Becoming Common Law with a Visitor Visa?

[KelseyTVS]

Hi everyone, I'm new so any help would be awesome!

I am a Canadian Citizen and my conjugal partner lives in the USA and is a citizen there. She wants to immigrate to Canada, but I hear that a conjugal sponsorship is almost impossible to get approved.

This means we should go the common law route, but I'm a little confused. She would need to come live with me for a year before we become common law and we can apply for sponsorship.

I looked at the IEC Working Holiday visa where she could get a work permit for 1 year in Canada, but that one cannot be extended. So at the end of the year when we became common law, her work visa would expire and she would have no legal status in Canada, so our application would be denied.

The other route is to have her be a visitor. I did the eligibility test on CIC and she can come to Canada as a visitor, but it says for only six months. From what I've gathered from other threads on here, she could come and visit, and after 5 months apply for a visitor extension and stay for longer until we are common law. Then she would have the legal status of visitor and we could apply for sponsorship from there.

What confuses me there is that to visit Canada from the USA, you don't need a visitor visa. So how would we extend something that she doesn't have? How can she have legal visitor status when a visitor permit isn't required for her to come here? Should we apply for one anyway?

Also, I have seen people say that for spousal/common law sponsorships, you do not have to have a minimum income (outside of Quebec) but the forms still ask for your proof of employment and income. Would I get rejected as a sponsor if my income isn't that high?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[bigredmoose]

Re: Conjugal > Common Law?

You are right, she can come as a visitor. Technically, that would be her status, not her visa as Americans are visa exempt. At around the 5 month mark, she applies to extend her status. As soon as you hit the one year mark, apply to sponsor. She must maintain status while here, which isn't hard, but just the act of applying for sponsorship doesn't necessarily give her status. Once she gets here, make sure you get a ton of proof that you've lived together, like joint leases, both names on utilities, bank account in her name, etc. It will be important to show that you qualify as common law.

In the time she's visiting, she is not able to work or go to school. You have to be smart when crossing the border, too. If she turns up with all her stuff looking like she's moving here, she may get refused, as she clearly won't be visitng. There are thousands of posts on here about that, so have a good read.

Of course, you can always marry her and then it's not an issue.

For spousal sponsorships, there is no minimum income required, but you have to show that you will be able to support her. Don't be on welfare, for example.

 

[KelseyTVS]

Thanks for your response!

I'm still kind of confused how to apply for an extension. When she comes to Canada, she will legally be a visitor, but where is the documentation of that? Is it just the stamp in her passport? Because for the extension application and the sponsorship application, you need to show proof of your legal status. Would that be a photocopy of the stamp in her passport?

 

[bigredmoose]

I've just gone through the application and stopped just short of actually applying for an extension.

Basically unless she's told otherwise, via a visitor record when she enters the country, assume she's been granted 6 months as a visitor. You can use that info to answer the questions. Even if she does get a visitor record, you can apply to extend that as well.

 

[KelseyTVS]

What is a visitor record, and how does she initially get one? Will it be given when she enters the country? I'm sorry I have so many questions! You're being a great help

Could you link me to the application you just tried? Thanks!

 

[bigredmoose]

You don't want a visitor record! It's what the border guards give you when they want you out in less than the 6 months.

 

[KelseyTVS]

Ohh I understand now! Thanks

One last question: On the inland Permanent Residence application, we have to provide a document proving the legal status of the person being sponsored. Obviously that status is the visitor status, but there's no concrete document for us to photocopy and attach, since Americans don't need visitor visas. So what should we put for that?

 

[bigredmoose]

I'm not 100% sure on this one. Logically, though, by the time you qualify as common-law, you'll have applied at least once to extend the visitor visa. Maybe you could use whatever documentation you get from that?

Is there a reason you want to apply inland?

 

[KelseyTVS]

We wanted to do inland so she could get the OWP while the application processes.

From what I could tell on the CIC site, processing times for the visa office in LA (shes from California) and processing times for inland looks the same, but someone is telling me on another thread that that may not be the case.

 

[bigredmoose]

Yeah, the application will likely be processed in Ottawa, not LA.

Hey, is she able to apply to come now under a working holiday or Canadian experience class visa?

 

[KelseyTVS]

So the processing time will only be the Ottawa office time?

Well actually we do have plans for her to try the IEC thing. There's a program for American people where they can come here with an OWP for a year.

So the plan is that she will be here with IEC for a year, and at the end of the year we will be common law, but her OWP will expire. So after we are common law, we will then apply for sponsorship, but at that point she'll only have visitor status.

I'm not sure if she has to leave Canada after the IEC ends and re-enter as a visitor though. Maybe when the OWP expires she'll automatically go back to having visitor status?

 

[Ponga]

Most Americans have their application processed in Canada (Ottawa) and NOT in LA or NY. CIC (Citizen and Immigration Canada) started doing this to expedite the process for those that did not have any red flags, such as criminality or other issues that could be problematic. This is why the vast majority of Americans find that they complete the entire process in the 8-10 month range, however, nobody knows what the processing times will be when your partner is finally eligible to apply (well over a year from now).

Good luck with everything!

 

[KelseyTVS]

Thanks Ponga!

It seems like Outland might be the way to go then. We're just concerned about her ability to work during the processing time. But I guess 8-10 months without work isn't that big of a deal. We've got a couple of years before we have to start doing all of this, so hopefully it'll all work out.

 

[Mapleson]

Is there any particular reason not to get married? You could then have PR completed within the year of waiting to be deemed common-law. Depending where you are in Canada there is little or no difference in the two statuses.

 

[KelseyTVS]

Is there any particular reason not to get married? You could then have PR completed within the year of waiting to be deemed common-law. Depending where you are in Canada there is little or no difference in the two statuses.

That's true, we've definitely talked about it. But marriage is really important to us. We're both women, and we've had to fight for the right to marry, so we want it to be kind of a big deal. It just doesn't seem special enough to get married just so it's easier to get PR hahaha