Form 5490 - How much detail required?

[dfb]

My husband (who is sponsoring me) and I have been married for almost 10 years. I am American - we met while in school together in the US 13 years ago. Had a very normal courtship, engagement, wedding by North American standards. We have always lived together since first moving in together a year after we met. We now have 2 kids, own a house, etc. etc.

Form 5490 asks for all sorts of details on our courtship, engagement and wedding. Do I really need to go into all sorts of details and provide pictures of trips taken, our wedding, etc. or should a few sentences be OK?

Also, there are questions asking whether we visit each other? I was just planning to say "no, since we live together". Also, they want to know how we communicate when we are apart and they want phone bills. I was just going to say N/A.

Can anyone provide any information on an easy way to deal with all of this (so I don't have to start digging apart old photo albums!) Thanks

 

[RickNicky]

You state that you live with him ,,what is your present status for the last 10years
have you been in canada all this time with no status?

 

[RobsLuv]

The OP doesn't necessarily have to be in Canada to be living with her husband - there is always the chance that he has been living/working in the States for all these years and that now he intends to return to Canada.

Obviously, the application is generic, yet needs to apply to a myriad of scenarios including Canadian citizens who've lived in another country for years and have married and raised families overseas, to permanent residents who went back home to marry and now want to bring their new spouse to Canada, to new couples who've met online and fallen in love, to couples who have met at school or work when a foreign national is in Canada (or a Canadian is overseas) going to school or working temporarily, to people who are "faking" a relationship just to get into Canada. So some questions are not going to be applicable under every scenario.

Immigration officers should be trained to evaluate all of these different scenarios - but some of them seem to employ a mentality that says, "What reason can I find to refuse this application?" So, as straight-forward and clear as it seems to you that your relationship is, don't forego providing the documentation to prove it. It isn't enough to submit a marriage licence that says you married ten years ago, and then not prove that you have been living together in a marital relationship since that time. Pictures are important - from your dating days forward. You don't have to submit hundreds of them - just submit what you need to document a continuing marital relationship and cohabitation. And, if by some chance you have been in Canada all this time without having applied for permanent status, it will be an issue. (I personally doubt this is the situation, but you don't say for sure.)

All that said - don't be afraid to put "n/a" if something is truly not applicable - like how you keep in touch when you're not together, and how often you visit one another. There is a question on there that asks if you're currently living together - and asks for dates of cohabitation, so it will be documented that you've been living in a marital relationship for all these years. But that still doesn't absolve you of the need to demonstrate that this is a loving, genuine marriage and not one designed to get you status in Canada (which is why, if you've been in Canada, it's an issue). You need to keep in mind what Immigration Canada is looking to find out - "Is the relationship only about facilitating the entry of the foreign national to Canada?" Chances are good that, having been married and living together for the past 10 years, yours is not. But you do need to demonstrate that as much as it's applicable to do so.

 

[dfb]

Thanks all.

My husband has dual citizenship with the US, so we lived together in the US until 4 years ago and then we moved to Canada together with our daughter (Canadian citizen though my husband). I came in on a work permit at that time and have been on a work permit ever since. Wouldn't our 2 children be sufficient to show the marital relationship?

That being said, you just have to get the wrong guy with a chip on his shoulder in charge of your file, so better to be over inclusive.

 

[RobsLuv]

You're exactly right - the IOs have tons of discretion . . . don't give them any excuses to delay your process. Just put it all out there, and put yourself in the best possible position so that your application will be straight forward and benefit from faster processing. If you didn't provide enough evidence to satisfy them, they would ask for more or (more likely) require an interview - which really seems like a stupid waste of time for a couple who have been married for 10 years. But, again - discretion, and since married couples are not required to live together in order to be eligible to immigrate, it's not unfathomable that there are non-genuine couples out there who have been married for ten years and have been trying all that time to get PR, having been turned down over and over again for a non-genuine relationship, but who keep trying. So, from CIC's perspective, it's not a "given" that the relationship is genuine just because the couple's been married for 10 years. And not to be indelicate - but children together is not "proof" either. There have been situations where people are actually made to produce DNA evidence proving that the children really belong to the sponsor. You have to go back and remember the myriad of situations that these IOs are charged to assess.

Chances are that your relationship will not be overly scrutinized or even questioned - but they can't show favoritism, so you have to produce the same kind of evidence that everyone else does. Just because there aren't alot of people in the USA who would fake a marriage just to get into Canada doesn't mean you can go into this saying, "We're obviously legit and we shouldn't have to prove it." Your priority is simply to put yourself in the best possible position for expediting the process and getting on with life.