Extreme Emergency, please help!

[stari]

My wife is a permanent resident of Canada, but unfortunately she still has the old papers and not the new card. She has an emergency (life and death) situation and needs to go back home and then come back into Canada. All that I can think of are these 3 possible options but feel free to suggest others that I am not aware of.

(1) She could try to get a PRTD (permanent resident travel document) and go with her foreign passport just like she did 15 years ago with permanent resident paper, before the cards became a requirement. But this is bit risky because immigration site suggests getting out of Canada and getting this in destination country's VAC (visa application center) if travelling sooner than six weeks. As an aside, are there any visa stamping offices within Toronto area, where she could get a single entry visa stamped in her foreign passport?

(2) She could apply to get her PR card but wait times are up to 64 days. What does that mean in practice and can this be expedited by immigration lawyers and connections within immigration?

(3) She is fully qualified for an expedited Canadian Citizenship because she has been long time in Canada, has Canadian born children, owns a house, did trade certification studies in English and has professionally been working as a certified trades-person for many years. Just to be sure, does such trades-person schooling (10 months of full-time instruction in English) and certification and many subsequent years of working in a store environment and dealing with clients in English count for English language proficiency requirements? How long does this take and again, can immigration lawyers help to expedite?

(*) What else should have I asked, had I been smarter enough to ask?

 

[canuck_in_uk]

My wife is a permanent resident of Canada, but unfortunately she still has the old papers and not the new card. She has an emergency (life and death) situation and needs to go back home and then come back into Canada. All that I can think of are these 3 possible options but feel free to suggest others that I am not aware of.

(1) She could try to get a PRTD (permanent resident travel document) and go with her foreign passport just like she did 15 years ago with permanent resident paper, before the cards became a requirement. But this is bit risky because immigration site suggests getting out of Canada and getting this in destination country's VAC (visa application center) if travelling sooner than six weeks. As an aside, are there any visa stamping offices within Toronto area, where she could get a single entry visa stamped in her foreign passport?

(2) She could apply to get her PR card but wait times are up to 64 days. What does that mean in practice and can this be expedited by immigration lawyers and connections within immigration?

(3) She is fully qualified for an expedited Canadian Citizenship because she has been long time in Canada, has Canadian born children, owns a house, did trade certification studies in English and has professionally been working as a certified trades-person for many years. Just to be sure, does such trades-person schooling (10 months of full-time instruction in English) and certification and many subsequent years of working in a store environment and dealing with clients in English count for English language proficiency requirements? How long does this take and again, can immigration lawyers help to expedite?

What passport does she hold?

1. As she meets the Residency Obligation, there is no risk in applying for a PRTD. There is no way to get any form of visa or a PRTD in Canada. This is her best option.

2. It means exactly what it says. There is no expediting.

3. There is no way to expedite her citizenship app. You will need to look on the website to see if her education qualifies for the language requirement.

 

[stari]

1. Serbia's passport.
2. Thanks.
3. Does a 10 month, full-time hair styling course (delivered in English in Toronto) count as a qualified post-secondary "program". On top of that, she has been working as a hairstylist for almost ten years, with tax returns to prove, and maintaining her Government of Ontario certification.

When I asked if lawyers could help to expedite, I was asking more in "unofficial" sense, since they are dealing with immigration folks all the time and might have a way of jumping queues based on strength of compassion in certain cases.

 

[scylla]

She has a non-visa exempt passport. So she either needs a PRTD to return (which she can only apply for from outside of Canada) - or she needs to obtain a US visitor visa, fly to the US and then reenter Canada by land using a private vehicle (this assumes she still has her original landing papers).

I don't know if the hair styling course will qualify. However forget about expediting citizenship - it's not going to happen.

 

[stari]

I know of a case where someone applied in early December and got his Citizenship in late January. Was this sheer luck/best case scenario or nevertheless a case of humans being humans. Like I said, I would not expect the processing time to be compressed, just perhaps the waiting time and humans being humans ...

Thanks for your replies. They are extremely helpful.

 

[Brad999]

Hi to all!
Need help - hope you can help me.

My fiancee is a usa citizen , Im in Canada as a tourist , our wedding is on July 4th in Canada-- all set and we want to stay here for now.
Yesterday my fiancee try to cross the border into Canada by land with her car and she had bunch of gifts from the bridal party and someone told her to say that she is a seasonal residence and she will not asked to pay taxes ( so stupid right??? Its gifts! )
So she did it , they asked her to show apt lease contract , and we have one on our both names on a year start July 27 , the officer asked her - when you will leave Canada ? She said few monthes , the officer told her that she is laying ans he doesnt want her in Canada without a work permit and he said he typed on their program that no one should let her pass the border again without a work permit and he sent her back to usa.

We are so down and dont know what to do , we dont have money for lawyers and dont have wxperience with the law . Pls any comment or suggestions will help . Thank you so much