Background information: I am the sponsor, my parents moved to Nigeria before I was born so I gained my citizenship through birth. My husband came to Canada on a student visa which is how we met, and began dating. He visited the USA and applied for his Canada student visa extension which was denied while he was in the USA. We continued dating and a year after the denial we got married and shortly after than we applied for his PR. We are both in our mid-twenties, both Nigerian.
For proof of relationship, we submitted the following: 20 photos taken at different times throughout or relationship, 8 pages of text conversations taken at different times throughout our relationship, 2 pages of screen shots of Whatsapp call logs, letter from his mother and mine saying they approve of our marriage, RRSP’s showing eachother as beneficiaries, joint bank account, proof of trips, a 3 page document outlining the development of relationship. At the time of application we had been married for 2 months so we tried to gather as much proof as possible. We did not use a lawyer.
Throughout the processing of our application, we received GCMS notes twice which is how we know about the “updates” below. These were in the GCMS notes. Here are a couple things I learned throughout this process which may help with processing your application quicker:
- apply for GCMS notes every month or so. This will help you understand where the officers are in your application. For example, we should have been approved back in November 2019. If we had known that an interview would be required, we could have requested to have our interview moved to the USA sooner.
- If you have passed the one year mark, contact your MP and get them to make an inquiry on your behalf. Our MP was the one who helped us send our letter to the Accra VO requesting to move our interview to the USA.
- Visit your spouse lots! We had about 6 visits within the past year. We did this because it was really challenging to go so long without seeing each other but it helped with proof of communication as well
- The visa officers mostly care about the relationship between you and your spouse - not the relationship between you and their family. The letters we sent from both of our mothers were not mentioned in the GCMS notes by any of the visa officers. If you are from different nationalities, or if there is a huge age gap expect an interview.
TIMELINE:
Application Received - July 12, 2019
AOR1 - September 6, 2019
Sponsor DM - September 11, 2019
Biometrics Request - September 11, 2019
Medical Request - September 12, 2019
Medicals Completed - September 30, 2019
Medicals Passed - October 6, 2019
AOR2 - September 18, 2019 (File was initially sent to Mississauga VO)
Update #1 - October 24, 2019 (An officer in Mississauga looked ad the file and said it “did not meet triage requirements” so transferred the filed to Accra VO)
AOR3 - November 5, 2019
Update #2 - November 12, 2019 (An officer in Accra VO reviewed eligibility and “recommend pass”)
Update #3 - November 26, 2019 (A second officer in Accra VO reviewed the eligibility and said we didn’t have enough evidence, so an interview was required)
Interview Request - December 18, 2019 (Interview was scheduled for Jan 20, 2020)
Correspondence - December 20, 2019 (My husband and I sent a letter requesting to have his interview moved to the USA)
DM and Pre Arrival - January 25, 2020
PPR - Waiting
I hope this helped! This was our experience. We are keeping everyone else in our prayers. This journey is not an easy one, but I found it extremely encouraging reading other people’s timelines on this page.
