getting married for travel benefits

[Rob_TO]

A friend of mine recently jokingly suggested that we get married so that she could travel for long term in Canada and I could travel throughout all of europe without being restricted by short-duration tourist visas.

There is zero benefit for a foreigner to be married to a Canadian when it comes to travelling here. Absolutely none. They need to get a regular visitor status same as everyone else.

And in fact being married to a Canadian can actually make it more difficult for a foreigner to travel to Canada as a visitor, since there is a greater chance CBSA would think they have no intention to leave after the visitor status expires, in order to remain with their Canadian spouse.

 

[rugrat907]

There is zero benefit for a foreigner to be married to a Canadian when it comes to travelling here. Absolutely none. They need to get a regular visitor status same as everyone else.

And in fact being married to a Canadian can actually make it more difficult for a foreigner to travel to Canada as a visitor, since there is a greater chance CBSA would think they have no intention to leave after the visitor status expires, in order to remain with their Canadian spouse.

And to spell that out, that means she could be denied entry to Canada. She would have to prove significant ties back to her own country, and even then it's no guarantee that she'd be allowed in if the CBSA agent isn't convinced, which can sometimes depend on the what side of the bed the agent woke up on that day. There are plenty of stories on these forums of people getting hassled when coming for visits when they are married to a Canadian and being called in for secondary interviews, having phones and computers searched, etc. even if their intentions are good.

Not knowing the various visa laws and such for the EU, I don't know how easy it would be for you to travel there. But it sounds like it's very much a one way street - you'd definitely make it harder on her and possibly easier for you.

If nothing else, I would hope you'd be honest with this person about that...since as Rob_TO pointed out, there are zero advantages for her.

 

[on-hold]

And just a suggestion -- people who have ideas like this generally ARE in fact interested in a fake marriage leading to PR. No one who has traveled extensively would ever think that getting married to make it easier to travel in a single country would work; but someone who is interested in getting PR and emigrating to Canada in any way possible would think that this might be a way to broach the subject. Be careful, marriage fraud happens because the target tricks themselves.

As pointed out, marriage would actually make it much harder for your friend to visit Canada.

 

[deweysmith]

There is zero benefit for a foreigner to be married to a Canadian when it comes to travelling here. Absolutely none. They need to get a regular visitor status same as everyone else.

And in fact being married to a Canadian can actually make it more difficult for a foreigner to travel to Canada as a visitor, since there is a greater chance CBSA would think they have no intention to leave after the visitor status expires, in order to remain with their Canadian spouse.

THIS. I'm married to a Canadian and when we came up here to stay with her family for a few months and eventually get me status and such I was refused because I had too much stuff and it looked like I was immigrating.

 

[shortyp2000]

Didnt mean to offend anyone? Wow, thats a bold statement.
Its people like you that make these visa officers take so long to weed the legit people from the fraudulent ***holes. This is why my husband missed births of our children, missed life saving surgery for our neeborn, amd we are stuck waiting so long to be a LEGIT family.
So, good luck on ur travel plans, karma will meet up with you.