Need urgent advice

[stuck guys wife]

What visa office did you go through?

New Delhi

 

[canadianwoman]

First of all, if you choose to just end your immigration quest, the Canadian government will not care. If you do not appeal or refile, you will never hear from the gov't about this again. Your wife has nothing to worry about on that front.

From the beginning neither of us wanted a wedding - western or punjabi - so this was perfect for us. Or so we thought until not having a big ceremony (especially punjabi) bit us in the you-know-what with the VO.

Unfortunately for you two, the one country where the VOs seem to expect a big, lavish, traditional wedding is India. Ordinarily the size of the wedding ceremony doesn't matter - plenty of people from other countries have been accepted with only a court wedding.

Another problem we're having though is getting conflicting information from lawyers and consultants. One says it's better to appeal because if we re-file the second VO is just going to go with the same decision as the first. The other says to re-file because appealing takes much longer, and the first decision has nothing to do with the second...

The problem here is that it is not 100% certain what is the best choice - it is basically just an educated guess what will be the best route. VOs do tend to go with the first decision, so you would have to provide a lot of evidence showing why the first decision is wrong - for either an appeal or a new application. In either case, get the CAIPS notes and see what all the reasons were for the VO's decision. Then get evidence to refute or explain each problem.

... that us being interracial is/was a problem or would have added to the refusal as well, which seems incredibly un-Canadian to me.

It was probably a problem. Any difference is a potential source of concern for the VO: racial, religious, a big age gap, educational, etc. You just have to explain why it is not an issue for you two.

 

[sheila la]

I'm a little confused about your question. It appears you think you will be in trouble for some reason because you were denied. If you appeal or decide not to, why would it cause you problems. It sounds like there is more to this than is being stated.

Our marriage is on the rocks, and as you can imagine, this refusal is just compounding our stress and making things worse.

Honestly, at this point we're not sure if our relationship can even be repaired - especially long distance.

We don't know what we're going to do yet, we just want to understand all our options.

What my husband (and I) are asking is if we call it quits and don't re-file or appeal, will it cause us/me problems?

We can't be the only ones in this situation...

 

[Kedeisha]

canadianwoman have given you great advice and her answers are on point

 

[Stuckguy]

I'm a little confused about your question. It appears you think you will be in trouble for some reason because you were denied. If you appeal or decide not to, why would it cause you problems. It sounds like there is more to this than is being stated.

Sheila la, yes we both think that due to the denial reason being : they didnt find me "genuine", we fear that if we cut this process and move on with our lives would they really think that we were frauds and trouble us?
Both of us have gone through the worse times in our life in last 1 and half year. and the future process to continue would take almost the same time if not less, we are already so broken emotionally & mentally that we dont want to go through more of it.. however yes we do not want any other trouble aswell. Thats it.

 

[Stuckguy]

First of all, if you choose to just end your immigration quest, the Canadian government will not care. If you do not appeal or refile, you will never hear from the gov't about this again. Your wife has nothing to worry about on that front.Unfortunately for you two, the one country where the VOs seem to expect a big, lavish, traditional wedding is India. Ordinarily the size of the wedding ceremony doesn't matter - plenty of people from other countries have been accepted with only a court wedding.The problem here is that it is not 100% certain what is the best choice - it is basically just an educated guess what will be the best route. VOs do tend to go with the first decision, so you would have to provide a lot of evidence showing why the first decision is wrong - for either an appeal or a new application. In either case, get the CAIPS notes and see what all the reasons were for the VO's decision. Then get evidence to refute or explain each problem.It was probably a problem. Any difference is a potential source of concern for the VO: racial, religious, a big age gap, educational, etc. You just have to explain why it is not an issue for you two.

Thank you for the advice Canadian women, when i went for the interview the VO was cutting me short of my answers, i could clearly see that she came with a pre-conceived notion that this is a fake marriage.
she was pretty much stuck on why was there no one from our families, and even though i told her that had we been in canada or India there would still not have been many people over there. both of us are very reserve. She was not ready to take this answer. and later when the denial letter came and i saw the visa officer's name, i got to know she was a punjabi and then i could make out why she was so adamant, in a punjabi culture there is always a lavish wedding.

I thought that if they would really think that this is not real then atleast they would probe my wife, which they never bothered to.

 

[canadianwoman]

Sheila la, yes we both think that due to the denial reason being : they didnt find me "genuine", we fear that if we cut this process and move on with our lives would they really think that we were frauds and trouble us?

They won't. If the gov't did investigate (and it won't), they would see you are still together after the refusal, so obviously not fake. Or if you did break up, you could tell them the stress of the application process and the long time apart had hurt your relationship. There is no way for them to prove that that is not true.

 

[lenardparnold]

"Unfortunately for you two, the one country where the VOs seem to expect a big, lavish, traditional wedding is India. Ordinarily the size of the wedding ceremony doesn't matter - plenty of people from other countries have been accepted with only a court wedding."

Such culturally closed-minded individuals shouldn't even be able to have positions of power for such sensitive issues. Especially when they are representing Canada...

 

[stuck guys wife]

I'm a little confused about your question. It appears you think you will be in trouble for some reason because you were denied. If you appeal or decide not to, why would it cause you problems. It sounds like there is more to this than is being stated.

Other than the hairy personal details of our situation, there isn't. We love each other, but there are some issues/factors we don't know if we can get past. We've been working on it for months.TMI but there you go.

With the state of our relationship right now we don't know if it's wise to appeal (if we do, we only have a few more days to make that decision) or re-file immediately. If we wait until our relationship is stable again to re-file, who knows what that will look like to a second VO. My guess would be not good.

All we're asking is if we can't work things out and file for divorce - whether it's 6 months or 6 years down the road - are we in for additional legal issues? Maybe we've just heard too many immigration horror stories or urban legends, but we don't want to be blind-sided. We're just trying to cover our bases and understand what we're in for if it comes to parting ways.

Again, thanks to all of you from both of us. We really appreciate your advice and support.

 

[canadianwoman]

All we're asking is if we can't work things out and file for divorce - whether it's 6 months or 6 years down the road - are we in for additional legal issues?

CIC and Canada Border Services get lots of complaints from Canadians that they have been tricked into a fake marriage, and that their spouse ran off as soon as they got to Canada. However, the government usually does nothing about these cases, because often it is a he-said/she-said situation, there is no proof, the gov't thinks the Canadian is just being vindictive, and also because of the lack of manpower available to investigate. If the gov't won't even bother investigating probable marriages of convenience that have been brought to their attention, they are not going to investigate a couple that no one has complained about.
There are two scenarios where you might have problems: 1. someone who knows you writes a letter to CIC or CBSA stating you tried to commit marriage fraud; or 2. the wife divorces this husband, marries another foreigner, and tries to sponsor him. Usually in 1 they ignore such 'poison pen' letters, and in any case if there was an investigation they would still need proof; in 2, you would just have to increase the amount of proof you submit that the second marriage is genuine.
I have heard of cases where a permanent resident got in trouble because of a marriage of convenience - the sponsor can lose his/her PR even years after the marriage if it is later found to be fraudulent. This has usually been because after a quick divorce the PR quickly remarries and tries to sponsor a new spouse. I've never heard of a Canadian spouse getting in trouble because of such things.

 

[Leon]

I have never heard of a Canadian getting in trouble over such things either but I did hear of a case where a woman who was sponsored as a wife had gotten divorced, re-married and then tried to sponsor another spouse. Immigration found that the first marriage had been a marriage of convenience and as such, she never should have gotten her PR so they revoked it.

 

[canadianwoman]

Do you know what happened after that? Did she drag out the appeals for 5 or 6 years, and then win the right to stay on H&C grounds? (I'm guessing.)

 

[Leon]

It was on this forum that I saw it, somebody posted a link to it. I am not sure it had a follow up story, just that they ruled that she should lose her PR.

She would then have the option like you said of appealing for 5 or 6 years while her husband is waiting to be sponsored in another country, likely not able to get a visa to visit her and she can't leave because who knows if they would let her back in. It's not a situation somebody would want to be in.

 

[stuck guys wife]

Thanks all, you've taken some of the weight off our minds.
I guess it just feels like if you don't do things just so in this process, or don't fit into the mould, you're screwed. Had we realised not having a traditional ceremony would be the deciding factor we would have found a way to have one - whether we wanted to or not. We thought the majority of the decision would be based on the proof of our history as a couple, and we had tons of that.
Hopefully we can work through our issues, stay together and live happily ever after (in the same country!).

 

[mittens]

just wanted to say i am really sorry that you're going through all this stress...
hopefully you can find the strength to appeal, don't give up is my advice
but i'm a hopeless romantic lol