Hi, I got my PR in January 2015 and stayed in Canada as a pr for 5 months only. Then left Canada due to family issues. Since then I have been working and living in home country without any travel. I am 37 years old single. Since I was 17, I lived in Canada for 12 years. I want to update my status in Canada and move back to Canada for good. Do I have a chance to get my pr status back?
PR renewal outside Canada 2 years after expiry
- Thread starter defrontier
- Start date
You can't renew your PR card from outside of Canada. You will need to travel to Canada in order to do that.
There are two ways for you to do this. One is to fly to the US and then re-enter Canada through a land border. If you are able to enter Canada without being reported by CBSA for failing to meet your residency requirement, then you would then simply live in Canada for 2 years straight and then apply to renew your PR card. If you are reported at the border for failing to meet RO, you will be allowed to enter Canada but will then have to attend a hearing to argue why you should be able to keep your PR status despite not meeting the residency requirement.
The other way is to apply for a PR Travel Document from outside of Canada. You will need to request H&C considerations since you do not meet the residency requirement. As part of the application, you will need to provide evidence of the H&C reasons that prevented you from returning to Canada and meeting the residency requirement. Working outside of Canada won't be accepted as a reason. It would need to be a situation like an ill parent who could not live indepedently and required your support, and you are a single child so there was no one else who was able to take care of them. If you have a situation like this, you would want to provide proof to cover the years you've been outside of Canada such as hospitalization records and letters from doctors.
Hope this helps.
You hold PR status until CIC strips your status or you renounce it. Therefore, you don't need to get your PR status back. You already have it.
If you want to move back to Canada, you just have to move back. If you are in the US, all you have to do is go to a land border and ask for admission. If you are overseas, then your only option to get back is to get to US, and then go to land border/POE to get into Canada. You can't fly to Canada as PR with expired PR card.
Your admission to Canada is nearly guaranteed (as a PR), but if border officer decides to grill you about your past presence or absence, he will know you were out of Canada since 2015 and are in breach. In recent years (I just don't recall exact year) a new system was implemented, that automatically tracks departures from Canada. If they had the system in place in 2015, they won't even ask you about time you spent out, they will know it right away.
It would then be up to individual border officer what to do. They could either report you or waive you in without any trouble. If they report you, you will have 30 days to appeal. And then you have to make a case before IAD. Unless you have very compelling H&C grounds to remain in Canada, chances are IAD would rule against you (as a matter of law), and you would be eventually deported. But if you were lucky and waived in without being reported, you would just need to stay in Canada 2 years, and you would then be able to apply for a new PR card and be in full compliance with RO, unless you left Canada and breached it again. Best of luck to you.
My personal experience with Canadian border guards on US border is that they are obnoxious, aggressive and hostile bunch. They used to consistently send me to secondary inspection when I was a NEWLY landed PR (I couldn't be in breach of RO even if I wanted to), and they grilled me about my residence as if I was an international criminal on INTERPOL's watch list. I hated the guts of those donkey holes afterwards, and wish I had the confidence and maturity back then which I have now, because I would not hesitate to create long paper trail, report them to their supervisors and even file a law suit for damages (I don't care if I would win or loose the case, I would still make a point by serving summons on agency heads and forcing them to defend themselves in a federal court, even if it meant filing Motion for summary dismissal).
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