Canadian with American fiancee

[silverturtle]

I know there are lots of similar stories here, but I'd appreciate any input.

I am a Canadian citizen who will be marrying an American woman sometime this summer. I am currently studying in Vancouver, and she lives in California. There will not be any marriage ceremony, so we are super flexible as to which side of the border to actually get married. She is self-employed (international trade and customs) if that affects issues at all. We were hoping for her to move to Vancouver for my last year of school (September 2016).

What is the best way to go about the marriage procedures and then the sponsorship for her to come to Canada? While the status of her application is pending, what rights does she have to live in Canada (besides the six month visa exemption), and what services would she be eligible for (work, health etc.)? The other big question is what sort of timeline we would be looking at for her to be granted PR status.

Thank you very much!

 

[surleplateau]

US-Canada spouse/partner sponsorship is among the easiest and quickest if doing OUTLAND. If you go Inland, it can take 2+ years. Outland for US-Canada averages between 6-10 months for most straight-forward cases (no criminal history, etc).

An Outland application does not grant the applicant any rights inside Canada. But the applicant is free to travel in or out of Canada. It is the applicant's responsibility to maintain her own status as a visitor, and to justify, if needed, her entry to CBSA any time she passes through the border control. As she's from a visa-exempt country, she can be given the 6 months at the border by CBSA. After that, if she wants to wait out the PR sponsorship as a visitor, she can apply to extend her stay in Canada (temporary resident), which costs $100 and is easy to do online on the CIC website.

This (visitor, extension, etc) does not grant her the right to work or study, or give access to healthcare, so she would have to take care of those independent of her PR application if she wants to have such things while waiting in Canada.

She's welcome to try to find a company that will hire her through a positive LMIA (Labor Market Impact Assessment) for foreign workers, but that will depend on her industry/job. For many, it's simply easier to wait for the PR approval to go through rather than find a company willing to pay for a LMIA... Your mileage may vary.

So with an Outland application, she can wait in the US or in Canada, that's up to you guys.

You can easily find more thorough opinions and breakdowns of the Pros and Cons of Inland vs Outland by a recent Google search. It gets asked over and over, so I tried to keep it short for tonight.

You'll find most people familiar with recent US-Canada timelines will recommend Outland because it is so much faster than Inland.

 

[silverturtle]

Thank you for your reply!

So just to confirm: she will not receive a SIN until she is granted PR status?

 

[surleplateau]

If she can get a job on her own, get a company to go through the LMIA process for her and get herself a work permit, she can get a SIN.

If she gets a study permit, she might be allowed a limited work permit (sometimes just on-campus), so she can get a SIN.

There is more than one way to get a SIN.

You'll also see people here and there talking about being in Canada on an Inland application (for sponsorship of spouse/partner) who can get an OWP (Open Work Permit) which will allow them to get a SIN and get a job -- the caveat is that the OWP (via the Inland app) takes 3-4 months to be processed ... for a US-Canada couple, you could be done with the *entire PR app* in 6-10 months. But the Inland+OWP in 3-4 months applicant will still be not even half way through their whole PR application (because it takes currently 25 months is what the timelines are showing for Inland).

An Inland applicant is free to exit Canada (there are no exit controls), but the risk for an Inland applicant is that if they are outside Canada for too long, or if they are denied re-entry (a small, but non-zero risk for many US passport holders), the whole Inland application will be null/void because Inland requires the applicant to be Inland.

Outland applicants have no requirements to be in or out of Canada. It's entirely up to the Outland applicant to take care of their legal status in Canada if they want to be in Canada.

I am a US-Canada applicant, and my whole common-law sponsorship process took 10 months. I stayed in Canada with my partner the entire time on multiple visa extensions. My partner and I agreed that we'd rather be together and wait a shorter period together and rely on my partner's income vs waiting more than twice as long with a work permit for me. We were fortunate to be able to live off one income together, and this was an added relief for me in case my elderly parents had a medical emergency back in the US -- I knew if something happened that I could exit Canada and stay in the US as long as necessary without any risk to my PR sponsorship app.

By all means, continue your search for more information about the pros and cons.

 

[honey.bunny]

Hi ,

My story is some what similar,so just wanted to ask a related question. I am a Canadian Citizen and I am sponsoring my husband (Indian Citizen) that is on a work visa in The States and has been their for 1 1/2 year(Florida). I recently got SA,and was notified through the letter that his file was transferred to New Delhi Visa Office. I was thinking it would go to Ottawa, but no it went to New Delhi. Do you think it will still take 6-10 months or would it take longer?

thank you

 

[Gemmie]

You will have to look into the threads for New Delhi time lines. There
are some on the forum. I am unsure of the processing times for that office.

The file did not go to Ottawa because he is not a US citizen, and it
went to his home country office.