Two days after his appointment, Volpe pledged to tighten Canada's refugee system and to accelerate the processing time for individual claimants. He also promised to give illegal immigrant workers the means and opportunity to attain legal status in Canada, although rejecting the option of a blanket amnesty, and pledged to promote regional immigration outside of Canada's major cities. In mid-February 2005, he announced that spouses and common-law partners living in Canada without legal status would be eligible to apply under the family class sponsorship program. In the same period, Volpe asked his department to work on building cases to revoke the citizenship of five suspected Nazi war criminals living in Canada.