Hey guys I am resorting to the forum again after receiving various and often times incorrect advice and its becoming hard to differentiate what is incorrect and isnt anymore.
Background on our situation, Outland App for my american spouse. App was received on May 17 2021. We both traveled to Canada at the end of January and immediately informed IRCC via webform that we would be in Canada 3-6 months, we kind of planned to wait until PR came (which unfortunately is taking longer than expected). Anyways, in May my spouse received a short term contract from a Canadian company and flagpoled on May 16th to activate his work permit, so he has now been in Canada since then as a worker and I promptly send another webform with this information as well. The work permit expires August 23rd and we were planning a couple weeks ago to apply for an change of status/visitor extension for him to stay past the 23 of august for about 3 more months (hoping PR would be finalized by then). Well before we sent the application, we got PPR August 6th and it showed they hadnt processed our app despite us informing them that we were in Canada. They requested we send the docs to NYC VAC or let them know we are physically present. At this moment I wasnt sure what to do so I seeked advice from various outlets, IRCC phone agents, an immigration consultant that I occasionally send questions to, another immigration consultant and of course our beloved forums/facebook groups. Basically the response I got from most people I had heard back from immediately was to request virtual landing. Seeing as I was panicky and just wanted to act immediately to speed up the process, I sent a webform(this is how it was requested to inform them in PPR email), email to CPC-Ottawa(our processing centre for most of our app), told phone agent and asked my MP to mention that we are in Canada and basically to ask what would be faster. I was just so incapable of making a decision that my inquiry was more open ended in my requests that I would do physical or virtual, whatever is easier and faster. Well I think IRCC has since got the message as I noticed the other day on our PR tracker that they added my canadian address.
Anyways, since I sent all that off I saw and heard a couple things that freaked me out. First I read on a sponsorship Facebook group that you can not virtually land on implied status, which our plan was to ask for change of status and stay in canada on implied until he received the virtual landing. Since reading that, two IRCC phone agents informed me that is not the case so I am not really sure. Second, my other immigration consultant got back to me last night and sent me into a complete breakdown when she informed me that it was too late to apply for a change of status as it has to be done 30 minutes before expiration of work permits. She told me that in spite of the fact I already informed the IRCC we are in Canada, that i should just send everything to NYC and just leave the country and wait for COPR. This sent me panicking as we were unfortunately one of the unlucky ones to be separated for over 6 months due to border closures during COVID and ive developed some really bad separation anxiety, so I would prefer any option that would keep us together in Canada while I work. Also, I read that once you request to change landing method you need to stick to it and should not then try to switch back, so I am genuinely just really confused with her advice.
Are we able to virtually land on implied status that is from asking for change of status from worker to visitor? Can we apply a week before expiry? Is sending our docs to NYC anyways a really bad idea?
Does anyone have any direct insight into our situation? Thank you so much, sorry for the long post I am just sleep deprived from a meltdown last night and need to air out everything.
Background on our situation, Outland App for my american spouse. App was received on May 17 2021. We both traveled to Canada at the end of January and immediately informed IRCC via webform that we would be in Canada 3-6 months, we kind of planned to wait until PR came (which unfortunately is taking longer than expected). Anyways, in May my spouse received a short term contract from a Canadian company and flagpoled on May 16th to activate his work permit, so he has now been in Canada since then as a worker and I promptly send another webform with this information as well. The work permit expires August 23rd and we were planning a couple weeks ago to apply for an change of status/visitor extension for him to stay past the 23 of august for about 3 more months (hoping PR would be finalized by then). Well before we sent the application, we got PPR August 6th and it showed they hadnt processed our app despite us informing them that we were in Canada. They requested we send the docs to NYC VAC or let them know we are physically present. At this moment I wasnt sure what to do so I seeked advice from various outlets, IRCC phone agents, an immigration consultant that I occasionally send questions to, another immigration consultant and of course our beloved forums/facebook groups. Basically the response I got from most people I had heard back from immediately was to request virtual landing. Seeing as I was panicky and just wanted to act immediately to speed up the process, I sent a webform(this is how it was requested to inform them in PPR email), email to CPC-Ottawa(our processing centre for most of our app), told phone agent and asked my MP to mention that we are in Canada and basically to ask what would be faster. I was just so incapable of making a decision that my inquiry was more open ended in my requests that I would do physical or virtual, whatever is easier and faster. Well I think IRCC has since got the message as I noticed the other day on our PR tracker that they added my canadian address.
Anyways, since I sent all that off I saw and heard a couple things that freaked me out. First I read on a sponsorship Facebook group that you can not virtually land on implied status, which our plan was to ask for change of status and stay in canada on implied until he received the virtual landing. Since reading that, two IRCC phone agents informed me that is not the case so I am not really sure. Second, my other immigration consultant got back to me last night and sent me into a complete breakdown when she informed me that it was too late to apply for a change of status as it has to be done 30 minutes before expiration of work permits. She told me that in spite of the fact I already informed the IRCC we are in Canada, that i should just send everything to NYC and just leave the country and wait for COPR. This sent me panicking as we were unfortunately one of the unlucky ones to be separated for over 6 months due to border closures during COVID and ive developed some really bad separation anxiety, so I would prefer any option that would keep us together in Canada while I work. Also, I read that once you request to change landing method you need to stick to it and should not then try to switch back, so I am genuinely just really confused with her advice.
Are we able to virtually land on implied status that is from asking for change of status from worker to visitor? Can we apply a week before expiry? Is sending our docs to NYC anyways a really bad idea?
Does anyone have any direct insight into our situation? Thank you so much, sorry for the long post I am just sleep deprived from a meltdown last night and need to air out everything.
