Married in Philippines Divorced in Canada

[icaruz]

Hi there, I have a question regarding my situation, I got married in the Philippines with my ex wife 2011 she’s a PR of Canada. I came to Canada 2012, we had a relationship breakdown she filed a divorce and divorce was granted 2014 after that I haven’t heard anything from her, then I became a Canadian Citizen year 2016 after our divorce was granted. Then I met my fiancé and I decided to get married with her I consulted a lawyer what are the requirements that I needed to get married again he told me I needed like legal capacity to get married, divorce Certand and divorce judgement, and should be authenticated which I did, then we got married 2022., We received all the documents that we that are needed for spousal sponsorship like marriage cert and advisory of marriage with PSA seal. After the biometrics and medical, ircc emailed us that they are concerned that my wife may not be eligible to be a member of the family class because I was married in the Philippines although my marriage is Divorced in Canada, that there is no indication of my first marriage was dissolved or annulled in the Philippines, so our marriage is not valid. And added that, Before a final decision is made regarding your eligibility, you are given this final opportunity to respond to these concerns by submitting proof that your sponsor’s first marriage has been dissolved/annulled in the Philippines before he contracted a second marriage with you.
Please be aware that the onus is on you to satisfy me that you meet the requirements of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Regulations. Therefore, it is in your best interest to ensure that if you do make additional submissions, they are fulsome and address the above concerns as completely as possible. This is what they said.

What step should I do next they gave me 30 days to respond and I only have 5 days to respond.,
Also if my sponsorship got rejected when do I can re apply again..?

Can we also get married in other country like in
Thailand or Hong Kong and present our marriage cert from Hong Kong to re apply for spousal sponsorship again?. Please help..
Thank you.

 

[Kaibigan]

Hi there, I have a question regarding my situation, I got married in the Philippines with my ex wife 2011 she’s a PR of Canada. I came to Canada 2012, we had a relationship breakdown she filed a divorce and divorce was granted 2014 after that I haven’t heard anything from her, then I became a Canadian Citizen year 2016 after our divorce was granted. Then I met my fiancé and I decided to get married with her I consulted a lawyer what are the requirements that I needed to get married again he told me I needed like legal capacity to get married, divorce Certand and divorce judgement, and should be authenticated which I did, then we got married 2022., We received all the documents that we that are needed for spousal sponsorship like marriage cert and advisory of marriage with PSA seal. After the biometrics and medical, ircc emailed us that they are concerned that my wife may not be eligible to be a member of the family class because I was married in the Philippines although my marriage is Divorced in Canada, that there is no indication of my first marriage was dissolved or annulled in the Philippines, so our marriage is not valid. And added that, Before a final decision is made regarding your eligibility, you are given this final opportunity to respond to these concerns by submitting proof that your sponsor’s first marriage has been dissolved/annulled in the Philippines before he contracted a second marriage with you.
Please be aware that the onus is on you to satisfy me that you meet the requirements of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Regulations. Therefore, it is in your best interest to ensure that if you do make additional submissions, they are fulsome and address the above concerns as completely as possible. This is what they said.

What step should I do next they gave me 30 days to respond and I only have 5 days to respond.,
Also if my sponsorship got rejected when do I can re apply again..?

Can we also get married in other country like in
Thailand or Hong Kong and present our marriage cert from Hong Kong to re apply for spousal sponsorship again?. Please help..
Thank you.

It seems to me, if I understand the facts, that when you married your ex in the Phils in 2011, you were both citizens of the Phils, is that correct?

Of your ex, you said, "she's a PR of Canada". Was she a PR when you married in 2011 and is that how you came to Canada in 2012, because she sponsored you?

Then, I gather you were divorced in Canada in 2014. Was either one of you a Canadian citizen at that time? I ask because, from what I understand, the Phils will recognize a divorce in Canada if initiated by a Canadian citizen. The Canadian national can divorce the Filipino national and the Philippines will accept the fact of the divorce and the Filipino will be at liberty to re-marry. However, the Canadian divorce decree must first be recognized in the Phils. It's been awhile since I have looked at this, but I believe the Supreme Court in the Phils must grant a recognition order, which then gets filed with the PSA.

You also said a lawyer "told me I needed like legal capacity to get married, divorce Certand and divorce judgement, and should be authenticated which I did, then we got married 2022." That's not altogether clear to me. Do you mean that you went through the steps to have the Canadian divorce recognized? I would think you needed to have that done in order to re-marry in the Phils. Because, at the first stage, you would have needed a Cenomar from the PSA and I guess you had that.

However, notwithstanding the foregoing, the IRCC is saying that they want proof that "your first marriage was dissolved or annulled in the Philippines". Well, yes it was if you went through the recognition process with the court and the PSA. But, so far as I am aware, you could not avail of that process unless the divorce was initiated by a Canadian citizen. That's why I ask you to clarify that point. Your ex is the one who initiated the divorce in Canada and, if she was a Canadian citizen at the time, all should be well.

Yes, you could get married elsewhere, provided you follow the steps to be legally married in that foreign jurisdiction. Canada will recognize a marriage performed in compliance with the laws of the foreign state.

Btw, when did you submit your application to the IRCC? You mentioned having completed biometrics and medical. Had you received sponsorship approval?

 

[icaruz]

Hi Kaibigan, thank you for your response, Yes we are both Filipino citizens when we got married in the Philippines. She sponsored me.,

at the time of our divorce we are still both Filipino Citizens. And when divorced was granted we are still Filipino Citizens.

I ask a lawyer what are the requirements of getting married again in the Philippines and that’s what he told me a divorce cert,consent divorce judgement and he made my legal capacity to get married/ in lieu but we didn’t request to get my divorce recognized w/c we should have done but our lawyer just let us get married and at the end., he said that we should have wait orrequest for my foreign divorce to be recognized first before we got married w/c its too late now because we got married already. And before we got married I only submitted docs what my lawyer told me to the municipal where we got married and they didn’t asked for my CENOMAR they just asked for my Divorce papers., passport and Canadian Citizenship Certificate.

this is my problem I only have few days left to give a proof which I don’t have any that my previous marriage is dissolved what I only have is my divorce papers.,

will that be okay if we got married in a different country even thou IRCC knows that we did try to get married in the Philippines but got denied because my marriage for them is not valid in the Philippines, will they still accept our re-application and submit a marriage cert issued by a different country like Hong Kong, will they accept it.

I submitted my application last year 2022 and yes we completed the biometric and medical, the only thing is my wife’s eligibility is in question because of my previous marriage in the Philippines., and they want me to send additional docs which I dont have and they want me to satisfy them that we meet the requirements.

what can I do for now because they are waiting for my response and what can I do to satisfy them knowing I don’t have enough proof or documentation to give them just my lawyers testimony., should I explain it to them by words. Thank your time and response please hoping for advices.

 

[Kaibigan]

Hi Kaibigan, thank you for your response, Yes we are both Filipino citizens when we got married in the Philippines. She sponsored me.,

at the time of our divorce we are still both Filipino Citizens. And when divorced was granted we are still Filipino Citizens.

...

what can I do for now because they are waiting for my response and what can I do to satisfy them knowing I don’t have enough proof or documentation to give them just my lawyers testimony., should I explain it to them by words. Thank your time and response please hoping for advices.

Thank you for that additional information.

From what I now see, I have no brilliant ideas as to how to salvage the situation. You have a short fuse left on providing a response to the IRCC. An immigration lawyer might have some brilliant insights/ideas that elude me. I am not sure the present application can be salvaged. You can explain as much as you can and hope for the best, but I am not too hopeful. It seems that you had some poor legal advice from the lawyer in the Phils, who said okay to get married without going through the divorce recognition process and without obtaining a Cenomar (surprising you were able to do that).

Your situation is not dissimilar to that of another member here - @comarxx . I do not think he will mind me pointing you to some of his posts. His wife was married in the Phils and not the subject of a recognized divorce. They married in Hong Kong and applied for her PR. I think they recently received her passport request. As well, she recently got a tourist visa under the "new program" for spouses. You can read some of what he posted here:
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/was-married-in-the-philippines-divorced-in-canada.238446/page-2#post-9205506

 

[icaruz]

Thank you for your insights., I thought everything went well because I acquired all necessary documents after getting married., I know my situation right now is really tough., let say IRCC asked me to withdraw my application., can I still re-apply right away or Do I need to wait for a certain time?.,
Also can I apply my spouse a visitor visa? Do you think after the spousal sponsorship will they allow us to apply for a visitor? Will immigration lawyer be more helpful for applying a visitor visa? Thank you so much.

 

[Kaibigan]

Thank you for your insights., I thought everything went well because I acquired all necessary documents after getting married., I know my situation right now is really tough., let say IRCC asked me to withdraw my application., can I still re-apply right away or Do I need to wait for a certain time?.,
Also can I apply my spouse a visitor visa? Do you think after the spousal sponsorship will they allow us to apply for a visitor? Will immigration lawyer be more helpful for applying a visitor visa? Thank you so much.

I believe you can re-apply right away, after perfecting a marriage Canada will recognize as complying with the law of the country in which it took place.

You can apply for a TRV any time. You might have what it takes to get one now, if your wife has all the qualifications sought by the IRCC - money in the bank, a good job to which to return, a strong travel history to places like U.S., U.K., Australia, etc. My wife was been denied 3 times, but then she does not meet those requirements. There was recently announced a new program to allow more generous admittances of spouses who have PR applications in process. So, if you do not have a strong TRV application now, maybe wait until you have a new PR application filed, then apply under the new program. It's too early to tell just how many will qualify for TRV under the new program, who would have been denied before.

As for using immigration lawyer to apply for TRV, maybe, if you have difficulty with the paperwork on your own. They cannot make out of it what you cannot. They will, of course, have knowledge to what the IRCC looks for and what is of key importance. That is not something that emerges plainly from reading and filling in the forms and the guides. However, if you spend time reading on this forum in TRV threads, you'll get the idea about what you need to show and how to do it.

Are you in Canada now, or just up late in the Philippines (just past 3 a.m. there at the moment)?

 

[icaruz]

Thank you Kaibigan., I’m in Canada right now, applying for TRV might be difficult for us coz my wife doesn’t have a job., I asked her to quit after we got married., also she doesn’t have a strong travel history, she have not travelled overseas yet., I’m sorry to hear about your TrV experience., it’s really a very heartbreaking experience like what I am experiencing right now., right now what my only options is to beg IRCC for my application and or start over again and get married somewhere else., how about your application is it going well now ., is your wife with you now.

 

[Kaibigan]

Thank you Kaibigan., I’m in Canada right now, applying for TRV might be difficult for us coz my wife doesn’t have a job., I asked her to quit after we got married., also she doesn’t have a strong travel history, she have not travelled overseas yet., I’m sorry to hear about your TrV experience., it’s really a very heartbreaking experience like what I am experiencing right now., right now what my only options is to beg IRCC for my application and or start over again and get married somewhere else., how about your application is it going well now ., is your wife with you now.

Thank you too icaruz. It sounds like your wife would have a hard time getting TRV under what we might call the "ordinary" rules. My wife was an OFW for years, but, like your wife, did not go abroad again for work after we started out relationship back in 2019. They turned down her most recent TRV application in March 2023, filed when we were together in the Phils. We had submitted her PR application in November. That fact did not help. So, we are now almost 8 months into the PR process and don't expect to hear much until into 2024. I'll go back in October and stay there for the winter. I'll stay until her application is decided.

@armoured suggested in another thread about hiring a lawyer to respond to IRCC. I mentioned that possibility as well, but he seems more hopeful. Maybe with good cause. Maybe I'll say more there.

 

[armoured]

@armoured suggested in another thread about hiring a lawyer to respond to IRCC. I mentioned that possibility as well, but he seems more hopeful. Maybe with good cause. Maybe I'll say more there.

I can boil down my quick response to your (not yet written) missive: if you think my point is way off base and obviously wrong, then it almost certainly is.

If potentially some merit - wouldn't hurt to get a consult from a lawyer. Pursuing an appeal (with costs associated) may be a different matter, but a letter telling them they've no basis to question the marriage might be reasonable in cost and brush them back from their current position.

But again, i've no insight into the PH side of it, nor potential complications there.

 

[Kaibigan]

I can boil down my quick response to your (not yet written) missive: if you think my point is way off base and obviously wrong, then it almost certainly is.

If potentially some merit - wouldn't hurt to get a consult from a lawyer. Pursuing an appeal (with costs associated) may be a different matter, but a letter telling them they've no basis to question the marriage might be reasonable in cost and brush them back from their current position.

But again, i've no insight into the PH side of it, nor potential complications there.

My missive has now been promulgated in the parallel thread

I do see some significant obstacles for the OP, but who knows? Maybe the right immigration lawyer can pull a rabbit out of a hat.

In the end, the situation may not be dire. It may be that the OP et ux. can marry in Hong Kong or elsewhere and then file afresh for PR and quickly apply for TRV under the shiny new program. However, it seems a bit early to tell just how beneficial is the new program. I remain sceptical. I suspect there will continue to be a high rate of denial.