"How Long Are You Visiting?"

[Panamai]

In general, it's a silly game that you are forced to play when coming into Canada. CBSA and CIC have completely different sets of criteria when it comes to foreigners in Canada.

When crossing the border you only need to worry about CBSA. Their job is basically to make sure you are coming in as a visitor only, and will be staying only up to the 6 months that are usually allowed for a visitor. If you tell CBSA you intend to enter and then attempt to stay 1 full year to qualify for common-law, or that you intend to apply for PR inland and not ever leave... you could be asking for trouble. They may assume if you are denied an extension you will stay here illegally, and there is more a chance for you to work illegally also. So basically your "intent" upon entering Canada, should be to stay up to 6 months, and what luggage you bring and what documents you have on hand should support that. So just bring luggage suitable for a visitor, show you have funds that will support you for 6 months or have a letter explaining a partner will be supporting you, have a return ticket back to US dated less then 6 months away (if flying or taking commercial bus service), and any other things you can think of that show ties to the US. And NEVER use words like "moving to" or "living"... it's always "visiting" only.

Also be careful about what you are carrying in your luggage and what's on your phone. CBSA can go through all your stuff including your phone, and if you have phone messages or documents indicating you intend to stay in Canada forever, you could be in trouble.

The good thing about "intent" is that it can change at any time and that is why as long as you are allowed into Canada by CBSA, you can then apply for as many extensions as you want and don't have to return back to US. Once you are allowed in, you can basically do what you want and what you said to CBSA is then irrelevant.

With CIC, they couldn't care less about how long you intend to stay in Canada, or if you're visiting or living here. No matter how long you told CBSA you will stay, you can then apply for as many visitor status extensions as you want in order to get common-law status, or you can apply for PR and stay here forever basically. As long as you maintain your legal status, you will never have a problem.

But then each time you exit Canada and re-enter, you have to go though the whole thing again. At least though once you have the PR app in progress, it usually becomes a lot easier with CBSA to enter.

This is the best advice I've seen! Whatever you do, don't feel pressured to get married before you are ready just for immigration reasons. I came here December 30, 2013 as a 'visitor' with my partner. In March 2014, we travelled back to the US by air to pick up my car and we drove back with a back seat and trunk full of stuff. We visited the US again in August 2014 and then in January 2015 with no problems. I am still a legal visitor in Canada since I've never stayed more than 6 months consecutively and I also now have common-law status with my partner. I'm not sure if it would have been this easy without our Nexus cards though. I highly recommend getting them! Whenever we travel by air, we don't even talk to a person, just a kiosk. If you can't afford to travel back and forth, and/or don't want to take the risk, you can easily apply for a visitor extension around month 5 of your visit. I'm sure it happens on rare occasion, but I have yet to hear of anyone from the US being turned down for this extension. Many people are even given an extra year if they state they intend to apply for PR. Other commenters are right though, CBSA and CIC are two entirely different organisations and there are different ways of handling each one. As long as you use the correct terminology (visiting as opposed to moving or living) with the CBSA, you should be fine. Make sure they know that you are aware of the rules and fully intend to follow them. What you are intending to do is fully legal and fully doable and I'm proof that it can work. Well, I will be when I have PR in hand. I just sent my app Jan 2015, but hoping to get AOR soon. The two of us do intend to marry someday, but we want it to be on our own terms, when we are more financially stable and emotionally ready and can relax and enjoy without feeling like we had any ulterior motives behind it. Oh, and Amalthea, I hope you didn't take offense to that. I don't know your situation and I'm assuming you did what was right for you. I just know I'm glad that we are waiting until all the stress of the immigration issues is behind us.

 

[Rob_TO]

I would say that the advice about lying at the border is a little sketchy - I always told the complete truth and found (apart from on one occasion, ironically the time I arrived to get married!) that their attitude with me was great because of it.

Definitely, you must never lie to CBSA, especially about material facts.

Another way to look at this from CBSA's perspective, is that they are trying to enforce rules as per the visa/status you will actually be entering Canada with. So for someone coming on a 2 year study or work permit, their "intent" upon entering Canada can be to stay for 2 years straight, and this is no problem.

Any visitor coming on a visa-exempt passport, will usually only get a maximum of a 6-months visitor status allocated to them by CBSA. So even if the future plans of this person are to eventually apply for visitor status extensions to reach common-law, and perhaps to apply for inland PR, at the time they are crossing the border neither of these things have happened yet and all they will legally have upon initial entry is 6-months status. So that is why they must show proof and "intent" that they are prepared to leave after those 6 months are up, regardless of what their future plans are.

So basically you can be entering with 2 kinds of intent... 1 (immediate) intent upon initial entry to satisfy the initial 6-month status you are given and to satisfy CBSA, and another (future) intent to then apply for extension/PR after getting into Canada. And while you must not lie to CBSA, you also don't need to voluntarily disclose all this information either. Just show you have planned to leave after 6-months, answer any direct questions they ask as honestly as possible, and stick to simple answers.

 

[acg]

Thanks everyone for the info so far.
Just wondering, if you have a PR application in progress and intend to move to Canada while you're waiting for it to come through what should you say to the border officers? Is it fine to tell the truth that you're waiting for PR and will leave if it doesn't come through by the time your 6 months visitor visa is up? Or do you need to have a return flight booked?

 

[Rob_TO]

Thanks everyone for the info so far.
Just wondering, if you have a PR application in progress and intend to move to Canada while you're waiting for it to come through what should you say to the border officers? Is it fine to tell the truth that you're waiting for PR and will leave if it doesn't come through by the time your 6 months visitor visa is up? Or do you need to have a return flight booked?

First off, NEVER say you will "move" to Canada, until you actually have PR status. Whether you have a PR app processing or not, until you get PR you are just visiting.

You should bring proof of having a PR app in progress to show CBSA. They are usually very easy on people who have apps in progress.

However you are still entering as a visitor, so still need to show you intend to leave after 6 months as there is no guarantee a visitor status extension will be granted to allow you to stay longer than 6 months. So you should have a return ticket to be safe, but if you don't it's probably still ok as many people are not even asked for it.

 

[epmarshall]

Just wanted to say thanks again for the helpful thread everyone! I've got a much better grasp on things now.