Hi! A new oldie here. Was part of the original thread for Kingston back in 2016/17 when I sponsored my husband. I just wanted to jump in to share a bit of a success story as I couldn't find much advice/similar situations for us sponsoring my step-daughter.
She was included as a non-accompanying dependent on my husbands application. In 2019, my husband applied for a visitor visa for her and it was granted. She came to visit us that summer, the intention was for her to stay 2-months. Her mother had other ideas, and basically said for us to keep her so she could travel to the US on a work visa. We decided to file for her PR, and had it submitted in October of 2019. Thankfully the school district we are in are quite lenient, so we were able to get her into school without them considering her an international student. The application was processed quite fast. But then when we got the DNA request, it was right when COVID hit hard, so we had to postpone and get an extension to submit the results. In November 2020 we got the results back, and the devastating news that my husband is not her biological father. We immediately consulted with a lawyer, who suggested we contact KVO ASAP with time to compile evidence and request our family sponsorship app be switched to a humanitarian + compassionate app. They never responded. We gather letters from everyone we knew, pictures, financial details showing how much money my husband has paid since day-1 and how little the mother has provided even since moving to America. We submitted everything in February of 2021 and still heard nothing. Then in August 2021 we finally received a direct email from KVO that the application was approved and sent to our local office for finalization. Just yesterday we FINALLY got instructed to upload a picture to the PR Portal. Just wanted to share, as sadly I know this is more common than not in Jamaica where men are just "jackets". I think our situation was a bit different in that she literally had nobody to go back to in Jamaica, but I think this is a huge win knowing how strict IRCC is when it comes to paternity and DNA - especially for applicants from Jamaica.