Spousal Sponsorship need help

[TimS85]

My wife and I met online through a mutual friend in Feb '15. We quickly grew fond of each other and began talking everyday through social media texting and call and video call. We met in person in June and spent 3 weeks together. That's when we knew that it was real and we wanted to be together. We started saving all our records since then and maintained contact talking upwards of 2-3 hours a day on the phone and constantly texting. I flew back to Indonesia and married her on December 1st. We had a small private religious ceremony in which her family was present. We had an informal reception at her parents house where just about everybody in her neighbourhood came by. We then went on a 4 day honey moon before I had to return to Canada to go back to work. We applied for a study permit for my wife to study English as she genuinely wants to become completely fluent and pursue a higher education in an English university but we were denied for the usual reason of not satisfied she would leave Canada. We had hoped that she could have come to study here so we could develop a period of time of cohabitation and her meet and spend time with my family before submitting PR application and we know a couple personally who did the exact same thing and were accepted for the study permit so it seemed like a good idea to us to try. Now we have decided that the only way for us to Be together is for me to sponsor her. We have tons of evidence, photos, wedding photos, texts, screenshots of all our calls on whatsapp, postcards, letters from her family and mine and friends, life insurance indicating her as beneficiary etc. Problem is we have nothing saved from before July. We do have a mutual friend to vouch that we maintained contact since we met.

My question is should I hire a lawyer to take on my case or do you think we have enough documentation that we don't need a professional to make our application more persuasive then I could myself?

This application is everything to us as we just want to be together and we don't want to mess it up.

 

[Aquakitty]

I think you can do it yourself. Just do your due diligence reading these forums, and the Singapore thread in particular.

I don't think the study permit is an issue, as she applied for it after the marriage. Sometimes when someone gets married after a string of failed visa applications, this creates a "red-flag", as it seems like the person is trying anything to get into Canada. But, AFAIK that wouldn't be the case here. The only thing I can see being an issue is the fairly short courtship time. Just be sure to include a lot of sincere proof.

I believe you can also hire a lawyer just to look over the files once you have completed them. That would probably be a lot cheaper. For most people an immigration lawyer is a waste of money as there are very good instructions online and willing forum users who are very experienced and willing to help here.

 

[TimS85]

Thank you for your reply.

I forgot to mention that she is also currently unemployed and living at her parents house. She currently only has high school and thus can't find a decent job and with the wages being so low in Indonesia and with us anticipating her studying we thought its best if I just support her financially instead of her working a terrible job for next to nothing. She left her job and moved back to her hometown to help her parents set up the wedding and to complete all of the ridiculous bureaucracy Indonesia has in registering the wedding and she has remained there since as we were hoping she would have been accepted to study and on her way here by now. Do you think that will affect anything her being unemployed? I have all the Western Union receipts of money sent to her as well.

There is also an 8 year difference in age between us.

 

[mikeymyke]

You don't need a lawyer, you can do everything yourself for free using this forum as a resource or just reading the CIC website. Also, some lawyers tend to mess up on applications such as forgetting documents or giving bad advice.

8 year difference, may or may not be a red flag depending on whether or not it's unusual for someone in Indonesian culture, to marry someone with that kind of age difference.
I don't think the study permit is an issue, as she applied for it after marriage, so it doesn't seem like she was trying to enter Canada before she met you.
Her being unemployed will have no effect on your application.

The biggest things affecting her PR application will be how many red flags you guys have, and how thorough you are at addressing them. Red flags are things such as large educational/cultural/age difference, parents of either spouse not attending the wedding, having a small court wedding rather than a traditional one (only if it's important in the applicant's country to have a traditional wedding), short courtship before marriage, etc. Meeting online isn't such a big red flag as some people might think, as more people are doing that nowadays.

 

[TimS85]

You don't need a lawyer, you can do everything yourself for free using this forum as a resource or just reading the CIC website. Also, some lawyers tend to mess up on applications such as forgetting documents or giving bad advice.

8 year difference, may or may not be a red flag depending on whether or not it's unusual for someone in Indonesian culture, to marry someone with that kind of age difference.
I don't think the study permit is an issue, as she applied for it after marriage, so it doesn't seem like she was trying to enter Canada before she met you.
Her being unemployed will have no effect on your application.

The biggest things affecting her PR application will be how many red flags you guys have, and how thorough you are at addressing them. Red flags are things such as large educational/cultural/age difference, parents of either spouse not attending the wedding, having a small court wedding rather than a traditional one (only if it's important in the applicant's country to have a traditional wedding), short courtship before marriage, etc.

My parents did not attend the wedding, how would I address this as a red flag? They did write a letter of financial support for her Study Permit application offering to finance her study and living expenses.. Would that help in showing my parents believe our marriage is genuine? We both don't have post secondary education, we share the same religion although I did convert, we did have a small court wedding at the KUA ( religious affairs office ) , and a relatively short courtship. What is the best way to address these concerns cic might have?

 

[mikeymyke]

My parents did not attend the wedding, how would I address this as a red flag? They did write a letter of financial support for her Study Permit application offering to finance her study and living expenses.. Would that help in showing my parents believe our marriage is genuine? We both don't have post secondary education, we share the same religion although I did convert, we did have a small court wedding at the KUA ( religious affairs office ) , and a relatively short courtship. What is the best way to address these concerns cic might have?

What were the reasons for them not attending? Reasons such as illness, physical disability, employers not allowing time off, or very poor financial situation are valid, but reasons such as "not wanting to fly" or "not wanting to miss work" would be poor, as in their mind, why wouldn't the parents want to take time off to attend their son's most important day of his life?

Small court wedding, what were the main reasons you guys chose to do this? Is it so that you can speed up the PR process for her by not having to spend the time planning a full traditional wedding? Is it because you guys didn't have enough funds? If so, why didn't you wait a few more months to save up enough for a full wedding? These are questions you need to ask yourselves so that you can better address these concerns in the application.

Short courtship, should explain in detail as to the development of your relationship, why you feel she's not marrying you for PR and why your marriage is genuine. That's because her PR application is refused if either the marriage is not genuine or was done for immigration.

To give an example, with my wife and I, I would say that our marriage is genuine because we were both only 3 years apart, have identical backgrounds, both university educated, speak same language, have similar hobbies and likes, both our families have met each other and ourselves, etc (try to list as many "genuine marriage" traits as possible).

Also, I would tell them our marriage isn't done for immigration because my wife and I had an argument one time chatting, and she blurted out that she'd rather just live in her home country (I showed chats of her saying that, as well as chats showing her saying she doesn't care if she lives in Canada as long as she be with me), mentioned that she has no history of attempting to enter Canada, no relatives in Canada, that she would actually prefer living in her country because her entire family is there. Also mentioned that should her PR be refused, we both have plans to live in Vietnam, with me teaching English and her doing her own thing.