Conjugal Sponsorship of US Citizen

[elkan]

Hi there,
I've been following posts on this forum for several months now, hoping to read a successful story of a conjugal sponsorship of a US Citizen. Here are my details before I present my question:

May 2009: Met boyfriend on line, instantly hit it off and fell in love. He was here as a tourist (he's a world traveler) and decided to rent an apartment until October so we could be together. October is when his 6 months in Canada was up, and he had a contract in the US for temporary work. We did not live together on paper but he spent the last 2 months of this stay with me and my parents.

November - December 2009: I visited him once in the US and met his family and friends, and then flew there again to spend X-mas with his family. Since he was done his contract work, he decided to come back up to Canada until the summer of 2010. However, crossing the border was difficult. It took 4 hours, and the only gave him a 90 Day Visitor Record. Border officials said it may or may not get renewed. He was given the Visitor Record because a) I was in the vehicle with him b) he had no job because he has done contract work so he could travel the world c) he brought a lot of clothes and sports equipment because he planned on visiting and staying with me until the summer.

January to March 2010: He lived with me at my parents house.

March 2010: He left Canada and went back to the US to find temporary work so he could come back in the Fall of this year.

April 2010 to present: I have visited twice in the spring for long weekends, and spent 2 months of my summer there with him and his family.

We have just finished our application and are using an Immigration Consultant, and will be submitting this month. My concern is that we won't qualify as conjugal partners (from reading this forum!). He was divorced just over a year ago, and neither one of us wants to marry yet. We want to live as common - law partners. It's a personal choice we both made, and don't want to be forced into getting married just for immigration purposes. My Immigration Consultant says that our relationship is genuine and he doesn't think we should worry. We have combined our affairs to the extent we could: he's my beneficiary for my pension, RSPs, and my life insurance, and he has also switched me over as his beneficiary. We share credit cards, for use in each other's countries. We talk everyday (via Skype video chat) when we are not together. My bank, and his bank won't allow a joint account because I don't have a social security number and he doesn't have a social insurance number.

Evidence I'm submitting:
-beneficiary designations
-life insurance policies
-letters from credit card companies
-cards noting celebrations, expressing love
-emails while apart
-travel documents (though it's hard to prove the ones where I drove there?)
- confirmation of flights for future travel (sister's wedding in Mexico in December 2010)
- pictures
- Visitor Record for Canada (to show immigration barrier)
-stat. declarations from his parents (notarized)

What do you guys think? Is my immigration consultant just trying to make a quick buck telling me I have nothing to worry about?
-

 

[AllisonVSC]

Have you read the OP2 manual for processing family class sponsorships? If not you definitely should get to know it, especially the conjugal partner sections, before sending your application. I'll attach a link below. The key to this class is proving that you are ALREADY in a marriage-like relationship that is interdependent to the extent possible - financially, socially, physically, and emotionally. Assess the evidence you've gathered thus far against the guidelines and examples in the OP 2 manual. Also think about your attached relationship document as your opportunity to clearly state that you are in an interdependent, ongoing, genuine committed marriage like relationship and cite your evidence.

Two things, I suggest...
1. Get more letters from friends and family attesting to their knowledge of your relationship. They don't have to be notarized since you already have two (?) from his parents (did they each write one?). They could just be emails.
2. If he is here, or the next time he comes to visit, open a joint account with him at your bank and put some money in it. My partner and I did it at RBC (if yours won't do it, try them) while I was still a visitor. All I needed was a passport; I did not need an SIN.

I'll send you more in a PM, but know that I also applied as Conjugal Partners (US/CAN hetero couple. I'm 45; he is 52). We did not intend to marry but had been in a relationship since 2004, and I did get a Visitor Record when I arrived last summer. We were approved in less than 3 months. Different from your evidence we had lots of evidence of him trying for years to find a job in the states. I suspect our ages may have played apart in the IO's decision since we were older and quite stable in our relationship, but that is mere speculation on my part.

Good luck with your application. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
Allison

 

[AllisonVSC]

Elkan, you inbox is full.

Let me know when you have cleared some space, I have another PM to send you. Allison

 

[scylla]

I just wanted to add that my husband (American) was able to open a Canadian bank account in Canada without a SIN through TD. Once he opened the account he added me as a joint owner. Other people I know have had success with Scotia (however the Scotiabank branch we tried said no).

 

[tgchi13]

My husband and I were able to set up a joint account here, and in the US.

 

[scylla]

tgch13 -

That's a very good point. I don't have an SSN and my husband was able to add me to his American bank account as well.

 

[elkan]

Our application is going to be submitted this week, pending a few more things I'm going to add. If I add my partner to my account now, won't it look suspicious? As it stands now, we didn't start switching things over until April of this year.

 

[AllisonVSC]

Don't worry about that. Add him. Then print a statement from your online banking. The IO won't know when you added him.

 

[YorkFactory]

Don't worry about that. Add him. Then print a statement from your online banking. The IO won't know when you added him.

They do make an effort to find out how far back your joint bank/insurance/utility accounts go.

 

[Aroundtown22]

I don't think the IO can check how long your significant other has been listed on various utilities and bank accounts etc. They aren't the police and they have to live within the realms of the privacy act.

 

[YorkFactory]

I don't think the IO can check how long your significant other has been listed on various utilities and bank accounts etc. They aren't the police and they have to live within the realms of the privacy act.

That's why you have to show them. If you add them, and then print out a statement for September 2010, they'll take it as evidence that you've had a joint account since September 2010, but not earlier.

 

[AllisonVSC]

It is still evidence that you have combined your financial affairs. How long ago you did it is not necessarily relevant if you have other evidence of a long term stable relationship.

 

[canadianwoman]

-travel documents (though it's hard to prove the ones where I drove there?)

Could you try proving this travel by credit card bills and photos? If you both used your own cards to pay for expenses during the trip, a 'history' of your trip will show up on your statements.

As for the joint account - open one now, and explain you tried to open one earlier but were not allowed to. If you have letters from the banks where you tried to open one, stating that you weren't allowed to, you could include them. You could just submit the joint bank account evidence for September and not worry about the explanation, though, because it is not 'make-or-break' evidence.

 

[BeShoo]

Our application is going to be submitted this week, pending a few more things I'm going to add. If I add my partner to my account now, won't it look suspicious?

The sooner, the better. Adding him after a refusal and before a hearing would really look suspicious and adding him just before an interview won't look all that great either. Add him now if you can.

The date you signed and mailed your forms is all-important. Technically, anything that happened after that date is irrelevant, though they might give it some consideration anyway. The only thing that legally counts is whether your relationship was genuine on the application date.

 

[matthewc]

No amount of combining your fairs will overcome the fact that to qualify as conjugal, there needs to be an impediment (beyond your control) to you living together long enough to qualify as common law, e.g. refusals for visas to visit each others countries. Since there's nothing to stop a US citizen coming to Canada as a visitor for 6 months, then extending for another 6 months in order to qualify as conjugal, it's quite possible you'll be refused under this class.

Also BeShoo, just for reference what happens after you sign the paperwork does matter legally. You have to be in a qualifying relationship both when you apply, when the visa is issued, and when you land and become a PR. If you end up in an appeal situation, that's a "de novo" hearing, which means if you have more proof since you submitted the application, you can use that to sway the appeal in your favour, even if it's evidence that wasn't available when you initially applied.