Letter of Invitation for my Venezuelan girlfriend.

[calvinw06]

Hello, my name is Calvin and I'm Canadian Chinese that lives in Ottawa. I'm trying to gather as much information as possible to set up a Letter of Invitation for my Venezuelan girlfriend that lives in Margaritas Island now The Embassy of Canada office is closed in Caracas and all applications for Visas are now pushed to Mexico City Office. On the other hand I understand she needs to satisfied the immigration officer and show that she have the financial income support herself when coming to Canada and most important return flight back home. Keep in mind I do plan to support her in anyway if comes of course. Real question is, how do you prove something like an income or ownership of a house in a Country like Venezuela now? The average salary is like $20.00 per month and she lives with her parents. I heard I can send money to her bank account but with their country's official rate. The bank will take a huge portion of that money away from her if that's true. I also can't send a huge amount of money to her account because Canada is going to wonder where all that money came from. So I'm really stuck on this part. If anyone familiar with this topic any help would be appreciated.

A little about me: My name is Calvin, born and raised in Ottawa 27 years old now. I'm trying to finish my Advanced Networking Security Diploma by next year. Its condensed program. I live with my parents still and my parents own a small business. Only thing I might piggy back off of is my parents kitchen and food. If my girlfriend does end up coming. I want to have rent an apartment possibly for two weeks to a month for the Visa. I know I have to provide bank statement, current jjob ,salary. I have no ownership of anything like car or house. I travelled to Venezuela and Margaritas Island in May 2015 and also Republic of Panama City to meet my girlfriend. So I pictures, text messages, I wrote a goodbye letter to her before leaving the country plus gave her $50.00 Canadian bill to her. I also have bank statement of the Marriott Hotel charged in Caracas.

My girlfriend: 27 years old. She is currently unemployed now, and I'm sure she's in good health but I understand Canada need medical prove. Not sure how to proceed with the medical part. And she also carries a lot of pictures of us together also. She still have her small flight ticket paper when she travelled to Panama City to prove that we actually met in Panama City and Venezuela. Pictures of the apartment we stayed in Margaritas.

This is all I can think of as for now. I'm sure some Venezuelans are being sponsored here by their married partner but I'm really wondering if marriage can be put on hold for me for now. And have my girlfriend come to Canada with TRV and meet my parents first. Before pushing for bigger things like marriage. Anyone in same situation as me, I really hope you can lend the help.

Thank you.

 

[calvinw06]

anyone?

 

[scylla]

Since your girlfriend is single, unemployed and has a boyfriend in Canada, the chances of a TRV being approved are most likely close to nil. CIC will most likely suspect she plans to use the TRV to come to Canada to get married to you. Having sufficient funds to pay for her stay in Canada and having a return flight isn't enough to show proof of ties to your home country. CIC will be looking for more. Does she have any plans to get a job soon? If she does, I would definitely wait until she has a job and has worked in that job for several months before applying.

You can certainly try now - but I think you will be looking at a refusal.

 

[calvinw06]

Okay, she is trying to look for job now. But it is difficult in her country. If she does find a job and work there for a few months. does she need a written letter from the employer and also get it notarized in her country?

And if I send her money in her bank account. Will Canada accept that? Because I heard she needs like $10,000 for one month of stay. She defintiely can't make that much money in even 10 years of working because the country only average like $20.00 per month.. So how would this work for the bank statements? I just spoke with a lawyer and for extra legal advice will cost $1000.00 so I don't think I want to ask lawyers for help. Anyone else with experiences will be much appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[cempjwi]

TRV's are approved only on the basis of the person who requests that visa, the applicant. In this case, your girlfriend. A person that is unemployed, has no money and has a boyfriend in Canada is a huge red flag for CIC because in their eyes the risk of that citizen overstaying is extremely high.

It does not really matter much if you write an invitation letter; in most cases invitation letters are used for specific reasons and they are often useless if not required (apparently some visa offices will almost always require them for certain citizens, but I cannot find anything about that except a statement on the CIC site that says something that leads one to believe that's the case).

It is not illegal to send money for a person to accumulate enough funds to cover the financial eligibility requirement. Disclosing that action to CIC will invalidate that effort, however, and will probably ban the applicant from getting a TRV for a long, long time. Please bare in mind that for such a plan to succeed at least 6 to 8 months will need to go by to satisfy the 6 most recent months of bank statements required for the TRV. Source of income becomes an issue as well, even after such an elaborate plan if the person is not working or if the person works in a low paying job without other source of income.

International bank to bank money transfers is a huge mistake, given the fact that the official exchange rate is quite small compared with the black market rate. Your dollars will become nothing. Many people will buy dollars in the black market and they usually operate with a foreign account where fund are deposited to and then they will transfer Venezuelan currency to the person that is designated to receive them. The official market receives 1 US dollar for 13 Bolivares, while the black marker will pay you between 700 and 800 bolivares per dollar. Yes, that is a big difference. Then the problem remains as to how to obtain dollar with those funds, because no Venezuelan bank will freely sell foreign currency. Venezuelans rely on public banks (government banks only, private banks are excluded) to request foreign currency allocations (limited per year) to be able to obtain currency to travel abroad and it is implemented by using credit cards issued by those banks. There is a year limit of US$3000 and a per trip limit depending on the destination (Canada is US$1500 is traveling for 15 days or more). So you see, not easy.

In any case, you will need to feed her account slowly but consistently up to about 100,000 bolivares (Bsf) in the next 6-8 months and she needs to get a public bank credit card in order for her to travel. Because the official rate is US1=13Bsf, 100,000 Bsf come to about US$7,600 (with an investment of US$150 because of the exchange rates disparity) and that should suffice. She also needs to get a job, a good job and, have properties (car/home) to improve her chances to obtaining a TRV.

Another thing you mentioned is about proving that you know each other and how. That is almost completely irrelevant. A TRV application is not a PR application and proof of relationship will not improve the chances of having a TRV approved; in fact, it will reduce them. For a TRV you don't need to prove a 'relationship' - you only need to invite the person to visit, and as I said before, if the traveler does not meet the requirements, an invitation letter is useless.