Canadian in US, renewing status?

[alix]

I think this is the right forum to ask this in?


I just have a couple of questions. First of all, my girlfriend is a Canadian citizen. I am American. Currently she is staying with me in Florida until my lease is up in a few months. We're going back to Canada, where we lived before coming down here to care for a sick family member of mine, where I will apply for citizenship. We are common law, have been together for 3 years.


What I want to know, is that since she doesn't have a visa, or a passport, how do border officers know how long she's been down here? I ask this because her 6 month visitor status for the US runs out on May 7th. We plan to go back on June 10th. Do we really have to make two trips in that short amount of time? It'll be wasting over $600 dollars. Can we wait until June 10th or should we really make a trip in May? We by no means want to break the law, but at the same time we don't want to make the extra trip.

If we do decide to wait, could they ban her from coming back? Gays here can't get any visa or citizenship based on their relationship, unlike Canada. Otherwise, how does she renew her status?


And on a totally different topic, since we are common law and since I do plan on living with her in Canada, can I stay with her without renewing my own status while living in Canada? I heard it'll be 8 - 10 months for my application to be processed and I have to stay in the country the entire time.


Thank you for any advice.

[Leon]

The proper thing to do when you want to stay as a visitor in Canada longer than your visa is, is to apply for a visa extension.  For the US, I don't know.

[alix]

The thing is, we're not in Canada in the moment, but in the US, and again, since we don't need visas for one another's countries, the question is how does that work?

[rupeshhari]

YOu do need a visa for longer than 6months stay. Its only for less than 6 months that you don't need a visa.
you can apply for extension to stay i think.