Moving to the US while waiting for citizenship

[fhamdani]

Hi all

I applied for my citizenship on Feb 18th 2019 and my office is the Scarbarough office.

Since then I have gotten married to an American. Recently she has been offered a job in California and she should be starting this sometime in April. I would like to go with her but I am unsure if this would harm my application at all. Am i allowed to leave Canada (give up my address etc), and go stay with my wife for six months on a US Visa?

I have applied for a green card which should be arriving sometime in August 2020 so my plan is to go to the US and stay with her and just come back for my oath. Is there any issues around this?

Thanks!

 

[Cell]

As far as I know, you can leave the country once you apply for citizenship:

https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=911&top=5

So I don't think your moving out of Canada might affect your citizenship application in any way. If you are just waiting for your green card in Canada and then move to the US once you get it, there should be no issue for you.

Just be careful in case you plan on moving to the US with some temporary visa before you get the green card. In fact, if you are in the US, you might have troubles leaving the country with a pending green card application, and you might likely need to come to Canada for your citizenship tests or your oath. I know (at least for people who applied for green card through their employer) that there are some stages of the green card application during which applicants are recommended not to leave the US if they are already in the country. I don't know if this also applies to the case of green card sponsored through the applicant's spouse.

But as I said, if you just wait for your green card in Canada you should be fine, and you can come back to Canada only for your test and your oath.

 

[issteven]

i dont see any problem on Canadian side.