Staying in Canada while forms are processing

[ronandchrissy]

If I stayed in canada for the 2 - 6 months with my wife while the forms are processing in USA.. Will i still get resedencey or is it illege for me to stay in canda when the forms are processing and it could effect my stay there?

[rgvinson777]

If you are an American, you can enter and visit Canada for up to 6 months.  You just need to be able to get your mail and be able to respond to CIC requests that may come your way from time to time.

[ronandchrissy]

If you are an American, you can enter and visit Canada for up to 6 months.  You just need to be able to get your mail and be able to respond to CIC requests that may come your way from time to time.

thanks for the helpful information if anyone has anymore information about this matter please leave me message..

[ThirstyDeer]

rgvinson777 pretty much summed it up.  An American citizen can cross the border and stay for 6 months without the need of a visa.  For that 6 months, you will be considered a visitor.  If you plan on staying beyond that 6 months, you will need to apply with CIC to get an extension on your visitor's status.

[bajans girl]

Just a note to anyone NOT from the U.S. and might be reading this....my husband and I were told by the immigration call centre that once CIC received our applications his visitor status would be considered "automatically extended" (I am already a Canadian citizen).  I asked on 2 different occasions and received that same advice.  Well, months AFTER his official visitor status expired, we have discovered this advice means squat.  We can't apply for healthcare or a driver's licence for him.  He remains a "non-person" in the eyes of our backward government.  Why didn't I just move to England as we had originally planned?  Oh yeah, I was too proud a Canadian at that point and convinced him to come here instead!

[ThirstyDeer]

Unfortunately this serves as a painful reminder to not take what CIC says as gospel.  A few of us did a study: we called the CIC call centre, asked the same question to different people, and wrote the answers down.  Needless to say, the variation in the answers given to us is as amusing as it is shocking in how contradictory they are to each other.

To the best of my knowledge, if you applied inland, when you applied you would not have expired visitors status till stage 1 approval of your immigration application.  For outside application, if your 6 months run out before getting PR approval, then you have to apply to extend your status.