Hello, I am a US citizen, my boyfriend is Canadian. We've been together for over a year now, and I want to immigrate to Canada to live with him. We have not gotten married yet, specifically because according to my understanding you can't enter either country with the intent of getting married, even if you plan on returning to your native country and applying for sponsorship. We have had many visits, I've been up there 5 times, 3 of those times he's come back to the US with me (I drive up, pick him up, and we drive back kinda thing, except he took the bus once) for a visit. He was denied entry into the US on our last visit, so we decided that immigration to Canada was going to be our option. I have 2 children, one of which I have sole rights and responsibilities to, the other is joint (I know gotta work on my ex for the immigration on him), what I was wondering is this:
Are there minimum financial requirements for sponsoring a spouse and her (my)dependent children?
Can we get married in Canada if I'm planning on coming back to the states to file and whatnot?
And lastly (yup i know a lot of ?s sorry to flood!) my oldest son had cancer as a young child, he's 8 now and in August he will be 6 years worth of remission, and no relapse of it at all. Will that affect his ability to immigrate with me?
Thank you in advance for your time and answers everyone!
Well - you don't have to show up at the border & declare "Hi - I'm here to get married."
You (and your kids) are not eligible to be sponsored until either, you & your BF marry or you qualify as common-law, neither of which seems to be the case yet.
Why was he denied entry to the US? Not enough ties to Canada/not showing enough money, etc or...?
Yes - you'll need to arrange with the other parent of your kids for them to immigrate.
There is no minimum income requirement for him to sponsor you & your children (unless your kids have their own dependents, IE - your grandkids)
Going on the age of your oldest though, I'd say this does not apply to you.
Now, your BF cannot be on welfare, he cannot be in an undischarged bankruptcy, he cannot be in a current spousal undertaking, and he cannot owe the gov't money from a previous undertaking where the sponsored person collected welfare.
As far as your son's cancer history, the short answer is no - it will not affect immigration. Spousal applicants, and their dependent children are "excessive demand exempt" from the requirement of (basically) not being a burden on the Canadian health care system.
The DMP (designated medical practitioner) who does the medical probably would want to see some/all of your son's past medical records in relation to his cancer, which they are allowed to ask for. Simply put though - no affect.
rainkeltoia Wrote:Hello, I am a US citizen, my boyfriend is Canadian. We've been together for over a year now, and I want to immigrate to Canada to live with him. We have not gotten married yet, specifically because according to my understanding you can't enter either country with the intent of getting married, even if you plan on returning to your native country and applying for sponsorship. We have had many visits, I've been up there 5 times, 3 of those times he's come back to the US with me (I drive up, pick him up, and we drive back kinda thing, except he took the bus once) for a visit. He was denied entry into the US on our last visit, so we decided that immigration to Canada was going to be our option. I have 2 children, one of which I have sole rights and responsibilities to, the other is joint (I know gotta work on my ex for the immigration on him), what I was wondering is this:
Are there minimum financial requirements for sponsoring a spouse and her (my)dependent children?
Can we get married in Canada if I'm planning on coming back to the states to file and whatnot?
And lastly (yup i know a lot of ?s sorry to flood!) my oldest son had cancer as a young child, he's 8 now and in August he will be 6 years worth of remission, and no relapse of it at all. Will that affect his ability to immigrate with me?
Thank you in advance for your time and answers everyone!
Loud Ditto of DerbyGirl's post.
Re marrying in Canada. Yes you may marry in Canada. As DerbyGirl said you do not have to announce to the officers at the border that you intend to get married during your visit. You visit. During your visit you marry. If you were prevsiouly married, be sure to have a certified copy of your divorce decree, or prior spouse's death certificate, or such -- and I forget for sure, but if divorced you may need to have the decree examined by a Canadian attorney to verify it is legally sufficient. You will need your passport or birth certificate as well, that is in order to obtain the marriage license in Canada. Simple civil ceremony is fine.
Last time I came to Canada as a visitor I was very emphatic, my "friend" and I had no intentions to ever marry. We changed our minds a couple weeks later, and we married, I stayed on in Canada but filed an out-of-Canada app and did not leave Canada again until it was time to go to the border so I could leave briefly and return to land as a PR.
Thank you! I don't plan to stay in Canada for the duration of the Sponsorship because of my kids, will I be able to enter Canada during the time the Sponsorship is processing or is that generally not allowed?
Thank you for the answers, we're trying to do this right and make it as easy and smooth as possible!
As far as him being denied, it was written out as defrauding the immigration on the US side, we said we were friends, they decided to push into what was going on and didn't like that he didn't have too much money in his account (he was planning on staying a month) etc and wrote him up as having a 5 year bar and lifetime inadmissibility, which we were told there could be waivers for but talked to a lawyer and he stated that it wouldn't be worth doing the waivers since they would likely be denied. So he won't be able to come to the states, but I'm allowed to travel to and from Canada just fine. I wasn't charged and nothing was done to my passport, they actually asked me if i could drive him home when he was denied *shrug*
One more question, for when we're sending the app in when it comes time, as for pictures. All of our pictures are digital, I don't have any physical pictures. Should I just send them a disc with the pictures on it, or should I print them out? Also as far as emails and whatnot, do we have to include all the information contained in the emails/letters?
Wow, sorry to hear you had such a rough time with him entering the US. You are allowed to enter Canada when you have a PR application in process, as long as your reason for entering Canada is genuine, and temporary, and you will leave Canada after the temporary visit. This is called "dual intent" and you can read all about it here, in OP11 section 5.4:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/m...11-eng.pdf
If your plan is basically to stay in the USA with your kids while the application is in process, but visit a few times, that should be OK,
especially if it's just you visiting without the kids (as that clearly shows you're planning to return to the USA if they're not with you!) It gets a little more complicated if you want to "visit" long-term while you have a PR application in progress, as it becomes more difficult to argue that you are a genuine visitor. The key will be demonstrating clearly that you intend to return to the USA after your visit. If they ask about the PR application when you enter, don't lie whatever you do, just stress that while you are "being sponsored by your partner/husband", this is just a visit and you will be returning to the USA in (a few days, x weeks, etc).
As for photos, print outs are fine. I suggest a range of photos from the course of your relationship, labelled with date and location. Different seasons, locations, hair cuts, clothes, with each others families, etc all go to show your relationship is genuine and ongoing over a period of time. Don't send a disk.
For emails / letters, similarly a selection from the course of your relationship - it doesn't need to be huge numbers, but even 5-10 from different times, some about the mundane, others not, go to show you have a genuine relationship.
Keep it all well organised, and include an index so the IO knows what they're looking at and why it's important.
Do not send anything electronic like dvds cds or flash drives. Print out the pictures. You can include multiple pics on one paper. Its good to write a description next to each pic.. like an approximate, or exact date it was taken, who is in the picture, and, perhaps who TOOK the pic, like, perhaps if you took a pic of him or visa versa while you were somewhere together. Just basic details like that.
I wish we could send in DVDs. One of the best things i have to prove the developement of my relationship with my husband is videos he used to send me electronically when i lived in the states and he in Canada. I would come home from school or work or wake up in the morning and id have a short video pending download that he sent me. SO SWEET! But anyways...
You can send in the full Emails. Just be sure you didnt say anything ... uh.. incriminating in them lol. Ive heard of some people removing the actual content of the emails and just showing the To and From portions with the timestamps and all that. If there is anything in there you dont want them to see definately exlude it. If you do decide to exculde the body of your emails... maybe just try to pick a few that dont contain anything that might emberrace or incriminate you and include a few full emails.
Ditto no discs!
We printed multiple photos to ordinary page sized photo paper, with captions. Does not have to be fancy. No need for large numbers. As matthewc suggests, photos showing different times, different contexts, over the course of the relationship constitute strong evidence.
Excellent, my digital camera actually has a timestamp on it, so that helps! We don't have many emails, mostly me to him, he isn't a big email writer, he prefers to chat in MSN Messenger, which doesn't probably help. But I do have phone records and receipts/bank records showing that I travelled there and spent money on gas etc.
if you have chat histories saved somewhere. you can use them too.
Is there a wait time for Canadian marriage licenses?
rainkeltoia Wrote:Is there a wait time for Canadian marriage licenses?
Usually 24 hours.
djbinsk Wrote:Usually 24 hours.
ok i wasn't sure if it was like it used to be here, which was a 10 day wait.
Re Ontario only:
I don't recall any wait time for our license, obtained in Ontario; if you go to the clerk's office in person with all the necessary documents I think they issue the license upon payment of the fee. You can download the form from the Services Ontario site and complete most of it before going to the clerk's office . . . or at least to be certain ahead of time what information you need. Proof of identity, as usual, is a must, and the license will be issued in your legal names. It is good for three months from the date purchased.
The real scheduling trick can be to get someone authorized to perform the marriage. At least locally here judges are not open to "walk-ins." (Fortunately I have a friend in the clergy who despite his clergy role was willing to perform a civil marriage.)
hmm this will be in Nova Scotia, where he lives, I'll have to make him overcome his introverted nature and go over and ask there :)