Canadian applying from UK - where to send & proof of moving back

[sirdesro]

Dear all,

It's my first time using this forum, so please excuse me if I don't quite have the hang of it.  Your advice and experience would be gratefully received as I'm not having much luck looking at the CIC website!

I am a Canadian citizen living in the UK and am married to a UK citizen.  I am going to sponsor my wife for permanent residence.  We would love to be able to move to Canada by April 09.  We are aiming for her to get her permanent residence as soon as possible so that she can continue her career.  Our queries:

- My wife lived for 1 year in the US (Florida and Michigan) when she was 20.  Does she need to get an FBI check as well as the state police checks?  As the websites indicate that the police checks can take some 5 months and then the permanent residence can take some 7 months, we were wondering if we could submit our permanent residence application without the US criminal checks and then send in the checks once they are complete (in essence doing the two activities in parallel rather than sequentially to reduce the end to end time)?

- As her sponsor, I currently live in the UK (and have done for 16 years).  What type of evidence is required to show that I will settle in Canada?  I do not have a job offer or a contract for a house because it is still over 5 months until we move.  Is it sufficient to show correspondence I have had with companies about jobs?

- If we go to Canada before the application is processed, do we declare at immigration that she has an application for permanent residence in progress?

- Finally, there is contradictory information about where to send the application.  Do we send it to the Case Processing Centre in Missisauga or to the Canadian embassy here in London?

Many thanks,
Ron

[analon]

Ron. I am in a pretty similar position as you and have similar questions. Kindly look up posts by myself in the last month with my id 'analon' which have some of the questions answered...particularly the question about 'intent to move back and proving it'.

In my case my wife is the Canadian living in USA with me and is sponsoring me to Canada. Out of caution I am getting all police certificates for all countries I have lived in.

The UK police cert details are available at : http://www.acpo.police.uk/certificates.asp and took 10-12 days to get.

The surprising speed of processing of the USA FBI certificate has prompted me to proceed with the process at greater urgency than I had hoped for. It took me under a week to get after I had posted it to them.

[canthai]

Ron,
I will try to answer a couple of your questions and hopefully others can contribute regarding your other questions...

- As her sponsor, I currently live in the UK (and have done for 16 years).  What type of evidence is required to show that I will settle in Canada?  I do not have a job offer or a contract for a house because it is still over 5 months until we move.  Is it sufficient to show correspondence I have had with companies about jobs?

You must show CIC that your plan is to re-establish in Canada once your wife obtains her PRV.  You must show a solid plan of accommodation options and job prospects (i.e. offers).  Is it possible for you to obtain a job offer through your correspondence with other companies?  It would be a benefit to you if you had some contacts that could offer employment for you when you settle back in Canada.  You could have a family member or close friend offer accommodation for you and your wife until you have settled and are working.  They would need to write a letter of support to declare their support for you and your wife.

- Finally, there is contradictory information about where to send the application.  Do we send it to the Case Processing Centre in Missisauga or to the Canadian embassy here in London?

ALL the forms for you (sponsor) and your wife (principle applicant) must be filled out and sent to CPC-Miss, along with all your relationship evidence and other required documents from the checklists.  Once your sponsorship is approved, then CPC-M sends the whole application to the regional office abroad (England).

Hope this helps!

canthai

[RobsLuv]

As far as the criminal clearances from the FBI and State: yes, your wife will need them if she lived in the States for more than six months.  There is information at this US2Canada link that tells you how to request, and expedite, those clearances.  The FBI clearances can take as little as a month to get back if you follow their instructions for expediting the request.  The State agencies all have their own requirements and timelines - but there is a contact list on the page.  I'd suggest calling the applicable agencies and ask for specific info. 

You can send the application without the clearances BUT if you do, you might end up with delays on the other end that would be longer than the delay caused by having to wait for the clearances before you submit the ap.  That's because it takes about 6 weeks for CPC-Mississauga to send the application to London, and then a couple more weeks for London to log it in and do the initial assessment.  At that point they'd fire off a letter to you requesting the clearances, if they weren't submitted upfront, and until you get that letter (with your file number) it's VERY risky to try to send the clearances to them.  So, there you have a delay - and, in addition, visa offices will commonly apply a "bring forward date" to a file when they've had to request additional documents/information.  What that means is that they'll write you and ask you to send them the clearances, and they'll allow you a certain number of days to get that info to them (normally about 90 days).  And they put a 90 day "bf date" on your file - which means that, even if you send the requested info within a week, they're not going to pick up your file to see if you've submitted the requested information until those 90 days have passed.  So, you can see, not submitting information "up front" can result in significant delays in processing.  It's better to keep those "delays" on your end - and submit a complete application to benefit from the fastest processing possible.