kevinb7 said:
Sorry to break the fight guys...
Jalex23, how much money did your mom/gf and friend show in their bank accounts to immigration? And around how much was their employment income? How can my parents and brother all come visit me together as a family if they have no "family ties"?
I have a decent income (42k per year, no wife or kids, I have 10k+ on my bank account) and told immigration on my invitation letter that I would completely cover the costs of my family's visit to Canada including flights yet they still refuse it for:
-Your travel history
-Your family ties in Canada and in your country of residence
-Your current employment situation
-Your personal assets and financial status
-I am not satisfied that you have sufficient funds, including income or assets, to carry out your stated
purpose in going to Canada or to maintain yourself while in Canada and to effect your departure.
My family was only going to stay for 3 weeks and even got letters from their employers saying they had to return back to their jobs after 3 weeks. I feel so helpless and powerless. I'm not sure what to say or do differently so they can issue my family a visitor visa. :'(
The problem is that you don't earn enough and don't have enough in the bank. If I was the immigration officer I would also have said NO. It is simple. You are earning less than 45k, that is more or less like 850CAN a week. divided by 4 people you would have less than 30 daily dollars to spend for each one of you during that visit. How is it believable that you want to "visit the country and show them around" with a budget of 30 dollars per person for three weeks? A visitor is supposed to go dining, travel around, do some shopping, ENJOY the trip. And it seems you can't afford that. Now, you mention 10k+ in the bank. That is before or after the tickets were purchased? If it was BEFORE then even worse because a round trip is 1K per person. What happens if you have an accident? What happens if any of you gets ill? 7k+ is barely enough.
You can argue that the main point of the trip is to "be together" or "to see you" but noth of these things can be done back home, one trip, and cheaper....
So as you can see you are being too ambitious with your approach. I would suggest inviting first your brother. After you have built a history of inviting people then invite your parents. If you are trying to invite the three of them in your first try then it is not strange that you got refused. Another approach is that you wait another year, save like crazy, make thsoe 10k+ be 20k+ and that would help a lot in your case.
All those reasons are not like the officer looked for ways to prevent your family from coming, all the other way, the officer was trying to believe you and continue digging to find some evidence that your intentions were genuine.
In my personal experience I was making more than you, I didn't cover the air ticket, it was my gf alone and it was just for two weeks. That is the way you do it, keep it simple, and keep the request realistic.
