How does someone get a “visitor record” to accompany their child who has a study permit? I am main breadwinner American expat living in Hong Kong and 2 minor children attending private international school in Canada, living with my parents who are Canadian citizens and also who will be the custodians, but I’d love to find a way to allow my wife to tag along with the kids and live with them and my parents for most of the school year while I stay in Hong Kong and work and occasionally visit. How can that be done? That seems too good to be true!
Parent Accompanying International Student (minor)
- Thread starter palm_sand
- Start date
Are you asking for your wife? What citizenship does she hold?
It basically is too good to be true. That poster can expect to be refused and told to leave the country long before the child finishes school.
Yes - too good to be true and IRCC will never allow that kind of long term stay. This is why minors studying in Canada require guardians who are already in Canada (i.e. Canadian PRs or citizens) - it's because their parents cannot accompany them. Your wife can certainly visit from time to time. But she cannot live in Canada without authorization to do so.
Thanks. Agreed. 9-10 months straight likely wouldn’t work. That’s why our plan would be to have many trips of two weeks in and two weeks out, more or less.
My parents are Canadian but I am not, and neither is my wife. We are American/Hong Kong citizens living long term as permanent residents in Hong Kong. We want to send our kids to school to a private school in Canada and make my parents their guardian while they are in school and the kids would get what’s called a study permit to study in Canada. My wife and I own a holiday house in Canada, and another one in New York. But our main home and business and banking and all other “home” things take place in Hong Kong. We own some businesses in Hong Kong so don’t work day to day jobs there, affording us the luxury of so much travel. Our plan would be to spend 2 weeks in Canada with my parents and our kids and then 2 weeks back in Hong Kong or NY, then 2 weeks in Canada again, then 2 weeks away. And when school is on break for October break, Christmas, spring break, Easter and summer, total of about 12 weeks, neither I nor my wife nor my kids would be in Canada. We’d most likely be in New York or Hong Kong. I see that the school year is approximately 40 weeks in total, so my wife and I would be in Canada for approximately 20 weeks per year, off and on, usually in for 2 weeks, maybe even up to 4 at a time, but definitely not 4-6 months consistently as many on this forum have done, and definitely never exceeding 26 weeks/180 days per year. Would anyone foresee this to be a problem with each re-entry?
I suspect your wife will run into some issues sooner or later with the 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off plan. This is a lot of travel to Canada and CBSA may pull her aside at some point because this obviously won't look like normal tourist behaviour to them. I would personally go with 2 weeks in Canada and 4 weeks outside of Canada - or perhaps 4 weeks in Canada and then 8 weeks outside of Canada. To lower the chance of running into problems, you want to make it very clear that she's spending more time outside of Canada than inside of Canada and isn't trying to live here. Ultimately visitors are assessed each time they enter Canada and it's impossible to say what will happen. However this is the approach I would recommend to increase the chances of a smooth experience. Additionally, if CBSA ever challenges her in any way, she should never argue or try to contradict them. Once in a while we do see exclusion orders issued here (i.e. 1 year bans from entering Canada) when CBSA feels someone is abusing their visitor privileges and doesn't react appropriately when they are told so.
Her child s unlikely to be granted a study permit to attend kindergarten or grade one as an international student. Most parent are not allowed to accompany their children while studying and have to appoint a guardian.
Agree that a study permit for a 5 year old has pretty much no chance for approval.
According to the 1st message in this chat from Palm, she managed to accompany her child and get a visitor record. And she says she knows some other parents having received this visitor record. So this is possible, although not guaranteed. Maybe only for the first year of their study, and in future just short visits.. Of course, all depends from case to case
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The thing is though with PALM they were self sufficient and did not need to work not that they could anyway. Too many people come on here and seem to think that getting their minor child into school works in a similar fashion to a study permit with a spouse work permit which obviously it does not .
Even this week there was a post about getting a 3.5 year old into school, what was that person thinking that this would be a way into the country for them.
By all means everyone is entitled to try if they have the funds to back it up but justifying a study permit for a 3.5 year old and also hoping to be able to accompany is a bit of a stretch nd what would be the benefit until a bit older anyway.
Ultimately with immigration anything can be possible and if someone does not try they will never know as long as they understand there are limits as well as costs