My story comes with a lot of bias and judgement from family, friends and strangers. I met my fiancé online in August of 2017. He's in Nigeria and I'm in Canada. He's now 24 and I'm 40. For those of you who have red flags, don't worry about it - I know this is a genuine relationship for reasons that I won't explain. Just know that I'm integrated into his life, with his family and his business (I just thought I should get that out there). There's no way this is not a genuine relationship.
For a number of months we were just friends but we became closer over time and I flew to Lagos, Nigeria to meet him and his sister in March 2018. We spent 10 days together and were able to talk about a lot of important things. Again, our relationship continued to progress and in July/August 2018 we met in Dubai for 11 days, where he proposed to me. When he returned to Nigeria he applied for a study visa to attend a local college in my city, as he was accepted to start in January 2019. This would have been our opportunity to live together, get to know each other better, and take our time to get married while he was in school. My finances would be the majority of the funding for his education, and he'd live at my house. Apparently there was no problem with the financial aspect of the application - the study visa was rejected because the Immigration Officer thought there wasn't enough reason for my fiancé to return home at the end of the two years. He has a federally registered business that he runs. I'm a shareholder in the business along with him, his sister and parents. We had letters from his family and board members about his return to work after the 2 years of school, and letters from my parents and a friend showing the relationship is genuine. The college diploma is relevant to his business. Unfortunately, with hindsight, we think we were too honest about our relationship and that was the cause of the rejection. I'm ordering the officers notes, so we'll see.
So, moving forward we see limited options if we want to further develop our relationship together in Canada: 1) Re-apply for another study visa to start school in September 2019 but nothing in our application has changed. We can't repackage the information too much or that would be misrepresentation. 2) Apply for a visitor visa, get married when he's visiting me in Canada and apply for inland spousal sponsorship right away. But until he gets PR he can't work unless he gets an open work permit (question: what are the odds of this request being rejected?), he can't go to school (or can he?) and if the application for sponsorship is rejected there's no chance of appeal. We get to live together for a year in Canada but if he's rejected our relationship is over and we have to deal with a divorce quick-like before he leaves the country (question: how long does he have to leave the country? is there enough time to get divorce papers filed?). 3) Get married as soon as possible overseas (Nigeria or another country), then I return home to Canada and apply for outland spousal sponsorship. This takes a year and we are apart during that time. But, at least if it's rejected, we can appeal it.
I'd like to hear people's thoughts... It will be very hard for us to get a visitor visa - they don't easily issue those to Nigerians anymore. Since his business is a gym, we are planning to buy tickets to a local fitness expo and to set up interviews with gym managers while he's here. We also plan to get letters from his local church about the volunteering he does and that they expect him to return to those responsibilities after the visit to Canada.
What are the chances of my inland spousal sponsorship being rejected? This is a lot to go through if I'll just be divorced in a year. To note: We wouldn't have a big wedding if we went the inland or outland route - a small civil ceremony and we may not even have any friends or family if we choose to do it in another country. How will all this impact the application? I'm really perplexed at how personal and cultural bias of the Immigration Officer comes into play - if we choose not to have a cultural or religious ceremony it seems we can be rejected because a stranger thinks we should have gotten married differently.
Thank you for your time.
