Experts Please Help: Interview and Letters from CIC

[TripleP]

A little background first. My girlfriend (from Taiwan) and I have been in a committed relationship for three years. For this past 10 months, we have been cohabitating in Toronto in a common-law relationship. On July 31, 2009 we will have lived together for one year, so we are readying a common-law sponsorship application that we will submit as soon as possible so that my girlfriend can become a permanent resident.

My girlfriend will be living with me and attending the University of Toronto (U of T) next year. If a student of U of T can provide evidence that they are applying to become a permanent resident and can show that they have received preliminary/provisional acceptance/approval, or approval-in-principle, they can get permission to pay (cheaper) domestic tuition. We were planning on filing an outland application (in either Buffalo, USA or Taipei, Taiwan).

My questions:
1) Outland sponsorship applications do not really have an approval-in-principle stage. I talked to the appropriate people at U of T about this issue today and they are not overly familiar with the details of the immigration system (especially sponsorship cases), so their answers regarding what type of document my girlfriend would require to obtain domestic fees were vague at best. If we were very fortunate, my sponsorship approval letter from CPC-Mississauga might be sufficient. What does the sponsorship approval letter actually say? Does anybody have a sample?
2) What letters are sent to the sponsor/applicant? I know of the sponsorship approval/rejection letter (to the sponsor) and the AOR (to the applicant). Any other letters that come prior to the very end of the immigration process that we might be able to use to convince the U of T people?
3) How likely is an interview? If you show lots of evidence that the common-law relationship is real and continuing, would you say there is still a greater than 50% chance of needing an interview? Who sets the interview date? Can the applicant move this date around by a few weeks? Is the date set over the phone? The reason I ask is because we could send our application to Taiwan (fast processing times), but it would be inconvenient and expensive for my girlfriend to have to go to an interview in the middle of her semester at U of T! If she had to attend an interview, could she hop on a plane to Taiwan, attend the interview, and then literally hop on a plane coming back to Canada the next day? I know it would be exhausting, but would it be possible?
4) Our one year cohabitating together is July 31, 2009. Do you think we could file a little before that date? We will be travelling back to visit my girlfriend’s family from July 2 – 27, 2009. Could we submit before we leave on vacation or is that risky?

 

[rjessome]

Hi,

1. All the sponsorship approval letter says is that YOU (the sponsor) have been approved AS a sponsor. It's not even close to the same as AIP. Different process.
2. Just the sponsorship letter and AOR. No other letters for outland that could help you. And some office don't send AOR letters. All they say is that the file has been received at X visa office and they will begin processing. Also what average processing times are, they won't respond to status inquiries before that time has elapsed, they will contact you if an interview is required or they need something further.
3. Common law relationships have more scrutiny that spousal but it all depends on the strength of your application. A visa officer will review your file and decide how they want to proceed. They make the decision about whether or not to interview and what the schedule will be. I don't know how flexible they are about interview dates. Most of us have been waiting so long that we would drop everything to go. It could also lead them to potentially question the seriousness of your relationship. They will either call the applicant or email them the date of the interview. As far as attending goes, as long as she has a multiple entry visa to Canada, then yes, she could do as you described. I take it she does not have a visa to the USA and thus your questions about interviews because if you applied via Buffalo and she got called for an interview, if she couldn't enter the US for the interview her application would be refused.
4. You won't be back until the 27th. That's NOT one year. Send it when you get back. Include the boarding passes and pictures from your trip together! Great proof!

Have you considered applying inland? You might have AIP by the time 2nd semester roles around which could help with tuition. Doubtful that anything but the PR will help you in applying outland. But of course outland is usually much faster. Big decision. Good luck.
4.

 

[mitamata]

1.) Here's what the sponsorship approval letter is like:
http://www.shrani.si/f/2f/yo/3U9cMbtS/letter-1.jpg
http://www.shrani.si/f/3b/105/4oMj1A7S/letter-2.jpg
http://www.shrani.si/f/3F/g1/3b5fVv4s/letter-3.jpg
This was for a spousal application, being processed in Vienna.

2.) The AOR is not always issued, it depends on the visa office. Buffalo usually sends them, I don't know about Taipei. Other than that, if you're lucky, the only thing you will get from them is a letter requesting you to send the passport so they can issue the visa. If they need anything else from you, like additional evidence, then they will send a letter for that as well.

3.) It depends on the evidence you supply and your circumstances. Most cases don't require an interview. If you can prove beyond a doubt that you've been living together and for how long, then I think it won't be needed.
If an interview is required, the visa office will notify you with the date of the interview. Not sure how Taipei handles that - every visa office sends out a letter, some also send a telegram or an email so you find out about it asap.
It is possible that after the interview, she would be asked to leave her passport at the visa office. That would mean going home on the same day or the next wouldn't be possible. Perhaps she'd be able to arrange to mail it though. I don't know what their policy on mailing the passport back is though. I know India doesn't mail passports to Canada, so you should find out about this.

4.) You can not file the application until you qualify for common-law. You can't qualify for common-law until you've lived together for a year. So no, don't submit it before July 31st. Personally, I'd recommend waiting an extra week or two, just to be on the safe side.

 

[TripleP]

My sincere apologies to both rjessome and mitamata for taking so long to reply. Both of your posts were very helpful to my girlfriend and me. You guys are incredibly selfless for helping others out like you do on these boards. My heartfelt thanks.

A little update. My girlfriend and I did decide to file outland in Taipei. None of the options (inland, outland – Buffalo, outland – Taipei) we had were great, but that one seemed to be the best for us, given our situation. If we are extremely lucky, we might be able to get her switched over to domestic fees for first semester (the deadline for doing so is in Novemeber). However, more realistically we will get her changed over for second semester because Taipei's processing times appear to be quite quick. We run the risk of an overseas interview, but hopefully we have enough proof to convince the officer beyond a shadow of a doubt and regardless, the entire process should be done fairly quickly.

In response to your comments:
rjessome:
3. My apologies, I did not mean to make light of the process or disrespect people on these boards who have been waiting what seems like an eternity for the immigration wheels to slowly turn. My girlfriend and I waited for two years for the time when we could be together and not have to live in a long distance relationship. This past year, we were finally able to live together and now we want to be able to more permanently set up our lives together here in Canada (so that she can obtain a job, etc.). Of course, if push came to shove she would drop everything to attend an interview, if that was what were indeed required. However, it was our hope that the process might be more humane and allow for the interview to be scheduled around work/study commitments. Basically, we are more than willing to do what's required, but we would prefer to make the process as painless and cause as little disruption if we can! I guess we'll see how things go!

BTW, she could have applied through Buffalo (she has a USA Visa), but we decided the Taipei route was better given our present situation due to the overall faster processing time. But yes, the interview location in Buffalo would have been much more convenient. Whether our decision was a good one or not remains to be seen...

4. Yes thanks, it will be good proof! This is actually my fourth visit to Taiwan in the past three years that we have been dating. On one of the visits I stayed in Taiwan for 4.5 months while completing an internship so that we could be together. My girlfriend and I also met up in Japan for a short vacation. All of these trips are fairly well documented with boarding passes and passport stamps which will be included in our application. I'm hoping this proof will help to make our case more bullet-proof. Do you have any other suggestions?

We did consider inland, but it is very slow and it did not appear like AIP would be much shorter than the entire application process through Taipei (according to the average times). We're hoping it was a good decision, but we'll see.

mitamata
1. Thanks for scanning and sending a copy of your sponsorship approval letter. That was really helpful for us in determining if it would be enough to change my girlfriend's tuition rate. Thanks so much!

Your application was processed *very* quickly!! Vienna only took about a month to decide? Any pointers about how we could make our application as strong as yours?

Thanks again to both of you.