US outland applicants' thread :)

[Decoy24601]

So you're getting married before applying I assume? As there is no fiancé option. Your proof sounds just fine though.

Yes, sorry about not being clear on that. We are getting married in November and filing shortly after. I was a little worried about proof since he is 10 years older than me and I have read that age differences can be a red flag and tend to require more proof.

We are going to provide statements from family members too, but I was wondering if we should also ask the wedding officiant to write a letter with her impressions and experiences of us?

We also have pictures of me meeting his family at dinner and him meeting my mother. My only close family is my mother and sister, so we don't really have many pictures in terms of that. My father is living, but I have not been on speaking terms with him in a while. Should I explain in the application why I don't have many pictures of my fiancé with my family?

 

[Aquakitty]

Yes, sorry about not being clear on that. We are getting married in November and filing shortly after. I was a little worried about proof since he is 10 years older than me and I have read that age differences can be a red flag and tend to require more proof.

We are going to provide statements from family members too, but I was wondering if we should also ask the wedding officiant to write a letter with her impressions and experiences of us?

We also have pictures of me meeting his family at dinner and him meeting my mother. My only close family is my mother and sister, so we don't really have many pictures in terms of that. My father is living, but I have not been on speaking terms with him in a while. Should I explain in the application why I don't have many pictures of my fiancé with my family?

No, I would not explain all that, just give what you have. If they need more they will ask for it. To me, explaining things like that could make them wonder why you are so worried about it. The exception to this, is if you or your fiance are from a culture where certain family activities/traditions are normal, and deviations from that are red flags. In that case it would be prudent to explain why you are not engaging in your cultural norms.

I assume you or your fiance is American, so I don't think that would be an issue.

 

[Decoy24601]

No, I would not explain all that, just give what you have. If they need more they will ask for it. To me, explaining things like that could make them wonder why you are so worried about it. The exception to this, is if you or your fiance are from a culture where certain family activities/traditions are normal, and deviations from that are red flags. In that case it would be prudent to explain why you are not engaging in your cultural norms.


I assume you or your fiance is American, so I don't think that would be an issue.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm just a paranoid person in general so I wanted to make sure my anxieties were unwarranted. Also, to clarify, my fiancé is a born Canadian and he will be sponsoring me, an American. We are both just anxious because we live only 40-60 minutes apart, but are separated by the border and can't visit that often because of our jobs. We wouldn't want our application refuses and have to spend another 6-10 months reapplying and being separated for that much longer while we are married.

Thank you for answering my questions ;D

One last question, referring to the question that asked if I'm living with anyone, do I have to mention if I'm sharing an apartment with two roommates? Technically since they are my roommates I am living with them, but one roommate is only there a few days out of the month and the other and I barely even talk or see each other on a regular basis.

 

[Aquakitty]

One last question, referring to the question that asked if I'm living with anyone, do I have to mention if I'm sharing an apartment with two roommates? Technically since they are my roommates I am living with them, but one roommate is only there a few days out of the month and the other and I barely even talk or see each other on a regular basis.

Yea, I would, just telling the truth is the best idea for every question.

 

[Decoy24601]

Yea, I would, just telling the truth is the best idea for every question.

Alright, that makes sense. Thank you.

 

[missmegan]

So I'm going to assume I'm not the only one who got an email today regarding police clearance? We didn't send my FBI background check in until March I think, and I'm a January applicant. It says do not reply to the email, but if we sent it, do we just assume they have it and were just one step ahead now in the process? I see quite a few people in the Ottawa topic received the same email. Hopefully we're getting close to the end!!

 

[Sunset0505]

Funny thing about the police clearance...the due date for all the info recently requested was yesterday for us this includes the FBI clearance( the 2nd request for the FBI clearance).... The medical due date is 04NOV2015 so I am still thinking an answer sometime in March 2016...that will be 23 months...the funny thing about that is I am pretty sure the 2nd requested info will expire by then!!!

 

[fruitball4u]

Hey everyone. Quick question. When you got stage 1 sponsorship approval, did your ECAS ever update to show that your records were transferred? I know that CPC Ottawa doesn't give acknowledgement of receipt but just wondering if anything ever shows that your files were transferred there. I'd hate to wait and wait for DM only to find out in six months that my files got lost on the way to Ottawa! Right now my ECAS only shows Application Received and when you click that, it says "We received your application May 20th 2015" (which is when I sent it to Mississauga), and "We have received your medical results".

 

[hmks]

Hello everyone. Another mundane series of questions for you but I'm having some trouble finding answers and figuring out the process. My husband is a Canadian citizen, as are our three children. I am a U.S. citizen and we all currently live in the U.S. but are planning to relocate to Ontario by this time next year or worst case scenario the following year, depending on when my husband finds a job. Should we go ahead an begin the process now even though he does not have a job offer or should we wait until he has one? My concern is that I hear the process is LONG and I've lived in 5 countries for more than 6 months since I was 18 so I will need to obtain 5 background checks some of which need to be applied for in person at the country's embassies, etc, etc, etc . . .

Once the visa is issued is it valid for a very short amount of time or would we be able to postpone another year if necessary (my husband is a university professor so we'd move at the start of a school year)? Any sage words of wisdom would be appreciated. And if we do need to collect letter from friends stating our intent to move back, how many are usually required?

 

[stardt]

Hey everyone. Quick question. When you got stage 1 sponsorship approval, did your ECAS ever update to show that your records were transferred? I know that CPC Ottawa doesn't give acknowledgement of receipt but just wondering if anything ever shows that your files were transferred there. I'd hate to wait and wait for DM only to find out in six months that my files got lost on the way to Ottawa! Right now my ECAS only shows Application Received and when you click that, it says "We received your application May 20th 2015" (which is when I sent it to Mississauga), and "We have received your medical results".

I have a similar timeline to you and am also sponsoring a US citizen with my app in Ottawa. When I got SA, somewhat shortly after my eCAS turned to in process and then it gave a date that they started processing my application. Some people are saying that "in process" is now sort of like AOR2 for Ottawa (there's debate on this you've probably seen). But I would try calling them maybe?

 

[Aquakitty]

Hello everyone. Another mundane series of questions for you but I'm having some trouble finding answers and figuring out the process. My husband is a Canadian citizen, as are our three children. I am a U.S. citizen and we all currently live in the U.S. but are planning to relocate to Ontario by this time next year or worst case scenario the following year, depending on when my husband finds a job. Should we go ahead an begin the process now even though he does not have a job offer or should we wait until he has one? My concern is that I hear the process is LONG and I've lived in 5 countries for more than 6 months since I was 18 so I will need to obtain 5 background checks some of which need to be applied for in person at the country's embassies, etc, etc, etc . . .

Once the visa is issued is it valid for a very short amount of time or would we be able to postpone another year if necessary (my husband is a university professor so we'd move at the start of a school year)? Any sage words of wisdom would be appreciated. And if we do need to collect letter from friends stating our intent to move back, how many are usually required?

You are very likely to get your PR in under a year as an American (assuming you don't have any issues with your application) and generally your COPR is good until your medical expires. Medicals are valid for one year from the day you get it done. So, if you submitted your medical upfront and got it done the same day you ship your application, and it took 6 months to get PR, you would have another 6 months in which to land. If it took 9 months to get PR, you'd have 4 months to land. Of course this is best case scenario, most people get their medical done earlier so you'd have even less time.

You CAN choose to not submit your medical upfront, and wait for a medical request, or do it later on yourself. If you do this, it may delay your application for an unknown amount of time (perhaps someone here did not submit upfront medical and can chime in on that).

 

[keesio]

Hello everyone. Another mundane series of questions for you but I'm having some trouble finding answers and figuring out the process. My husband is a Canadian citizen, as are our three children. I am a U.S. citizen and we all currently live in the U.S. but are planning to relocate to Ontario by this time next year or worst case scenario the following year, depending on when my husband finds a job. Should we go ahead an begin the process now even though he does not have a job offer or should we wait until he has one? My concern is that I hear the process is LONG and I've lived in 5 countries for more than 6 months since I was 18 so I will need to obtain 5 background checks some of which need to be applied for in person at the country's embassies, etc, etc, etc . . .

Once the visa is issued is it valid for a very short amount of time or would we be able to postpone another year if necessary (my husband is a university professor so we'd move at the start of a school year)? Any sage words of wisdom would be appreciated. And if we do need to collect letter from friends stating our intent to move back, how many are usually required?

You should postpone until you have a clear plan for moving back to Canada. One US/Canadian couple living in the USA had their application denied because their evidence regarding "intent to reside in Canada" was too weak. Their timeline to move back to Canada was too long (like 18-24 months) and they had a lot of dependencies. The last thing CIC wants to read is something like "depending on when my husband finds a job". CIC wants to hear a CLEAR decisive plan.

 

[hmks]

Great! Thank you very much. We'll wait until he has a job offer and submit all the paperwork then. I think my application will be pretty straight forward. We've been married for 8 years and have three Canadian citizen children. Thanks for the advice. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions once we start the process.

 

[keesio]

Great! Thank you very much. We'll wait until he has a job offer and submit all the paperwork then. I think my application will be pretty straight forward. We've been married for 8 years and have three Canadian citizen children. Thanks for the advice. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions once we start the process.

Note that he doesn't necessarily need a confirmed job offer. Just some hard proof that he is looking seriously for jobs (communication with a head hunter, proof of job interviews, etc). And other proofs like signing a lease for an apartment and enrolling your kids in school for the next school semester (or looking at schools) are also really strong proofs. You just need to convince CIC that when you get PR, you and your husband are planning to move to Canada shortly after. In your application, avoid words like "depends on", "perhaps", "not sure". They want to hear "we plan on", "we will", etc.

 

[lawgrrl]

Note that he doesn't necessarily need a confirmed job offer. Just some hard proof that he is looking seriously for jobs (communication with a head hunter, proof of job interviews, etc). And other proofs like signing a lease for an apartment and enrolling your kids in school for the next school semester (or looking at schools) are also really strong proofs. You just need to convince CIC that when you get PR, you and your husband are planning to move to Canada shortly after. In your application, avoid words like "depends on", "perhaps", "not sure". they want to hear "we plan on", "we will", etc.

We had a similar experience. My Canadian husband is self-employed but was closing down his business before leaving the States to return to Canada. We provided evidence that he had taken steps to establish a new business in Canada, and also emails from his parents saying how they were looking forward to his return. I had no job prospects at the time of application. We also owned a home that we needed to sell. So we worded our app that we "would" list the house for sale "immediately" upon my receiving PR, that we thought the house would sell in 60-90 days, and that we would move promptly after that. And it worked!