“This is just so unnecessary and avoidable. There’s no question that their relationship is genuine. But why the waste of their time and taxpayers’ money?” wonders Go, a lawyer with the Metro Toronto Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, which now represents the family.

“Immigration is doing no one any favour by being so bureaucratic. We will immediately withdraw our appeal if they will reopen the application.”

Tsang, 36, met Alvin Faith Lam, 39, a Canadian expatriate in Hong Kong, in 1998. The married couple has two daughters, Krista, 8, and Patrea, 6, who were born in Hong Kong but are already registered as Canadian citizens.

Last year, Lam moved his family back to Canada and submitted a spousal sponsorship for his wife. The family returned to Toronto in June while the application was in process, so the girls could start acclimatizing to a new environment before starting school in September.

The couple said they updated their address with Immigration and received a notice last August for Tsang’s medical exam, which she complied with immediately.

“We were very keen on getting my wife her permanent status. We called the immigration hotline and visited the website on a weekly basis ever since the medical exam, but no one ever said anything about the passport and police clearance,” said Lam, a driving instructor.

The immigration department’s rejection package did include copies of requests for both documents, which the couple insisted they had never received.

“We’d have given them anything they wanted immediately if we knew it, but we never got those letters,” said Tsang. “I wanted my permanent status more than anyone else, but it’s not our fault if we didn’t receive the notice.”

Immigration officials said the department had requested that Tsang complete a security check, including a copy of a Hong Kong police certificate.

“CIC never received the requested documents or any type of response from Ms Tsang. As a result, the spousal application was refused,” immigration spokesperson Nancy Caron said in an email.

In March, Lam’s plea to the Hong Kong visa post to reopen the file was rejected because “your sponsor has filed an appeal for this application and the file has been sent to the immigration appeal board to review.” They were advised to wait for a decision on their appeal.

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Tsang’s status in Canada has also been in limbo since her temporary resident status expired in December, though an extension application is in process.

The immigration department did not respond to the Star’s questions about why it refused to use its discretionary power to reopen the family’s case.