Best Way to Sponsor Fiancee

[petrokov]

Hello everyone.

I'm a USA citizen, and I'm attending a university in Canada. My girlfriend is a Chinese citizen (Mainland) studying in the USA on a student visa, and she was recently approved for a multiple entry TRV that is valid until 2024. We've talked about getting married and living together permanently, and this is what I'd like to do. She'll be visiting me this winter, and we'll both be visiting China for a few weeks together at the end of December. However, I'm worried that if we try to come back to Canada together, the border officer will say that she is visiting Canada too much and trying to make it her permanent residence and will refuse her entry. What is the best way of making sure that this doesn't happen? I've considered a few options.

The first thing that I've considered is just having her come back to Canada with the TRV and writing an invitation letter for her showing my savings account and promising to pay for her expenses. My hope is that the border officer would not consider her a risk, as even if she stays with me indefinitely, I am a USA citizen and will not be in Canada permanently.

The second thing that I've considered is applying for a common-law sponsorship from within Canada this winter and using this as evidence that she doesn't intend to stay illegally. I trust her enough to put her name on my bank account, and it would be easy to get evidence of sharing an address and everything else necessary for the application. The only problem is that even though we've been living together in the United States, it hasn't quite been a year, so it doesn't really match their definition of a common-law partnership.

The third thing I've considered is taking her to the USA first on a K-1 fiancee visa and then using this as evidence of the temporariness of our stay when returning to Canada. We would get married in the USA, and hopefully this would prevent the Canadian immigration officers from suspecting that she would stay illegally in Canada.

Are there any options that I haven't considered? If anyone has experience with this kind of situation and can offer advice, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

 

[Bryanna]

However, I'm worried that if we try to come back to Canada together, the border officer will say that she is visiting Canada too much and trying to make it her permanent residence and will refuse her entry. What is the best way of making sure that this doesn't happen? I've considered a few options.

IMO, you're overthinking the 'will be denied entry' scenario. No one can say whether or not it will happen, but I think the chances of this are low.

The first thing that I've considered is just having her come back to Canada with the TRV and writing an invitation letter for her showing my savings account and promising to pay for her expenses. My hope is that the border officer would not consider her a risk, as even if she stays with me indefinitely, I am a USA citizen and will not be in Canada permanently.

She must bring adequate evidence of her ties to the US (school enrollment and tuition fees, rent contract, other ties to the US) + prove she has adequate finances for her visit.

It must not seem like she is moving to Canada long-term (arriving with a lot of luggage, for example).

She cannot stay indefinitely. She would need to apply to extend her visitor status as-and-when-necessary.

The second thing that I've considered is applying for a common-law sponsorship from within Canada this winter and using this as evidence that she doesn't intend to stay illegally.

Applying for common-law definitely indicates an intention to stay long-term/permanently.

That said, you do not qualify to apply for common-law (not lived together for at least 12 continuous months).... and even if you can prove common-law status, you cannot sponsor her for common-law PR because you are not a Canadian PR.

The third thing I've considered is taking her to the USA first on a K-1 fiancee visa and then using this as evidence of the temporariness of our stay when returning to Canada. We would get married in the USA, and hopefully this would prevent the Canadian immigration officers from suspecting that she would stay illegally in Canada.

She already has a US F-1 visa + a Canada TRV. Someone can violate visitor conditions/overstay if s/he chooses to with a TRV. The K-1 would help if you include evidence of your forthcoming wedding such as bookings, marriage license, etc.


Your options are:
1. She needs to prove she is visiting for just a couple of weeks (return tickets, for example), preferably during school break + bring evidence of adequate ties to the US/China + evidence that she can financially support her stay.

2. If she lives with you for another couple of months, would you be able to prove that you are common-law? Hopefully, you guys have not stayed separately for more than a couple of weeks for the common-law consideration. If yes, she could apply for a SOWP (Spouse Open Work Permit)

3. You could marry her. She could then apply for a SOWP based on your study permit

 

[petrokov]

Thanks a lot for your reply. One thing that I forgot to mention is that she'll be finishing her degree in the USA in October, and after that her USA visa won't be valid anymore. She's visiting me this winter for about a month and a half after she finishes her internship in the USA. After that, she really doesn't have any reason to be in the USA or Canada except to visit me, so I think this makes things a little bit more difficult.

I agree that we need to prepare evidence of adequate ties to countries other than Canada. Some of her family members in China own businesses, so one thing that I am considering is asking them to formally employ her to make it clearer to immigration that she doesn't intend to remain in Canada illegally. We would also definitely prepare departing plane tickets and evidence of financial means and so forth.

The difficulty seems to be in the fact that Canada seems to allow people who just want to visit short term, as well as people who are married to or have a common-law relationship with someone in Canada, but it doesn't seem to give many options to people who are in between. I feel like I need to show evidence of two contradictory things at once. On the one hand, if we were to get married in Canada or in China, I would want to have her name on my bank account and have evidence of a shared address and details showing that we have a very close relationship in order to support the spousal sponsorship application. On the other hand, the spousal sponsorship processing time is a whole year, during which she has to visit me on a TRV; and I feel like during this time, I have to pretend to just be her friend, and I have to take her name off my bank account when I show my means to feed and house her in my invitation letter, and we have to demonstrate that she doesn't really have any connections with Canada, and we have to emphasize all of the reasons that she'll leave. I don't know why we can't just get married and have immigration understand that she wants to stay here for a long time because we're married, and that we'll get the paperwork done ASAP.

Anyway, as for the options that you stated.

1. I agree, and I don't think providing this evidence will be a problem.

2. I don't think that we can show we're common law. We haven't lived together long enough, and there have been long breaks; for example, now she's working in the USA, and I'm studying in Canada, and it will be this way until November. We would need more time in the spring to make it to a full year of living together, hence my want for her to come back with me to Canada. (By the way, the UBC website says that international students can sponsor common-law partners.)

3. I could marry her, and I plan to, but I really don't want her to have to live in China for a year while I'm in Canada as we wait for the application to be processed. We've discussed this, and we agreed that we're both willing to wait if that's our only option, but I'd really like to avoid being separated for that long (especially because that would make our spousal sponsorship application a lot weaker). If we went the K-1 route, then like you said, I think that plus wedding bookings would be good evidence of the temporariness of her stay in Canada, but would they let her back in after we get married?

Thanks again for your insight.