US Citizen on NAFTA Permit marrying a Canadian Citizen, all living in Canada

[meskal1]

I am a US Citizen on a NAFTA permit working in Canada. I'm engaged to marry a Canadian Citizen. I was preparing my permanent resident application (through the Canadian Experience Class) but now I'm wondering if I should wait to get married and have my spouse sponsor me. The processing times don't seem much different..

I'm also trying to figure out how we can get her to be a US Permanent Resident, even though we both will be living in Canada...but I don't know if this is a question for this forum..

Please advise with any ideas!

 

[scylla]

How soon are you getting married? If you are ready to send off the CEC application now and the marriage is still several months away - I would go with the CEC application.

There's really no point applying for her green card if you are going to be living in Canada. To maintain her green card status, she needs to make the US her primary residence. Canada allows a person to keep their PR status while living outside of the country provided the are living with a citizen spouse. The US has no such rules and revokes green cards (sometimes on arrival to the US) if it looks like you're primarily living somewhere else.

She should get a Nexus card if she wants to make travel to the US easier. No point applying for the green card until you are ready to move to the US and make that your primary residence.

A good US immigration forum is this one: http://forums.immigration.com/