RomaRowley said:
My boyfriend came to visit me in May. He was granted a Visitor Record at the border for 1 month. Before it expired in June we applied for an extension. We have just found it that extension was refused due to the IO not believing he would leave at the end of his stay. They had asked for more documents in August and not realizing there was a deadline we missed it and have now received this letter of refusal.
The letter states he must leave immediately. He's from the US. We have always felt that we would eventually get married, it was just a matter of time. When we received the request for more documents (driver's licence, mortgage, return ticket, financial info [none of which he has]) we decided we would rather be married than have him leave and started planning a wedding.
We are due to be married Sept. 17th and we are now being told he must leave immediately.
I have no clue what the first step is here. We started an online application to reinstate status but I don't know if this is the correct avenue. The orginal extension reason was in order to further explore our relationship. But we would now like to apply for PR via spousal sponsorship. Do we apply for sponsorship? TRP or reinstatement of his Visitor Record? Is a visitor record the same thing as a temporary resident permit? Is the new reason "pending PR approval"?
What is the first step here?
The problem was that you applied for the extension to his status before he was eligible to be sponsored for permanent status as a family member, and you indicated as the reason that you wanted more time to "explore" your relationship. The
Family Class processing guide makes it clear (in Section 5.46) that Immigration Canada "decided that it no longer wanted to be in the business of assessing future relationships or the intention of two individuals to establish and maintain a conjugal relationship. Thus, there is no fiancé(e) category in the IRPA and Regulations." The fact that he was documented on a 1 month visitor record in the first place, when he's from the US and would normally be alllowed a 6 months stay, indicates that the officer who assessed his entry to Canada had doubts about his intention to leave at the end of his authorized stay - so that didn't help. Filing the extension ap when you hadn't married only confirmed what the officer at the port of entry believed about him, so you have to tread carefully now. Although they have not specified a date for him to leave, they are serious about him doing so as soon as possible. I doubt that applying for restoration of status will help at this point, and you won't be doing yourselves any favours as far as him being able to come to Canada in the future if you ignore this demand that he leave.
At this point, getting married is not going to change the order to leave. In my humble opinion, your best course of action (if you're planning a wedding in Canada) is to get married as planned and then he needs to go. If you don't want to be separated, plan a honeymoon outside Canada and go with him. After he's been out of the country for at least a few weeks, and you've had time to submit an application to sponsor him for permanent status, you can accompany him back to a Canadian port of entry - be able to
prove that you're legally married and that you've submitted an application to sponsor him - and ask that he be allowed to remain with you in Canada while waiting for a decision. That's similar to LoveYoung's Option "A". The suggestion for Option "B" will not work - he would almost certainly be turned back at the border, whether you're with him or not, because the two of you will not yet be married and so he would still not be eligible to be sponsored. That's the key. Read through the info at the Visiting tab of
US2Canada about Visitor Records for more info.
Remember, if he comes to Canada to wait out the processing of a PR application, he will not be eligible to work or even attend school for as long as it takes to finalize the application. The suggestion is always that you apply via the outland application route (processed through Buffalo), even if he is staying in Canada with you, because it's faster. If you apply inland he won't even get to first stage approval until at least 8-9 months after you submit the application and that's only if he has valid status in Canada at the time that you submit the application. If you try to apply inland after you get married, while he doesn't have valid temporary status, his application will end up being transferred to a local office for processing and that can delay him getting even first stage approval for up to a couple of years. Please DON'T put yourselves in that situation. I would spend some time this week going over the application forms and document requirements for the
outland application and get as much of it done as you can. You can also see if you can get him in to see a
DMP for his immigration medical exam this week. The more you have done before the wedding, the sooner you can submit the application after the wedding and the sooner you'll be able to bring him back into the country - but don't delay his leaving. You will want to be able to demonstrate that he left as soon as possible after the demand to go.
utland spousal sponsorship apps (takes less time ,right of appeal)
It's very much appreciated.
