Forced to leave the country and re-enter but how?

[Vaughn]

Hi again

As recently indicated on this forum my wife who is holding an Indonesian passport as well as a Singapore PR (where she lived for the last 5 years) is currently living with me in Canada under a work visa. The good news is she was sent a letter indicating she was accepted as a PR and now just had to "land" in Canada to finish the procedure or make an appointment with someone from Immigration. They also canceled her multiple entry visa and issued her a new single entry visa that will expire in the next two weeks.

She called Immigration to make an appointment with someone in our city however it would take a month to get an appointment at our office and that is too late then so she was advised to drive to the nearest US border crossing (North Portal) and finish her paperwork there.

Pardon my ignorance but i don't understand why she has to leave the country in order to finalize her PR application? And how can she enter the US? She would need a visitors visa which would take a lot of lead to to apply for (even if they gave it). So is this just an appointment at the Canadian border crossing where she will sign some papers?

 

[user828]

Its the rule, either immigration officer finalizes paperwork and declares her PR or the formality or re-entering. US visa can take time so you could perhaps goto Mexico and come back, I am sure their visa doesn't take time. Other option ( which I think might not be wise ) is to overstay ie., w/o visa, fill form for status adjustment explaining why it happened and then explain it to the immigration officer but I feel this is not a good way - perhaps the experts can advise

 

[Leon]

There are two ways to land as a PR. Either at the CIC office where you live or by leaving and re-entering the country. Since her visa is expiring in 2 weeks and they can not give her an appointment in such a short time, that only leaves the option of leaving and re-entering the country.

She doesn't need a US visa to do this though. She just has to go to the border, leave Canada and as she enters the US, she tells the US immigration officers that she doesn't actually want to enter the US and doesn't have a US visa and that she needs to return to Canada to finalize her immigration paperwork there. They will turn her around, maybe with a record of refused entry or maybe not and she will go back to Canada and land as a PR. This is known as flagpoling.

 

[Vaughn]

Thanks for taking the time to respond!