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Getting PR but living in US?

woods15

Newbie
May 23, 2013
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0
Hi All,
New to the forum. I recently married my husband who is a U.S citizen, I am a Canadian citizen.

We have plans now to live and work in the US. However, we would like to start the process to establish residence status in Canada for my husband. Most of my friends and family still live in Canada so we will be traveling there frequently throughout our lives... we may one day decide to move there to live and will definitely spend part of our retirement years there.

So my question is; can my husband begin the process of getting permanent residence/eventual citizenship now, even though we have no foreseeable plans to move to Canada?

Thanks!
 

amikety

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Dec 4, 2011
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Permanent Residence is meant for someone who wants to live in Canada permanently, not visit. You will be asked for proof he intends to reside in Canada if you're living in the USA. PRs also have to meet residency requirements to maintain their PR. If he can't meet these requirements, he can lose the PR and you have to sponsor him again (spend the money twice).

As an American, he will most likely be allowed to visit freely. You may want to wait until 1-1.5 years before you would like to move to Canada to apply for PR.
 

canadianwoman

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If you are living in the USA with him, you can sponsor him, but you would have to prove you plan to move back to Canada when he gets the PR visa. So I agree with the above post - wait until you do plan to move back to Canada to sponsor him.
 

steaky

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Nov 11, 2008
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amikety said:
PRs also have to meet residency requirements to maintain their PR. If he can't meet these requirements, he can lose the PR and you have to sponsor him again (spend the money twice).
As long as both of you are living together even outside Canada, your husband would maintain his PR requirements.

Although you and your husband need to show plans of intention to live in Canada, immigration will not go after your husband once he became a PR if these plans did not work out and both of you are free to live in any place in the US. So I don't agree with the above replies - either sponsor now or later.
 

tavora

Star Member
May 18, 2012
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steaky said:
As long as both of you are living together even outside Canada, your husband would maintain his PR requirements.

Although you and your husband need to show plans of intention to live in Canada, immigration will not go after your husband once he became a PR if these plans did not work out and both of you are free to live in any place in the US. So I don't agree with the above replies - either sponsor now or later.
But if they don't actually intend to reside in Canada at this time, will they have enough proof to convince the VO? There are other people on the US Outland and CPP-Ottawa threads who were actually asked for additional proof of their plans to return to Canada when they had provided some evidence already in their application (email exchanges regarding looking for apartments, job hunting, etc).
 

canadianwoman

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It is true that a PR living with a Canadian spouse outside of Canada will be able to maintain PR status, but it will not count for citizenship. Plus she will have to prove she will go back to live in Canada when actually she is not going to. Not impossiblr, but it would be easier to just wait. An American can freely visit, so he doesn't need PR now.