Our situation - about to get married/start application any comments welcome!

[Aroundtown22]

Hey All,

So this is the just of our situation (wanting to apply inland, yes I know about the pros and cons of both ways but Berlin is so effing slow it makes more sense to apply inland)

- I am a Canadian citizen
- Girlfriend is Dutch and has been in Canada since August 2009 (able to stay for six months since Holland is visa exempt)
- Currently living together - she signed on the lease to our place along with me
- She has her police form (which is clean) and letter stating she is single (both documents are in English as well as Dutch)
- She is going to get her medical this month
- We have been together for 2 years now and have traveled a lot throughout Europe with lots of pictures to prove it.
- I have my phone bills that show international text messages to her
- I have our msn transcripts from when we first met and used msn.

We are planning to wed in the next month or so and just have a civil ceremony down at city hall. We were originally planning to just have a couple of friends present to serve as witnesses. We weren't planning on inviting anyone from either family because her family can't attend as they are across the Atlantic and so in order to not make them feel slighted we wouldn't invite anyone from my family either. We aren't sure if we even want to tell anyone that we're getting married in either family so no one gets upset.

We were planning on having at least a reception here and probably one over in Holland to celebrate the wedding but this would take place after we're married and after the application for sponsorship had been sent in.

I have thought about this plan some more and now am a little unsure as to how this will come across in the immigration process if we don't have letters from parents stating that our marriage is genuine etc. Thoughts?

Also in terms of getting implied status, does this start as soon as immigration receives the documents? For example, if we submit the application on say Feb 1st, when will implied status be given?

Any thoughts on the whole thing or tips that I should know or could use?

 

[Leon]

There's no implied status. She has to make sure she doesn't overstay her 6 months. If she wants to stay longer than 6 months, she needs to apply for a visit visa extension. She should do that 30 days before her 6 months are up. If you are ready to apply for her PR by that time, you can send the application for extension with your sponsorship package. That way it will be tied together and she shouldn't have to worry about getting out of status while her application is in process. You can also send in an application at the same time for an open work permit to be granted at first stage approval.

 

[mrs B]

Hello..... I am originally from the Netherlands and we sent our inland appl to sponser my husband, 7 weeks ago. havent heard a thing
from what I hear on here its not so easy, now wishing we had gone through berlin, it cannot be as slow as the gov here, hows your girlfriend liking Canada,being from the Netherlands.??

 

[mitamata]

As Leon said, there is no implied status for inland applications for PR. The implied status is only there for visa / visitor's status extensions. It basically means that until your visa extension request is approved or rejected, it's assumed it might be approved, so you have implied status. So assuming you send the extension request with the application, then it applies.

As for Berlin... I don't think the posted processing times look that bad. And from cases I've heard of, it seems Berlin is more commonly approving applications faster rather than slower - for example the last case approved by Berlin that is posted on trackitt was filed in September and in 3 months, the visa was issued. Considering how much evidence you have, I think you'd be finished with Berlin much sooner than inland.

As for your family not knowing about your marriage.... That's not necessarily a good idea. I does appear as though you're hiding it from your parents. Though... my husband and I didn't include any letter from family in support of our relationship. We felt the evidence was compelling enough. Besides, both our parents were at our wedding and I also had cards from his mom sent to me, wishing me happy holidays and the like, so it was obvious they knew about us. With all your evidence, I think it'd be enough to just include some photos of you and her with each others family and that should be enough to show they know about you two. Along with an explanation as to why they weren't at the wedding. Not telling your family about it though seems... eh, why would you do that? lol

 

[Aroundtown22]

Does the extension have to be submitted 30 days prior to her six months being up?

What if we send in the visitor visa extension application before submitting the PR application? Could we submit another one along with the PR application to ensure that she will be able to stay legally?

What happens with her status if we apply outland through Berlin?

The main thing is that we don't want to be in a situation where she is forced to return home because her visitors status runs out before the PR is done.

 

[Leon]

The extension should arrive at immigration 30 days before the visit visa is up but as long as it arrives at least before the visit visa expires, it is usually not a big deal. You could prepare another visit visa extension to send in with the inland application.

If you apply outland through Berlin, she would still need to apply for an extension if she wants to stay in Canada while the application is being processed.

 

[backtoCAN]

Hi Aroundtown,
Just wanted to let you know that applications through Berlin (family class) seem to have gone pretty quickly in the past few months...my case included - just over 3 months in total for approval including a request for additional information.
I know of at least 2 or 3 other cases that I've seen on this forum who also received their visas in the 2-6 month timeframe, within the past few months. Of course there are no guarantees when it comes to timelines and each case is different... but just an observation!
Good luck!

 

[ariell]

I wonder if you want to reconsider doing an inland application. Your girlfriend/wife can still stay with you in Canada if you do outland through Berlin (assuming her visa extension is approved). Also it can sometimes take 2-3 year to finalize an inland application so during that time she would not be able to leave Canada which means any plans to celebrate your wedding overseas would have to put on hold until her application is approved.

I agree with mitamata that simply not telling your families could be taken the wrong way by CIC -- it sounds like you are trying to hide something. Who knows how they will interpret this. They might think you are trying to hide a marriage of convenience from your family. So I wouldn't advise that you hide your marriage from your families or at the very least, certainly don't tell CIC that your families don't know you are getting married.

You mentioned that she already has her police certificate but that you aren't planning to marry and submit your application for another few months, so she may need to re-do her police certificate -- the police certificate has to be issued within 3 months of the time that you submit your application.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

 

[The Littlest Hobo]

I wonder if you want to reconsider doing an inland application. Your girlfriend/wife can still stay with you in Canada if you do outland through Berlin

I second that! If you look on Trackitt or at several other ppl on the September and October threads, like myself, the outland process is a breeze!

I think if you just explain you had a civil ceremony with only witnesses and then describe your plans to have 'real' weddings with family/friends in both locations later in the year, it wouldn't look as though you were hiding anything (just don't phrase it that way). They might wonder why your parents weren't there but if you've got lots of other PoR and photos, probably no big deal! There are plenty of people who get married without a big fuss or even without some family members because of conflicts or because parents stress a lot of people out, so I don't think you would need to go into detail about this. If you provide guest lists and plans for venue/catering and engagement announcement emails and so on, to show that you are really going to have celebrations with lots of people, and wedding photos from the civil ceremony, you would not likely have anyone questioning details about who knew you were getting married and when... I think the point is whether your relationship is clearly genuine and has lasted a while and will continue. I don't think, in a big pile of paperwork, that something like that would jump out. If you were REALLY worried why not write "my in-laws would be really cranky if we had the wedding in Canada without them, and likewise my family if we married in NL, therefore we wanted to avoid all that negativity and just elope!" (or 'celebrate our wedding with a small group of friends until we have time/funds to do something more elaborate')

You could still get letters from family saying your relationship is real and they know you've been together as a couple for X years. No need to mention marriage anyways. We didn't have letters from anyone vouching for our relationship. We did include screen shots of other ppl's facebook pages with photos of us together (and with other friends), lots of pictures with each other's family doing ordinary daily stuff, some emails to our family about meeting each other, facebook responses to relationship status changes, and so on. As long as your relationship is not entirely secret from the whole world (married or just dating) I don't think the CIC will mistake it for a marriage of convenience.

BTW, we did Toronto City Hall and it was a hoot! 15 min and you're outta there... but beware the 8-10 week delay getting your marriage certificate from Ontario... Vegas is seriously not a bad option

Well, good luck!
TLH