Outland From Canada. How to enter?

[juljud]

Hello all,

I am a PR and with my girl friend we plan to go soon to Canada to apply for an Outland sponsorship and I have few questions:

What is the best thing to say to justify her stay as a tourist for 6 months when she will enter Canada and face an officer?
(she doesn't require a tourist Visa)
=> My thoughts are we shouldn't say that we enter together and avoid speaking about the Sponsorship we want to launch.
I was thinking maybe about taking a language course for few month and visit the country the rest of the time, that could justify the 6 months.
Would it be the right way to do it or should we try to play it honest and speak about the sponsorship?

What kind of proof does an officer require to be sure that she will leave after the 6 months?
=> So far we can get a return ticket and maybe a signed lease. Will it be enough?

Another question is do they keep track in their system of the reason you invoke to pass the border? (like take short term course and visit the country for example)
=> I guess my point here is, will they cause any troubles if we need to renew the 6 months tourist and invoke a totally different reason than the one we used at the border (waiting for Sponsorship/PR outcome this time)


Regarding the outland sponsorship, there is a very important percentage of chance that she will need to go to London for an interview.
Does the interview comes close to the end of the process or in the middle?
Like if we say the entire process in London will take 6 months, will the interview be more likely after 3 months or 5 for example?

Once the interview is done the question of going back to Canada arise.
As she will be only a tourist there and I guess when she will land her PR request will pop up on the officer's screens, it might be a problem to re-enter.
Will it be better if I am with her in this case, that we are honest and explain our situation clearly to the officer to hope that he will let her enter?

That's a lot of questions I know but I'm trying to cover everything before we go.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[BeShoo]

It's not really all that easy to justify a 6-month trip as a tourist. What will happen to her job during this trip? Who will look after her apartment? etc., and if she doesn't have such responsibilities, why will she ever want to go back?

Being dishonest with immigration officers (IOs) can get you into a huge amount of trouble, including getting your girlfriend banned from entering Canada for 1 or 2 years. You are better to tell them about the sponsorship at the Point of Entry (POE).

She'll still only be able to come temporarily, but visiting with you while waiting for an answer on the PR application is usually a good enough reason for a temporary visit. Of course if she wants to take a short course and see some of the country, those could be additional reasons.

A return ticket and a signed lease will be very good evidence, I think. Any other obligations she might have at home might also be good: jury duty, a job, caring for relatives, something like that.

I don't know what they keep track of in their computer. It could be nothing or it could be everything. It might depend on the IO. Whatever the length of visit, you can request an extension, a month before the time limit ends. It is more likely to be successful if the orginal purpose for the trip is not yet finished.

If the original purpose was to wait out the reply on a PR visa application, you should be able to get an extension if that purpose isn't finished.

If you tell them that's why she is coming, they will probably give a "visitor's record" to her which specifies a date by which she must leave. Once they do that, she is in the system and you have good evidence of the purpose she came for and documented reason to extend that purpose.

You don't have to have filed the PR when she first comes, but you should have paid at least the sponsorship and application fees ($75+475) and have a receipt for that when coming to the POE.

Of course, she could enter for tourism purposes and then decide to apply for PR later. One question: are you in a common law relationship or are you married? You can't sponsor a girlfriend (dating relationship) or a fiancée.

Any other questions, ask. (What is her country of residence and citizenship. It's hard to answer this withou knowing.)

 

[juljud]

Thanks for your answers BeShoo.

We are in a common law relationship but don't have yet the 12 months living together (we are together for 2.5 years but lived apart few times for work reasons), we will have them when we launch the process.
To answer your questions she is Hungarian and we currently reside in Ireland.
She is not currently working and not having so much ties here, the Return ticket and the lease are pretty much all we can get.

I will have a job waiting for me in Canada when we arrive, our idea is to move there as soon as we have everything ready to launch the sponsorship.
We decided to launch outland to not get stuck in Canada in case we need for whatever reason a trip back to Europe, the Right to Appeal and the overall length of the process (should take 1 month in Canada+6-8 in London).

I understand your point of being honest at the entrance and speak about the Sponsorship but don't we take more risks to be in front of a refusal from an IO by doing this?
Would it be really problematic to invoke a different reason than the one we used to enter if an extension is needed?
If we take into account the fact that she will be very likely to go to London for an interview, we might not even need an extension if she gets the 6 months, we will need one if she gets less.

If she cannot enter our plan is gone as I'm not going to stay in Canada without her for the time to get her the Visa, it's a too long separation.

Thanks for your help.

 

[BeShoo]

She is not currently working and not having so much ties here, the Return ticket and the lease are pretty much all we can get.

The lack of ties could be a problem. They may give her less than 6 months.

I understand your point of being honest at the entrance and speak about the Sponsorship but don't we take more risks to be in front of a refusal from an IO by doing this?

There are risks no matter what you do. I don't know which are more, really. It partly depends on the discretion of the IO who you happen to get.

Would it be really problematic to invoke a different reason than the one we used to enter if an extension is needed?

It isn't necessarily a problem, but it might decrease your chance of getting an extension. I know of people who have come to Canada with one purpose, then suddenly decided to get married and apply for PR while they are here. In general it's not a good idea to ask for an extension when you've completed everything you came here for. It's better if part of your original purpose is open-ended. (Even reasons like "We need more time to explore our relationship" have worked for some people.) Also, keep in mind that you need a study permit to study, although courses of less than 6 months are exempt. I would hope that all IOs know that, but you can never be sure.

IOs at the POE have been known to give 12 months to British citizens when there is a spousal application in process. I'm assuming your girlfriend is not a British citizen and I'm not sure what her status in Britain might be.

 

[BeShoo]

I presume she has temporary status in the U.K. I just happened across this on a Canadian consulate site in the U.S. regarding visa renewals (not that you need a visa). The U.K. ought to have similar criteria:

If you are in the United States with temporary status, please provide:

• Your US Non-Immigrant Visa, (whether it is in your current passport or an expired passport)
• The original I-94 card issued by US authorities at the time of your entry into the US

If you are in the United States with B1/B2 status, please provide:

• Proof of ties to your country of usual residence.

This should include (but is not limited to):

• Proof of intention to return to that country (e.g.: airline tickets, travel itineraries),
• Proof of employment (e.g.: letter from employer, recent pay stubs, tax returns),
• Proof of studies (transcripts, letter from school) and
• Proof of funds (e.g.: bank records, property ownership documents).

Sorry for quoting a lot of irrelevant stuff, but I thought it could be useful to others. The point was that "ties to your country of usual residence" (i.e. where your permanent address is) is the most important, rather than ties to your temporary place of residence.

 

[juljud]

Thanks Beshoo for your searches but we are not in the UK but in Ireland and she is Hungarian so no need for a Visa to work within the EU.
As we are both having our permanent residence in Ireland, she could apply either through the embassy in Austria (taking care of Hungary) or London (taking care of Ireland).

Another argument for speaking of the Sponsorship when we enter is the fact that as a PR I need to be in Canada to launch it and how am I supposed to launch the Inland (if I wanted to) if she is not leaving with me in Canada.
To live with me she therefore needs an official status and that's where the Visitor visa comes to play.

The thing is it seems to really depend on the mood of the IO when we enter and as we lack in evidence of ties for going back to Ireland apart from a lease and return tickets, I'm thinking it might be easier for an IO to refuse the entrance if we start to speak about the Sponsorship.

We are still not too sure what to do. We might try to get in touch with the Call Center of CIC to see what is their opinion on this and look into getting more evidence of ties to Ireland.

Your help is very much appreciated.

 

[BeShoo]

Sorry about the U.K./Ireland mix-up, but you hadn't said where you were and I just had to guess, based on your reference to London.

In any case, I'm wondering if ties to the EU as a whole would be good enough. Maybe she has family ties in Hungary? The important thing, really, is that she is willing and able to leave Canada. They don't much care where she goes, so long as it's a place that will accept her going there. They just don't want her trapped in Canada if and when her time runs out. They want her to have a valid place to go.

I just happened across that thing I quoted when I was looking for something else and I thought of you, so that's why I sent it.

 

[AllisonVSC]

I agree with Beshoo's advice about paying the PR fees upfront and bringing a copy of the receipt. Then tell the IO at the POE that you intend to pursue a PR application for her (evidence is the fee receipt) and that since you are a PR you must do it in Canada. One never can predict what the IO will decide, but it is not likely they will send her back. So even if she is granted a very short stay, you can file the PR app and apply for an extension based on the grounds that you want her to stay (and that you can support her as you have a job already in Canada) with you to wait out the process. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

[juljud]

Thanks for you answers.

We start to think it's the right path to follow as otherwise it defeats the entire purpose of Inland Sponsorship when you are a PR (even if it's not what we want to do here).

However it looks like by reading other posts some people in a similar situation had problems to get the Visitor status extended as the "dual intent" thing seems to really depend on the mood of the IO.

Anyway I guess I'll try to get someone in Canada to call CIC and to get a written email confirmation so we are covered at the first entrance.