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Yodamoo

Newbie
Feb 27, 2016
2
0
So here is the situation. I have lived in Alberta my whole life and my partner, who I met online, lives in Ohio. We have only met one time for 2 weeks but we want to spend the rest of our lives together and he wants to move to Alberta permanently.

I have only be able to find the option of him moving here on a visitor visa and getting it extended to make it a full year so we can claim common-law but this is just not feasible. I am a full time student and I was laid off from my part time job. I can barely support myself so there is no way I could support him too for a year to get common-law. Conjugal seemed like a possibility but after looking into it I am not convinced that it would cover our situation. We are very much in love and due to financial reasons are unable to make common-law happen so I am hoping that maybe there is a way to work around this so we can make this happen.

There is always the idea of marriage, and I do want to marry him some day for sure! But I would feel like it is an insult to our love to use marriage as a tool for immigration rather than waiting for the right moment in our lives to make it a special event.

If anyone has any ideas to make this as painless as possible I would be very grateful. Is there any sort of a Government or Professional place I can go to where they specialize in this and could help me out with alternatives? Any info would be very helpful as I really know nothing about how immigration works other than what I have been reading and it is all very confusing! :(
 
Conjugal is not possible since there are no legal or immigration barriers to becoming common-law or getting married.

You have only 2 possible options to consider:
1. Live together 12 months to become common-law. This can be living together in Canada, USA, or a combo of both. As long as the 12 months is continuous.
2. Get married.

There are no other possible options to sponsor him. So other then this, he can try to see if he qualifies independently to immigrate to Canada. Or at least try for a SWAP working holiday visa, or NAFTA work permit if he qualifies, to come here and work while qualifying for common-law.
 
Thank you for the reply. While it is not all good news it is definitely helpful! I will look more into the SWAP program you mentioned. At first glance it looks like it might be a viable option. One way or another i will make it work though...even if I have to take a year off of school to work to support us...nothing gets in the way of true love right? ;)
 
I thought working holiday visas aren't available to Americans?
 
Decoy24601 said:
I thought working holiday visas aren't available to Americans?

SWAP is the working holiday visa program for Americans.
 
scylla said:
SWAP is the working holiday visa program for Americans.
Oh, interesting. That confused me a bit. Thank you :D