Refugee status cessation and PRs applying for citizenship

[Harry9909]

hello dpenabill and all!! i am a refugee PR and unfortunately some quack lawyer misguided me as telling me there is no harm going home country and renewing home country passport. first time after getting PR i had to go to take care of my mom as im the only one in the world she had. 2nd time i had to go get married to love of my life who i was waiting for 13 years. as my lawyer told me that you have to go to back home to get married in order to sponsor her. now the situation is
1- my citizenship application is ON HOLD for the reason i made two trips back home. ATIP notes say the same
2- my wife's sponsorship is not moving at all after she passed medical axam in march.
3- i applied for her visit visa that also refused a month ago
i have all the evidences that i kept relocating from city to city when i visited back home, i hired a very professional private security services and their armed guards and vehicles kept me secured during my stay and during my relocation to each city, i stayed in different hotels and did not stay more than 3 days in a same place, i have all the proofs.
my question to the forum is
1- should i apply for mandamus?
2- what are my options to bring my wife here ASAP as me and her are going through severe mental issues due to being apart for so long
i talked to multiple lawyers but nobody comes up with a satisfactory answer. any help and guidance will be appreciated. thanks

 

[scylla]

hello dpenabill and all!! i am a refugee PR and unfortunately some quack lawyer misguided me as telling me there is no harm going home country and renewing home country passport. first time after getting PR i had to go to take care of my mom as im the only one in the world she had. 2nd time i had to go get married to love of my life who i was waiting for 13 years. as my lawyer told me that you have to go to back home to get married in order to sponsor her. now the situation is
1- my citizenship application is ON HOLD for the reason i made two trips back home. ATIP notes say the same
2- my wife's sponsorship is not moving at all after she passed medical axam in march.
3- i applied for her visit visa that also refused a month ago
i have all the evidences that i kept relocating from city to city when i visited back home, i hired a very professional private security services and their armed guards and vehicles kept me secured during my stay and during my relocation to each city, i stayed in different hotels and did not stay more than 3 days in a same place, i have all the proofs.
my question to the forum is
1- should i apply for mandamus?
2- what are my options to bring my wife here ASAP as me and her are going through severe mental issues due to being apart for so long
i talked to multiple lawyers but nobody comes up with a satisfactory answer. any help and guidance will be appreciated. thanks

1. Let dpenabill answer this one however I'm not sure there's any point in pursuing mandamus and spending that money since IRCC is reviewing your application for cessation.
2. Your spousal sponsorship application isn't going to move forward with cessation in play and I think it's extremely unlikely a TRV will be approved given the circumstances. Apart from waiting for the cessation situation to resolve itself, I think the most realistic option is for your partner to see if they can qualify and apply for PR independently through an economic immigration program like Express Entry. There's going to be no real way to get them to Canada asap.

 

[dpenabill]

hello dpenabill and all!! i am a refugee PR and unfortunately some quack lawyer misguided me as telling me there is no harm going home country and renewing home country passport. first time after getting PR i had to go to take care of my mom as im the only one in the world she had. 2nd time i had to go get married to love of my life who i was waiting for 13 years. as my lawyer told me that you have to go to back home to get married in order to sponsor her. now the situation is
1- my citizenship application is ON HOLD for the reason i made two trips back home. ATIP notes say the same
2- my wife's sponsorship is not moving at all after she passed medical axam in march.
3- i applied for her visit visa that also refused a month ago
i have all the evidences that i kept relocating from city to city when i visited back home, i hired a very professional private security services and their armed guards and vehicles kept me secured during my stay and during my relocation to each city, i stayed in different hotels and did not stay more than 3 days in a same place, i have all the proofs.
my question to the forum is
1- should i apply for mandamus?
2- what are my options to bring my wife here ASAP as me and her are going through severe mental issues due to being apart for so long
i talked to multiple lawyers but nobody comes up with a satisfactory answer. any help and guidance will be appreciated. thanks

While I have been following cessation cases closely for nearly a decade now, and have acquired quite a lot of information about the issue, I am NOT a Canadian lawyer and NO expert, and NOT qualified to give personal advice. General advice, yes, like do not travel to the home country, that's easy. But I cannot offer much insight into how best to proceed once actions have been taken that could support grounds for the cessation of status in Canada (other than to NOT engage in any more such activity).

I can say that if your citizenship application is on hold because CBSA is proceeding with cessation, there is not much you can do while that is still pending. That said, I can say it would be a good idea to find a lawyer you can trust, and then rely on that lawyer to give you the advice and assistance. I am NOT a Canadian lawyer. A Canadian lawyer is a far better resource.

If you can, it might be worthwhile getting a sworn affidavit from the lawyer who gave you advice about traveling to your home country, to memorialize that advice. As I noted in the post you quote, there is a tendency to dismiss or at least not give much weight to the "I didn't know" defense, so any objective evidence supporting that might help. But even as to this, again, I am NOT a Canadian lawyer, and a Canadian lawyer experienced with cessation cases would be a far, far source of information.

"i talked to multiple lawyers but nobody comes up with a satisfactory answer"​

Not sure what you mean by a "satisfactory answer," but I can easily guess that saying there is not much to do at this stage other than wait to see what CBSA does is not a "satisfactory answer."

Evaluate what lawyers have to offer based on the extent to which you can trust the lawyer to know the law and how it is applied, and how it affects you. In are in a situation for which the truth might not be a "satisfactory answer."

Edit to clarify: That is, YOU are in a situation in which it appears what a lawyer can offer (the truth) is probably not an answer you prefer, not satisfactory . . . not satisfactory in the sense it does not give you what you want. Note, for example, most Canadian immigration lawyers, nearly all I'd expect, would have truthfully advised you to NOT get a home country passport, NOT travel to the home country, which given the situation you were in would not have been a "satisfactory answer" even though that is well-founded advice. I am, after all, quite surprised a lawyer advised otherwise . . . leading to . . .​

Among responses from lawyers that are not satisfactory, I suspect you may run into much difficulty getting an affidavit from the lawyer confirming you were given erroneous advice (so if you got that in writing, much better). Lawyers tend to be among those who say don't-blame-me and I-did-not-give-bad-advice, you-must-have-misunderstood-me.

Sorry I cannot help much. I understand this is undoubtedly a very difficult situation. Find the best lawyer you can and see what they can offer. You can talk to a lawyer about trying to push the citizenship application ahead, but that could push CBSA to push ahead with cessation, so be sure you are dealing with a lawyer you can trust to look at all the angles not just what on the surface might appear to be favourable to you.