Sponsoring husband and step-daughter

[ddunbar]

I am born Canadian and married my husband who lives in Jamaica on August 8, 2008. I have a few questions to ask. First we are about to fill out the application for me to sponsor my husband and his daughter. His daughter's mother left his daughter with him when she was 1 years old. she is now 7 years old. He has no phone number or address of the mother. He is the sole provider for his daughter. Does he need and papers showing he is the custodian and how can he go about it with not knowing where the mother of his daughter is? He has his daughter's birth certificate and his daughter has the same last name as him and it shows his name on the certificate.
Second question is how much money do I have to pay when submitting the application? Do I pay the application fees and the landing fees all at once or do I just pay the application fees and wait until the application is approved to submit the landing fees? The last question is we have all e-mails, phone records, transfer of money reciepts, pictures, airline tickets and hotel receipts, etc. My net income on my last assessment was $56,000. Also note my husband has been to Canada before on a work permit on the farms from mid Sept for 7 weeks to Nov in 2007. How long do you think it will take for my husband and my step-daughter to come to Canada once I submit the application?

[Leon]

Right now 42 days to approve sponsorship and after that, the average for Kingston is 6 months, 80% of applications finalized within 11 months.

You might get delayed because of the daughter, depends on if he has to fill out some papers to verify that he can't find the mother or at least that he tried to find her.

[RobsLuv]

Unless your husband has court documents that give him sole physical and legal custody of his daughter, he will need her mother's permission to immigrate.  Hard to know how these things work in Jamaica, but if this was happening to someone in the States or Canada, the parent would petition the Court for sole custody due to abandonment by the other parent.  I suggest that you not submit the application to sponsor until this is resolved.  CIC is very clear that all child custody issues must be resolved before an application can be approved.  It will not be enough to simply say that he can't find her mother, even if he shows due diligence to try to find her!  Having everything resolved beforehand will help ensure that your case is processed closer to the six months mark and not the high end 11 months time or more.

As far as fees: you need to pay the $75 sponsorship fee, the $475 applicant fee and $150 for the accompanying child upfront.  The $490 RPRF can be deferred until later in the process.