While spousal sponsorship/PR paperwork being processed can I cross Can/US border on a daily basis

[JohnW]

I am a Canadian citizen, born and raised, working and living here in Canada. My soon to be wife is American, born, raised, living, and working in the United States, she's a RN. After we get married we are planning on living here, in Canada (in a border town), and she will continue working in the US and commute to work Monday to Friday.

My question is ....Will she be able to live with me here in Canada while the spousal sponsorship/ permanent residence paperwork is being processed and cross the border on a daily basis to work Monday to Friday? During the waiting period, she will still retain her US address.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

[scylla]

Assume it won't be possible. Sooner or later you should expect that she will be turned away at the border and told she has to stop.

It's possible to "live" in Canada while your PR application is being processed provided you remain in Canada and stay away from the border. If you're doing border runs daily, this means you're being reassessed as a visitor each time you re-enter Canada. Sooner or later CBSA will tell her that what she is doing is attempting to live in Canada without authorization (rather than visiting) and either deny her entry or tell her she has to stop.

If you want to try doing this, make sure you have a plan b (i.e. where she will live if she's denied entry). Also, do not apply inland. Lastly, make sure she never argues with CBSA if it looks like she's going to be denied entry. Occasionally CBSA will issue 1 year exclusion orders to Americans and you want to avoid this.

 

[mnlcva8891]

I am a Canadian citizen, born and raised, working and living here in Canada. My soon to be wife is American, born, raised, living, and working in the United States, she's a RN. After we get married we are planning on living here, in Canada (in a border town), and she will continue working in the US and commute to work Monday to Friday.

My question is ....Will she be able to live with me here in Canada while the spousal sponsorship/ permanent residence paperwork is being processed and cross the border on a daily basis to work Monday to Friday? During the waiting period, she will still retain her US address.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Nope. I and my wife had a similar issue. We recently got married and one time we were going to Canada from the US and we got pulled into immigration and they gave us the talk, at that point, we were unsure where we were gonna live, so they basically told us to pick a country and start the paperwork.
However, they did say, if we file in Canada then we can request a visitor's record for her. However, I do not think that guarantees her entry every time she wants to come in.

I guess you guys live in the Windsor-Detroit area? lol

 

[Jazzercise]

I am a Canadian citizen, born and raised, working and living here in Canada. My soon to be wife is American, born, raised, living, and working in the United States, she's a RN. After we get married we are planning on living here, in Canada (in a border town), and she will continue working in the US and commute to work Monday to Friday.

My question is ....Will she be able to live with me here in Canada while the spousal sponsorship/ permanent residence paperwork is being processed and cross the border on a daily basis to work Monday to Friday? During the waiting period, she will still retain her US address.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

First, if your wife is going to continue to work in the U.S. Monday thru Friday, apply outland. It'll be faster processing.

Second, by applying outland she'll be able to visit you in Canada without worry of messing up the application. The key word here is visit. She should not only "retain" her U.S. address (unclear what you meant by this - keep paying rent? not sell her property? keep an official address on paper?), but she should live there. Set up a visiting schedule where she goes up to Canada certain weekends, and you go down to the U.S. on other weekends. It's not ideal and it's not living together, but it'll at least keep you in the good graces of border and immigration officials in both countries.

I know of a few people (my wife's friends) who have done something like this, and it worked out. They were given a hard time about it at a certain point, but the border agents came to see that they weren't up to anything suspicious/unlawful. Oh, and before I forget, if you two don't have this already, get NEXUS. Will only help.