Sponsoring US Citizen under Family Sponsorship - Conjugal Partner

[cbelgrave]

Good Morning!

I am sponsoring my fiancée to come to Canada under the Family Sponsorship - Conjugal Parter category. He is a US citizen and I'm Canadian. We submitted our application in November 2015. We plan on getting married in August 2016. We are getting married in Buffalo, NY.

He would like to come to Canada as a visitor in March, with the intention of extending his stay if his application is not processed by September, which isn't likely based on the wait times listed on the CIC site.

Does anyone have any experience/advice on extended a visitor visa while waiting for the sponsorship application to be completed? Do we indicate that we are getting married? Since we are leaving Canada and returning after a 2 week honeymoon, does that count as restarting the visitor visa clock?

Thanks in advance.
Kate

 

[scylla]

If you really applied under conjugal - then I would withdraw your application and submit it again once you are married.

You have no barriers preventing you from getting married or become comming law. A conjugal application is going to be refused.

 

[Aquakitty]

Uh oh.

I highly suggest withdrawing your application immediately. US/Canadians can't be conjugal partners. Get married and apply as married.

I don't know if they would accept a "fix" to the application at this point (for instance, if you get married now and report that you made a huge mistake on the application). You can try I suppose. But, if they haven't started on his app yet, you can still get a refund.

 

[canuck_in_uk]

Hi

As stated above, there are no legal or immigration barriers preventing you from getting married or becoming common-law, which is the very basis to qualify for conjugal. Conjugal examples are a same-sex couple where the applicant is from a country where homosexuality is illegal and they have been a refused a TRV to come to Canada or a Filipino who is already married in the Philippines where divorce is illegal and has been refused a TRV. There are both legal and immigration barriers preventing these couples from marrying or living together, hence conjugal applies.

I also suggest withdrawing and reapplying after marriage.

 

[cbelgrave]

Thank you all for the replies. The CIC is a little misleading then, as it defines conjugal as:

"A conjugal partner is a foreign national residing outside Canada who is in a conjugal relationship with a sponsor for at least one year, but could not live with the sponsor as a couple. This term applies to both heterosexual and homosexual couples. This category was established for partners of sponsors who normally would present an application as spouse or common-law partner but cannot due to circumstances beyond their control (e. g., immigration barrier, religious reasons or sexual orientation). Thus, they could not live together for a period of at least one year."

Because we have an "immigration barrier" (he can only be here as a visitor) that's why I chose this category.

 

[Rob_TO]

As already mentioned, a conjugal app for a regular US-Canadian couple is a practically guaranteed refusal.

See here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/op/op02-eng.pdf
5.25. Characteristics of conjugal relationships
People who are dating or who are thinking about marrying or living together and establishing a
common-law relationship are NOT yet in a conjugal relationship, nor are people who want to live
together to “try out” their relationship

5.45. What is a conjugal partner?
This category was created for exceptional circumstances – for foreign national partners of
Canadian or permanent resident sponsors who would ordinarily apply as common-law partners
but for the fact that they have not been able to live together continuously for one year, usually
because of an immigration impediment. In most cases, the foreign partner is also not able to
marry their sponsor and qualify as a spouse.

if they are not married, they must be common-law partners.

5.46. Can conjugal partners be substitutes for fiancé(e)s?
Conjugal partners are NOT substitutes for fiancé(e)s. CIC decided that it no longer wanted to be
in the business of assessing future relationships or the intention of two individuals to establish and
maintain a conjugal relationship. Thus, there is no fiancé(e) category in the IRPA and Regulations.
If they intend to apply as spouses, Canadians and their foreign national fiancé(e)s are expected
to be married before the immigration process takes place, i.e., the foreign national must be
married to the Canadian sponsor and apply to immigrate as a married spouse.
Fiancé(e)s are individuals who intend to marry and intend to establish a conjugal relationship. In
most cases, they have not yet established a conjugal relationship. They intend to combine their
affairs and become mutually interdependent, but have not yet done so. Even if they have a sexual
relationship, they have not yet achieved the level of mutual interdependence that characterizes a
conjugal relationship although they intend to do so at some point when they marry.
Most traditional fiancé(e)s cannot meet the definition of conjugal partner. They have not merged
their affairs and established the required mutual interdependency. As well, conjugal partners must
have established a sexual relationship, and traditional fiancé(e)s would be unlikely to meet this
criterion.

 

[Rob_TO]

Because we have an "immigration barrier" (he can only be here as a visitor) that's why I chose this category.

There is no barrier to him being here as a visitor for 6 months and extending that status as needed, or you going to US as a visitor for 6 months... to become common-law. A real "immigration barrier" would be if he's inadmissible to Canada, and you were inadmissible to the US.

And there is no barrier to marriage.

You really need to cancel your current app immediately and wait until you're married.

 

[scylla]

Because we have an "immigration barrier" (he can only be here as a visitor) that's why I chose this category.

That's not an immigration barrier.

You can easily get married - absolutely no immigration barrier there. Alternatively, you could live together for a year to become common law. This is easily done either by spending six months in each country together - or by him coming here and then applying for an extension to stay a full year. Again, no immigration barrier.

Trust us. You don't qualify.

 

[cbelgrave]

Ok, thank you! Appreciate all of the replies.

 

[scylla]

Just to add - sorry we are the bearers of bad news. I can't imagine how much it must suck to find this out now.

 

[cbelgrave]

LOL yes it really does. Thanks. I didn't know about this forum until I started "Googling" to try and find out more information.

I'm sure I will be back here with more questions.

 

[taffy7]

You're not the only person who has made this mistake. Every time i see this my heart breaks. I was lucky enough to find this forum before we applied. Good news is that you know now and correct it. Better than waiting 12 months then finding out.