Success Stories!

[KelseyTVS]

Hello everyone! I'm so glad I found this forum, everybody has been really helpful and friendly. I thought it might be nice to have a thread of success stories.

There are lots of threads where people have questions and are trying to figure out this really long and confusing process, so I thought it might be nice to have a thread to show that there's hope!

So, for those of you who have successfully done Family Class Sponsorships, what was your situation like? What sort of things do you think helped get your application approved? How long did it take?

 

[suzanne2014]

Really awesome idea it's nice too see that there is success because I'm at the beginning and it feels like 10 years already lol

 

[Mapleson]

The only trouble is that most people evaporate from the site after their story is successful.

My brother-in-law on my wife's side successfully immigrated as family class last year.

My sister-in-law on my side successfully immigrated in 1999 with her son.

Now that I think about it, except for those not married, all my siblings and my wife's siblings married people from another country (well, my one sister married two Canadians first, but my other sister only married a Scotsman and a Dane).

 

[Amalthea]

I just landed yesterday Hurray!!! We were best friends for about 4 years. We fell in love Summer 2013, got married in February 2014, applied in September 2014.. and now, here I am, a PR of Canada! Finally T_T
<3

we chose to elope, you can read our story here!
http://offbeatbride.com/2014/08/vancouver-elopement

 

[truesmile]

Success here also. Didn't do anything special. Honestly, we filled out the forms as if it were merely a formality. (Our relationship story at 3 sentences fit in the answer box provided.). If there was any question, it was the 60 photos that we sent in. No chat logs, email, or Skype logs were submitted.

 

[KelseyTVS]

Success here also. Didn't do anything special. Honestly, we filled out the forms as if it were merely a formality. (Our relationship story at 3 sentences fit in the answer box provided.). If there was any question, it was the 60 photos that we sent in. No chat logs, email, or Skype logs were submitted.

Wow that's impressive! What country was the person being sponsored from? Were you married? I'm hearing info about it being easier from certain countries or easier if you're married instead of common law, etc.

 

[keesio]

I sponsored my wife from the US in 2013. It was mostly smooth except for one big scare where Ottawa said that she didn't provide an FBI certificate when we did have it in the original package. That cause use to freak out and she got another set of prints done and had just mailed it to the FBI when we got an e-mail back from Ottawa saying "never mind, we found it" lol.

As for some details of the sponsorship, it was a pretty standard case except she didn't have a US birth certificate since she was not born in the US (she is a naturalized US citizen) so that caused us some anxiety. So we sent in copies of her Certificate of US citizenship document and her family's Family Census Register (South Korea's closest equivalent of a birth certificate when she was born) and fortunately CIC accepted them as a suitable equivalent without any issue. Took ~7 months total from when the Application was sent out to when arrived in COPR in her mailbox. Our packet was a well organized package with ~50 photos of wedding/honeymoon/family/vacation. About 2 pages detailing out relationship history and a few pages of call logs and some boarding passes of our trips together sprinkled in. We also threw in an extra wedding invitation we had and some other miscellaneous stuff.

 

[KelseyTVS]

That's awesome! And a pretty quick turnaround, only 7 months!

 

[truesmile]

Wow that's impressive! What country was the person being sponsored from? Were you married? I'm hearing info about it being easier from certain countries or easier if you're married instead of common law, etc.

Yes, married. From Philippines.

 

[jomz]

Success Story here as well. The whole process was very straightforward for us. Me and my husband met in January 2012, we were engaged in June 2013, and married August 2013. We did go through a very tough VO in Rabat Morocco where some applicants have difficulties due to marriage fraud being present. We had the so called "red flags" which visa officers look for. I am older than my husband (4 yrs difference), I am not Moroccan, raised in different culture/religion. When we applied the Rabat VO processing times were 9 months and my husband was approved in 4 months and landed as a PR in May 2014. On October 31st we welcomed the birth of our daughter.

What may have really helped our file is the fact that we were in fact very well prepared for the question "what happens if my husband is refused a visa". As a wedding present my husband's parents bought us a building lot to build a villa in Morocco and we already started the process of getting an architect to start drawings, we obtained permits to build etc. copies of which were included in our application. I really think that having a plan "B" and "C" etc. is the key of being successful especially when dealing with a visa office that is in a non visa exempt country.

 

[kettle]

My spouse is from the UK. He came to Canada on an open work permit (not sure which one) in Ocotober 2009, we met by chance in the spring of 2010. Two days after we met he moved three hours south of me and we continued a long distance relationship for about two and a half years until he was able to get a successful LMO and job offer for a local company.

We lived together for two years and applied for spousal sponsorship (common-law) in December 2014 after his new work visa was denied. (new Temporary foreign worker legislation would have made him out of status in the spring of 2015 anyhow)

We took a few trips together, including one to the US, several in country and two to the UK. Our application was straightforward and simple. We had a signed declaration of a common law union, no letters of support and a short essay with about 18 photos included in the body of the essay. In all the essay was just eight pages including photos. Short and sweet really.

We went to the UK for Christmas in December 2014, by this point my spouse was out of status, and we were uncertain if he would be granted admission back into Canada. Our application had been received December 19, so when we landed back in Canada on December 30, my spouse was given a forty day visiting period. he had to leave in early February. It was mid January when the London visa office changed from 11 months to 29 months (and I hadn't yet found this forum) we began the preparations for him to go home and find a well paying job so I could join him in the UK for the next two years. I started looking into Masters programs, and other educational avenues. I had a plan to rent my house and found a temporary home for my horse.

He was unsuccessful in finding a job that really suited him and his trade for most of February and I was waiting until I was done a contract here in April and for my application to sponsor him to be approved before I decided to move. I was hoping to move by the end of August. We received AOR, and the letter had a typo on it indicating that my spouse and I had applied inland. We couldnt get a clear answer from CIC on this for several weeks, so our legal representative advised that my spouse return to Canada in March and that we withdraw our application and apply inland (if it wasn't already inland) so he could take advantage of the OWP pilot program. By the time he landed in late march we had sponsor approval, and confirmation that our application was staying in Mississauga for processing. (that is about the time I found this forum! ) I stuck to the advice given here and we kept our application as out of country. My spouse spent the next few months as a visitor in Canada, and successfully landed May 31.

We didn't have medicals up front (bad advice from our legal representative) didn't pay the RPRF up front and very fortunately for us our application went through Mississauga and took just five months. We were very fortunate. We made mistakes, and despite that things went smoothly.

 

[bigredmoose]

Success here as well!

Very long story short, we met online in 2009 through the volunteering we did in our home countries. We became friends and stayed in contact over the years. We started talking more and more after my marriage ended in 2010 and we decided to become a couple in January 2013, despite being on other sides of the planet (me in Canada, her in Australia). We met for the first time in October 2013 when she flew here for 2 weeks. She met most of my family on this visit and I proposed. She flew back for another 2 weeks in May 2014 and we were married. I flew there in August 2014 for 2 weeks. We finally got our ducks in a row and submitted our application in late October 2014 and we received COPR almost exactly 6 months later (yay Sydney VO!). They did not request an interview or additional documentation.

I don't think we did anything extraordinary with our application. We followed the guide to the letter, proof-read the application several times and included a note for everything that looked even remotely questionable. Lots of pictures, letters from family and friends, etc etc etc. Medical and payment was upfront.

Anyway, she lands July 8! At that point, we'll have been a couple for 907 days but only physically together a grand total of 6 weeks and it will have been 307 days since we last saw each other.

 

[QuebecOkie]

Our story is very simple. He'd never been married, I'd been married and divorced, and neither of us have children. Close in age (I'm 2.5 years older than him, so late 20's/early 30's when we started all of this). We met through an online dating site in 2010, though we were living perhaps 4 kms from one another in the same city (Oklahoma City, OK, USA - he lived there for four years for work). We dated for around a year before living together and lived together in Oklahoma City for around a year before the move. We married in April 2012 in a TINY, informal cermony (three friends present as witnesses, and hubby was in jeans, haha), and when he moved back to Canada in July 2012, I came with him.

We didn't have a clue what we were doing with immigration. We thought, because I was here (Québec) with him, we had to file inland. Oops. Sent only 8 photos, with a brief description of each, along with three airline itineraries from our travels together. No statements from relatives or anyone else. No skype or chat log of any sort. I also didn't do my medical or FBI certificate up front, but decided to send those in before CIC asked for them. Got lucky and, after what I still think of as the "silent summer of 2013," got my AIP and DM in the same day. I landed a few days short of a year after our app was received.

 

[jomarcabiles]

our story is very simple as well...was in common law for 4 yrs and applied after...my partner was never divorce and they ask for the divorce paper and ask to provide explanation if my partner was not divorce. respond to them and sent more proof as they were asking for more...my partner is 18 yrs older than me but I guess it was never a problem since we have tons of evidence and letter from our friends. never had any interview and got my PR and landed!!

good luck to everyone and I know this journey is going to be long but have patience and time will come!!

 

[tishness]

Success here but not without hurdles and some wildcards.
Outland application for my Mexican husband. We got married after a 3 year relationship, our only living together for an extended period was 4 months, besides that many 1-4 week trips 3-4 times a year. We had applied for a working holiday visa through IEC back in 2012 and he was refused, as such never applied for a visitor visa as all advice was it would be a waste. My husband also has 2 young as granges children, and knowing he likely wouldn't be able to locate them let alone have medicals done for them was a huge concern. Nevertheless I educated myself well, thanks to this forum and other posts, specifically regarding the kids, so I knew how to best approach that. What I learned was that CIC is really looking for evidence that you tried to produce dependants, and are not just simply choosing not to. The only means of communication with the kids mother was a private Facebook profile but she uses her full name so we are sure it her. My husband messaged her on repeat occasions regarding their whereabouts and of course there was no response. We included these messages with our application up front, along with a cover letter outlining their relationship from start to finish and their last period of communication. A lawyer also provided CIC forms (not available online) declaring that my husband understands he cannot sponsor them in the future.
Aside from that I was intent on putting together a strong application, with little doubt of our relationship being genuine, we had a large wedding, with both of our families and friends in attendance. I did have the luxury of knowing some friends who have been through this process already. Their advice from the beginning was invaluable, save everything, takes loads of pictures. My SA relationship story was over 30 pages including photos laid in it, along with travel documents all I'm chronological order. I was our love story and I wrote it that way, I even spoke to the visa officer reading it in parts.
After months of work we sent our app in Sept 2014. It's hard to let it go, I think many people find. You go over things with a fine toothed comb to the point you can't even look at it anymore but you are so worried you missed something... A signature here, a field there...
We received a letter saying our package was incomplete in October. I couldn't believe I had made a mistake, I'm just too particular... My husband didn't sign the back of his photos! Surely I couldn't have missed that... Well I didn't. The Latin America guide no where instructs you to do this. So I call CIC, I get a nice guy who agrees with me, but says nothing they can do, send new photos. $100 later to courier new photos from Mexico. I'm so upset, it's now late October. I call CIC a few weeks later as I've heard nothing - "oh, you go to the back of the line"... What? You have delayed us 2 months, and it's not even my fault?? Well, I lost it. After a short pity party, I emailed the immigration
Minister, and my MP's office. My MP's office responded immediately (thank God someone cares). They fought on my behalf for a couple weeks, it had to go to a CIC procedural review board, but I was right, and they promised to move our file to where it should have been, and not penalize us for their mistake.
So we got SA in and waited every longer for anything from the Mexican VO (file transfer is at a snails pace).
Police checks in Mexico cannot be done upfront, federal checks are only available with a government request letter, in this case from the canadian embassy. And if you are not in Mexico City, you need to go to the state capitals office to have this done... But they are so rare that even the local office staffer didn't know this, we got the run around about where he needed to go about 4 times before he finally spoke to someone who could give him a straight answer. New problem, he never did his mandatory military service, and he needs the registration card for his police clearance. Well this was a tough time for us, I wasn't even speaking to him for weeks. So infuriated that he could screw this up, had he just read the website with the requirements before getting the request letter... But noooooo. So without help or support from me, he ended up first going 3 hours to where he was born to get a letter saying he never registered for military service there; waited 3 days for the letter; came home and went to apply for his registration card; waited 5 days for the card; travlled 3 hours to the state capital office to hav his police check done (after more pictures and having to shave his head for them); went home waited 10 days for the clearance certificate; travlled 3 hours back to pick it up (they won't email/courier/release to someone else); arrived at the office to find out it was closed (cinco de mayo, which contrary to popular believe is not actually a holiday in Mexico); the security felt sorry for him and called the secretary into the office to give him his clearance (phew); travlled 3 hrs home; had to get it translated and notarized; shipped it off....
After this they sent requests for medicals for his kids, he responded that they could not be located for a medical as per our application. And this actually went better than expected! They sent more declaration forms, asked for an explanation again, and that was it!
He received his passport back last Friday - I fly down in 1 month, and I'm bringing my man home august 1
It has been a crazy ride, this can easily break you, and your relationship... But it is truly the best test of love, if two people can get through this, especially apart... How great will life be together!