CanadianJeepGuy said:
I never could get what that rule is in place for?
It's an anti-fraud measure.
Suppose your partner has a serious medical condition. If you apply as a skilled worker and single and are accepted, you can then sponsor your partner. Had you applied together, you'd not have been approved.
If a single family member is inadmissible
the entire family is inadmissible. Thus, if CIC does not have an opportunity to examine all family members at the time of the original application, they might allow someone who should have been refused. The rule turns this on its head: anyone
not examined because they were not declared is automatically excluded as a member of the family class.
The loophole here is that if you DO declare someone as your partner and CIC refuses to recognize the relationship, you can then sponsor them in the future - because the decision not to examine was CIC's, not the applicants. I've seen multiple cases that fall into this exception category.
I know of
one case where H&C relief was granted. The case was a father who did not even know about the child at the time he applied. He learned of the child more than a decade later and attempted to sponsor the child but was refused. In his case the Court actually ruled in his favour, but it really is a seriously difficult rule.
Further, it seems that some people just don't GET the fact it relates to
Canadian law. It has nothing to do with the laws or customs of the jurisdiction in which the couple are living. Like the cousins living together - immigration applications are confidential, so that information would not be released back. Thus it is mandatory that the applicants be honest and forthcoming with their situation. I've seen a few times when this gets sticky (e.g., a same sex couple in a country where such a relationship is a criminal offence punishable by death - they had an interesting time obtaining a notarized affidavit of common-law union!) But you create more trouble for yourself by lying.
