Could I receive Canadian citizenship and sponsorship when I have to be abroad?

[lemay]

Dear Sir,
I am a Canadian citizenin since year 2005. I got married with my current husband in year 2006.

My husband is a PR resident currently, and had applied for Canadian citizenship in July of 2009. He has met the request for applying the Canadian citizenship. All the application papers were sent to immigration office in July of 2009. We are waiting for the response now.

But something happend in Sept. 2009. In Sept. 2009, my husband's company was acquired by one of the USA companies. This compnay requires all employees to relocate to USA if they want to keep their current postions. Now, our situation is: we have to move to USA for keeping the job at this recession period. We are not sure we will stay in USA for longer time, since we still want to live in Canada. But at this moment, we have no choice.

Beyond, in November of 2007, I have sent the application paper for my mother's immigration sponsorship. I am waiting for this sponsorship too. My younger brother is living and working in Canada as well. As you see, we really want to keep tie with Canada.

My question:
1.) If we moved to USA for my husband's job at this moment, will my husband's citizenship application fail eventually? What could we do in order to obtain the Canadian citizenship in our case?
2.) How does this move impact my sponsorship for mother's immigration? What could I do in order to obtain the sponsorship in our case?

Many many thanks

 

[Leon]

Somebody else was asking about the citizenship recently. There is nothing on the CIC website that says you can not get citizenship if you are not living in Canada. There are even instructions in the citizenship section on how to change your address where they say if you are not living in Canada you should do address change through the embassy. However, to avoid complications, it would probably be best if you could keep a mailing address in Canada. When they mail you for the citizenship test, you'll have to be ready to drop everything and go, same for oath. They may give you about 2 weeks notice. You can postpone but from what I've heard, it's more trouble than it's worth.

As for sponsoring your mother, you must be living in Canada to do that. I do not know of a way for you to do that. Since you have already waited almost 2 years, you could be more than half way there so it would be a pity to lose that application. I do not have a solution for that unless you stay in Canada and your husband moves to the US but that would mean keeping two households and a long distance relationship. Your brother could apply to sponsor your mother but that would mean that you lose the time you have already waited and start from scratch.

To figure out how much time you have left to complete sponsorship of your mother, if you look at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/canada/process-in.asp#sponsorship it says they are currently processing sponsors for January 2007 so you have another 10 months left to be approved as a sponsor. After that, the file goes to your mothers country of nationality and you can see at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/international/08-fc-parents.asp what you can expect there.

 

[lemay]

Hi, Leon,

I really appreciate your advice.