Spouse Inadmissible under LC2 Program

[bigleafbride]

Hello everyone! I am posting this on behalf of a friend who is under the Live-In-Caregiver program.
Her spouse and children are included in her application for permanent residence. The spouse due to health reason was found inadmissible. While the disease can be treated, it will take years of therapy. The applicant would like to know if it is possible for her to get her children first while the spouse is undergoing treatment.

Is this something that has to be consulted with an immigration lawyer? If yes, do you guys have any recommendation for a good immigration lawyer who has experience handling a similar case in Toronto?

If you require more information to better access the problem, please let me know.

Thank you all in advance!

 

[scylla]

If her husband is inadmissible then unfortunately this impacts herself and her children as well - and they will all be refused. Unfortunately it's not possible to apply for PR just for herself and her children. Her husband's inadmissibility makes the entire family inadmissible. Either they all pass the medical - or no one is approved.

The only option she has if she wants to proceed with the PR application now is to try to overturn the inadmissibility decision for her husband. Has she been sent a "response to fairness" letter from CIC indicating they intend to find her husband inadmissible and does she still have time to respond to this letter to convince CIC that her husband will not place a burden on Canada's health care system? If so, then engaging a good lawyer could potentially get a positive result. If the application has already been refused, it becomes a lot more difficult since they would then have to go the appeal route and prove the husband will not be a medical burden to Canada.

 

[bigleafbride]

Hello Scylla, thank you for your reply.

The letter was sent directly to her spouse. I find this weird since she is the principal applicant thus should be the one to receive the letter. She has not yet received any letter regarding the inadmissible case. We just found out last night. Is it possible to drop her husband in the application?

 

[scylla]

Hello Scylla, thank you for your reply.

The letter was sent directly to her spouse. I find this weird since she is the principal applicant thus should be the one to receive the letter. She has not yet received any letter regarding the inadmissible case. We just found out last night. Is it possible to drop her husband in the application?

Again, no - it is not possible to drop her husband from the application. She can flag him as non-accompanying - but he still has to pass the medical in order for her and her children's PR visas to be approved. If he doesn't pass the medical - none of them will be approved.

The only way she can completely remove him from the application is to divorce him. However CIC would most likely say this was a divorce of convenience (carried out to avoid the impact of the inadmissibility) and still refused the application. In the event CIC did accept the divorce as genuine, this would mean she would never be able to sponsor her husband for PR (ever). Overall, I don't think the divorce route is feasible (I think CIC would see right through this and still refuse the entire family).

Again, the only option available is to convince CIC that her husband will not be a burden to Canada's health care system.

 

[scylla]

Just to add...

There are a number of threads in the Skilled Worker section of this forum that deal with the "response to fairness" letter and medical inadmissibility. Search the forum for "fairness" to find these discussions. Here's one example (there are more):

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t193571.0.html

I would espeically be on the look-out for responses from computergeek who has been through the process and can offer a lot of good advice.

Again, to be successful, she needs to prove her husband won't be a burden. This involves collecting evidence from doctors, providing information on the cost of treatments in Canada, etc. They will only have a short window to respond to the letter and try to change CIC's mind. If they want to give it a shot, they should join this forum and start reading through the fairness threads to see what they need to do and/or hire a lawyer who is experienced with medical inadmissibility. However even if they hire a lawyer, they will still have to collect all of the proof required to try to overturn the decision - so they should start collecting now if they are going to try to fight this.

Hope this helps.

 

[zardoz]

Hello Scylla, thank you for your reply.

The letter was sent directly to her spouse. I find this weird since she is the principal applicant thus should be the one to receive the letter. She has not yet received any letter regarding the inadmissible case. We just found out last night. Is it possible to drop her husband in the application?

The letter would be sent to the spouse only, because of privacy regulations.

 

[bigleafbride]

The letter would be sent to the spouse only, because of privacy regulations.

Thank you Zardoz. We are under the assumption that her being the principal applicant, there should be transparency in the application. Does this mean she will not get a copy of the letter?

 

[zardoz]

Thank you Zardoz. We are under the assumption that her being the principal applicant, there should be transparency in the application. Does this mean she will not get a copy of the letter?

The privacy regulations are strictly followed, perhaps to the point of the ridiculous. When I ordered my GCMS notes, they actually redacted information relating to my wife, so that I couldn't see it, even though she was my sponsor. Therefore, she will probably be informed that she is inadmissible but may be told few details.

 

[bigleafbride]

Again, no - it is not possible to drop her husband from the application. She can flag him as non-accompanying - but he still has to pass the medical in order for her and her children's PR visas to be approved. If he doesn't pass the medical - none of them will be approved.

The only way she can completely remove him from the application is to divorce him. However CIC would most likely say this was a divorce of convenience (carried out to avoid the impact of the inadmissibility) and still refused the application. In the event CIC did accept the divorce as genuine, this would mean she would never be able to sponsor her husband for PR (ever). Overall, I don't think the divorce route is feasible (I think CIC would see right through this and still refuse the entire family).

Again, the only option available is to convince CIC that her husband will not be a burden to Canada's health care system.

Scylla, if ever the applicant decided to take the risk and file divorce, I understand the spouse cannot be sponsored by the applicant but would it be possible for one of their children to sponsor him? This time as parent? I know that is a long route but less risky and probably easier than over turning the inadmissibility case. The husband can start the treatment now and hopefully will be fully recovered before the parent sponsorship starts. I am just exploring some work around here.

Btw, thank you for sending the link!

 

[Rob_TO]

Scylla, if ever the applicant decided to take the risk and file divorce, I understand the spouse cannot be sponsored by the applicant but would it be possible for one of their children to sponsor him? This time as parent? I know that is a long route but less risky and probably easier than over turning the inadmissibility case. The husband can start the treatment now and hopefully will be fully recovered before the parent sponsorship starts. I am just exploring some work around here.

Btw, thank you for sending the link!

After the child turns 18 and then has 3 years of Canadian tax returns meeting the minimum parents LICO amount, they could sponsor their dad. Of course who know what the rules will be for parents sponsorship that far into the future.

 

[scylla]

After the child turns 18 and then has 3 years of Canadian tax returns meeting the minimum parents LICO amount, they could sponsor their dad. Of course who know what the rules will be for parents sponsorship that far into the future.

Agreed. And then add another 3+ years of processing time on top of that.

I think it's actually quite unlikely CIC will allow the husband to be severed from the application. I think it will be pretty clear to them that this is a divorce of convenience. Also - keep in mind that there is a finite window for responding to the fairness letter. This means that between now and then, they must prove a divorce is underway (or has been complete) and must provide hard proof the husband and wife are no longer a couple. It will be awfully suspicious if they "suddenly" decided to separate and can't provide several months if not years of evidence to prove they are no longer a couple.

If CIC decides they are lying (which they will be, based on what you've written), they could be slapped with a misrepresentation ban which means a refusal of the application and a (now) 5 year ban from re-entering or re-apply to work or live in Canada.

 

[novembre2013]

If the child would sponsor him, it would take more than 3 years : 41 months for sponsor eligilibity and 65 months of total processing for Manilla. And I don't how old is the child now.
How long would the medical treatment take? Maybe better to wait for him to be heal and submit a new application?
This idea of divorce... Make me sad for him since he's gonna be left behind by his family because of his health condition.

I edited my post.

 

[bigleafbride]

It seems that all options at this points are risky. I guess it would be a matter of deciding which one would be more convenient (time wise), and will not cost so much legal fees for the applicant.

The main consideration now is to get the children since she has been away from them for more than 15 years. So much sacrifices have been done.

Thank you everyone for helping us out. I sure will be back with follow up questions once we have more information. So far, she has not yet received a letter from CIC and her working visa is good till December 2015.

Waiting for the husband's full recovery may not be an option since that might require her to re-apply, in which case, she cannot include the eldest in the application. No easy route for her, I know. It is just so sad that this happen to good people.