It completely depends up on the officer reviewing your case. They may see that you have not intention of living in canada after getting citizenship and you will be a PR of another country.
Do you have to stay in Canada even after applying for Citizenship?
- Thread starter okbangaram
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It also depends on which Visa status are you moving to USA. If you are moving on Work visa (H1B/L1), it will not be a problem. If you are moving as a GC, they may need a justification and can ask for travel records. In case of H1B/L1 since it is Non-immigrant visa, your travel records won't' state Permanent residency. For USA GC, the main problem is residency obligations, unlike Canada GC requires one to be in the country 6 months per year to fulfill RO. The question may arise, how will you fullfil that obligation and be a Canadian Citizen intending to reside in canada. It may or may not be an issue, but depending on officer's discretion, the query may araise.
There are both logistical and procedural RISKS involved in relocating abroad after applying for citizenship. @DonDraper's comments reference some procedural risks, including what can trigger elevated scrutiny and potentially RQ-related non-routine processing.
Relocating abroad does NOT directly affect eligibility unless the applicant remains abroad for more than 1095 days during any five year period prior to becoming a citizen (breach of the PR RO can trigger a prohibition, barring the individual from becoming a citizen).
Those risks, both the logistical and procedural risks, have been discussed at length in numerous topics here. They are very individual-specific (for example the logistical risks tend to be way lower for an individual in the U.S. than say someone who has relocated to certain less stable areas of the word). So it is largely a personal judgment whether to take the additional risk. After all, remaining in Canada does not entirely eliminate the risk of failing to appear for scheduled events (a logistical risk) and does not preclude IRCC from issuing RQ and otherwise subjecting the application to a presence-case non-routine process that can add a year or more to the processing time, if there is a referral to a Citizenship Judge . . . and in the later case, the burden of proof is very much on the applicant, which can influence the final outcome.
A difficulty with this subject is that there are some forum participants who have a problem recognizing the difference between qualifying elements, which dictate outcome, versus factors which can have a wide range of influence in how the process goes in terms of scope of inquiry, non-routine processing, and potential skepticism in assessing the facts. Lack of intent to reside in Canada, for example, has NO relevance or effect in terms of whether the applicant is qualified for a grant of citizenship, but it can affect the level of scrutiny the applicant is subject to and in the past has for sure very much had a negative impact in this way, but ONLY for SOME, not all applicants abroad . . . very difficult to forecast who will be affected in this way versus those who will not be. Some sail through easily, while others not so much so.
Asking "so?" in regards to the potential influence of being PERCEIVED as having no intent to reside in Canada is kind of like asking "so what?" to giving a border official the finger while being questioned at a Port-of-Entry. Giving an officer the bird does not have any direct impact on whether the traveler has status authorizing entry into Canada, but it would be either deliberately provocative or simply stupid to do that. Of course for the citizenship applicant, who has relocated abroad, it is not about choosing to make such a gesture, but about what the citizenship processing agent and officer handling the application PERCEIVE and how that influences the scope of their inquiries. Again, the rules do not prohibit what some refer to as seeking-a-passport-of-convenience (a term which tends to invite vitriolic attacks here), but if and when it is obvious that is an applicant's scheme, only a fool fails to recognize the kind of influence that MIGHT (not necessarily will) have.
You are right that the intention to live in a country is person specific. However, the citizenship grant is based on the criteria that 'The person' has taken an Oath to be a Canadian citizen. The presiding officer on your case decides what will be done.
You got it wrong. there is certainly nothing forbidding being a PR of another country. However, while applying for citizenship there is a question which states do you have immigration status in any other country (Including the country of your birth). This question is specifically to validate this case. A RQ will be raised to provide travel documents and the intention of having a PR of a different country. Remember there is an officer looking at citizenship cases and not a software program checking all documents. The decision is solely based on the officer's discretion and it is deemed lawful to deny grant based on their understanding of the facts.
Applying for citizenship doesnt' automatically guarantee the grant.
Sorry, buddy; it is you who has got it wrong. And on two fronts ... probably a difficulty in understanding English. First, I did not say anything about Oath, which I know has to be taken. What I said was on intent to reside in Canada after obtaining citizenship. The presiding officer at the Oath (and anyone else) has no say in the matter. Just to help you understand, here is what the government itself says:
Old Act: Applicants were required to intend to continue to live in Canada if granted citizenship.
New Act: This provision is repealed. Applicants are no longer required to intend to continue to live in Canada once granted citizenship. This removes concerns from new Canadians who may need to live outside of Canada for work or personal reasons.
Changes to the Citizenship Act as a Result of Bill C-6 - Canada.ca
I hope you find that helpful.
Got what wrong? I said that there is nothing that forbids being a PR of another country, and after telling me that I got it wrong, you write "there is certainly nothing forbidding being a PR of another country". Do you ever bother to read what you are writing.
Whether or not there is an RQ, questions about travel, and so on, this simple fact remains: there is nothing that forbids being a PR of another country. Get that?
By the way, the officer's discretion is not limited. It must be within the law. That is why people can sometimes sue and get IRCC decisions overturned. In particular, take what you wrote:
"It completely depends up on the officer reviewing your case. They may see that you have not intention of living in canada after getting citizenship and you will be a PR of another country. "
Try and get this into your head: while IRCCs officer may, at their discretion, make enquiries about absences and residency obligations, and they may reject an application if residency obligations have not been met, they do not have the discretion to do anything about not intending to live in Canada after getting citizenship or being a PR of another country. The law simply does not give them that much discretion.
Who said it did?
In the future, please (a) take the time to read and understand what you are replying to, and (b) take the time to read your own responses! What a moron.
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First of all, Get well soon! You don't have to be super rude. If I'm wrong that's totally fine so be it, enlighten me. But you don't have to be a prick either. The discussion is whether OP can leave the country after applying for citizenship, not after getting citizenship.
Really? You just realized that now? Let me remind you of what you wrote that I was responding to:
"It completely depends up on the officer reviewing your case. They may see that you have not intention of living in canada after getting citizenship and you will be a PR of another country. "
As I said, take sometime to read what you yourself write!
You undoubtedly grasp the gist of what can influence the decision makers who determine whether to grant citizenship, that is the Processing Agent who does the more or less grunt-work, compiling and evaluating all the relevant information and completing the File Preparation Template, and submitting the completed FPT with recommendations to the Citizenship Officer who makes the formal decision, or if the Citizenship Officer is not satisfied the applicant has sufficiently provided evidence to prove actual presence, ultimately a Citizenship Judge.
The sum and substance along the way can range from the rather simple cases (which is probably the majority), in which physical presence is largely based on the inference that the applicant was physically present in Canada between a known date of entry (typically confirmed by CBSA travel history) and the next reported date of exit. That is, all the days in-between entry-and-exit dates in the applicant's travel history count as days present in Canada.
If, however, IRCC has questions or concerns about the completeness of the applicant's version of the travel history, IRCC will issue RQ and/or make a referral to CBSA's NSSD to conduct an investigation into the applicant's presence. Then, if the IRRC is not persuaded that the information and documentation submitted actually meets the burden to "prove" the applicant actually was physically present in Canada all those days in-between entry-and-exit dates in the applicant's travel history, a Citizenship Officer can decline granting citizenship, which sends the case to a Citizenship Judge who conducts a fact-finding hearing, giving the applicant another opportunity to submit enough evidence to prove presence, which is about proving the applicant actually was IN Canada all the days in-between entry-and-exit dates in the applicant's travel history. Even if the applicant ultimately prevails, that process can take several YEARS (especially now).
Historically there was a clear risk that living abroad after applying significantly increased not just the risk that IRCC (or CIC before the name change) would refer the application into RQ-related non-routine processing, but also the risk that IRCC/CIC would be more skeptical and strict in assessing the evidence of actual presence (or before that, under the OLD act residency-requirement, which by the way did NOT have any intent-to-reside requirement, in assessing actual residency in Canada). Few people can actually directly prove they were physically IN Canada a lot of the days they rely on to count, relying on an INFERENCE of presence based on a matrix of documents and evidence . . . like the applicant whose employer verifies she was present in Canada Monday to Friday working at a particular location in Canada, and who otherwise has a readily verifiable address in Canada, can safely rely on IRCC to INFER the applicant was also present in Canada on the weekends, the days in-between days for which there is direct actual proof of presence.
In any event, if and when IRCC challenges the applicant to more fully PROVE presence for all the days the applicant claims credit for being in Canada, that is a presence-case, and it can take a lot longer to process even if the Citizenship Officer is ultimately satisfied by the proof, but a lot, lot, lot longer if the case goes to a Citizenship Judge. And the outcome, whether a Citizenship Judge approves a grant of citizenship, will depend on the extent and quality of the applicant's evidence of actual presence all the days in-between entry-and-exit dates in the applicant's travel history, And again, historically there has been a clear correlation between living abroad and an increased RISK of this process.
This has little if any relationship to the brief (very brief) experiment with a provision requiring applicants to have an intent to CONTINUE residing in Canada, which was introduced in June 2015 and no longer applied by the end of that year when the Liberal government replaced Harper's (even though its formal, official repeal did not take place until 2017).
The potential risk of RQ and potentially becoming a presence-case, for SOME (again not all) applicants who are abroad after applying, is really a lot more to do with the widespread negative perception of applicants who are perceived to be applying-on-the-way-the-airport, or perceived to be seeking-a-passport-of-convenience, characterizations which tend to trigger vitriolic condemnation . . . which, however, is largely rooted in the fact that if and when perceived to be such an applicant, yeah, that evokes a strong negative impression which undoubtedly can colour how IRCC officials, and a Citizenship Judge, approach the case. And sure, there are morons who pretend otherwise, who should be ignored.
I do not mean to paint an entirely bleak prospect for the applicant who relocates abroad after applying. Even during the Harper years when such applicants were most emphatically subject to elevated scrutiny and tougher screening, many of those who relocated abroad still sailed through the process fairly smoothly. And there has been some signs that being abroad after applying is not so automatically perceived to be a negative factor now, in comparison to the past. But given the chaos in processing that Covid has caused, it is impossible to discern the extent to which the historically negative approach (which goes back to published reasons-to-question-residency implemented by a Liberal government as far back as 2005) continues; the jury is still out, for example, on how being outside Canada after applying will SOMETIMES (not always) influence the process. My sense is that you are correct that applicant's perceived to have no intent to make Canada their permanent home are quite likely at greater risk. For obvious reasons (they were only given PR status, after all, on the basis of their intent to make Canada their PERMANENT home). But among those who are abroad after applying who will be dragged into a presence-case is very difficult to forecast. Some will. Some will not. That's why it is referred to as a "RISK."