New U.S. permanent resident - which visa office?

[MNM2015]

This is my first post, likely of many as just beginning the process of sponsoring my fiancé.

A little bit of background:
-my fiancé is a Ugandan citizen and had been living in Uganda until April of 2015
-in April 2015 he got his green card (permanent resident status) in the USA so moved there where he has been living since
-we will get married in November 2015 and plan to apply for spousal sponsorship as soon as possible after (likely December 2015)

I had assumed his application would be processed out of the Ottawa office since he is living in the USA but recently read that it is where you have been living for a year. So my question is which office do you think his application will be processed at?

-Nairobi (as this is where applications from Uganda are processed and he won't have been living in the USA for a year at the time the application is sent for processing)
-Ottawa (since it takes many months to process so by the time they actually process it he will have been in the States for a year)
-the USA office (since this is a more complicated case)

Do they actually follow this one year rule in practice? Is it less likely to be processed out of Ottawa since he is a U.S. permanent resident and not an American citizen or does that make a difference?

Thanks in advance for any information people can provide. I truly appreciate that people are willing to take the time to share their knowledge on this forum.

 

[triple p]

My husband was a PR of the U.S. when we applied and they processed his application at the Ottawa Visa office. He'd been a PR for 25 years, but all the letter stated is that "it was based on his home address and the requirements of the Immigration & Refugees Protection Act". If it is a more complex case, it could be processed at the L.A. Visa office. It probably will not take the 27 or 29 months even if it goes through L.A. I think others with their applications there have approximately been 12-16 months. My husband's case has been complex also and it is still in Ottawa. I really do recommend getting assistance from a lawyer if is a more complex case. I feel our process is going so smoothly because we received good legal counsel.

 

[MNM2015]

Thank you so much for the reply. That's good to know they said it was based on mailing address. The reason I was worried is the government website says:

"We will review your sponsorship application. If we approve it, we will forward your relative’s application for permanent residence to the visa office that serves their home country or the country where they have lived for more than one year."

If there is a chance it may get sent to the Nairobi or LA office we will seriously consider applying Inland instead.

I was only thinking our case was more complicated because he is just a permanent resident so good to know yours was processed in Ottawa although they may look differently at someone who has only been in the U.S. a few months differently than someone who has been for 25 years.

I looked into getting a lawyer to help but was quoted $8,000 - $10,000 which is unfortunately out of our budget. I think our case is reasonablely straight forward so hoping we can do on our own. The only red flag is my fiancé has been denied entry to Canada 3 times for a visitor visa as they did not believe he would leave Canada. Does anyone know if this will negatively impact our application?

 

[triple p]

We got our entire application done by the lawyers @ www.canadavisa.com. It only cost us $2000. They help you with the entire application. It took them about 3 months to review it, but in the long run it has paid off...

 

[Aquakitty]

Thank you so much for the reply. That's good to know they said it was based on mailing address. The reason I was worried is the government website says:

"We will review your sponsorship application. If we approve it, we will forward your relative's application for permanent residence to the visa office that serves their home country or the country where they have lived for more than one year."

If there is a chance it may get sent to the Nairobi or LA office we will seriously consider applying Inland instead.

I was only thinking our case was more complicated because he is just a permanent resident so good to know yours was processed in Ottawa although they may look differently at someone who has only been in the U.S. a few months differently than someone who has been for 25 years.

I looked into getting a lawyer to help but was quoted $8,000 - $10,000 which is unfortunately out of our budget. I think our case is reasonablely straight forward so hoping we can do on our own. The only red flag is my fiancé has been denied entry to Canada 3 times for a visitor visa as they did not believe he would leave Canada. Does anyone know if this will negatively impact our application?

I think there is a high chance he will be processed in Nairobi. But, I certainly can't say for sure, I just base this on a lot of comments on this board by surprised people. One person had lived in Brazil most of their life, but they sent the application to the persons country of birth. I don't know if these instances are mistakes or if they have a convoluted processing system, or that is just their policy.

You can try sending a note requesting Ottawa since he is in the US. If he requires an interview, it'll end up in LA. That's a lot better than having to travel back to Africa.

The visitor visa denials won't have any effect on his PR application, as long as he didn't misrepresent anything or have any other red flags. Many people get denied this.

 

[MNM2015]

Thank you very much for the reply. That's what I am afraid of. We have a child together so don't want to be separated for too long. We will have to look into the inland option to see if that might work for us.

If we do the Outland option how do we send a note requesting the Ottawa office as you suggested? Is it just including that in the cover letter of our application? Or is there a special way to do this?

The only thing that could be considered misrepresentation on his visitor visa request is I invited him as a friend to visit Canada. We didn't lie as were friends but didn't disclose our relationship either. Fingers crossed that doesn't cause problems for us now.