10-01-2005, 11:33 PM
Our goal is to make this forum more 'community oriented'. Information is always plentiful, but peer support can also be an invaluable tool in coping with anything that adds stress to your life.
Since we're essentially 'all in this together', I thought it would be nice for everyone to post a little intro of themselves, their situation and status, and what their goals are. I'll start!
I'm a native Canadian, born and raised in Kitchener Ontario. My husband is a native American, born and raised in Chicago, but has been in California (Silicon Valley) for about 25 years. We met online about 5 years ago, on a professional level, and our relationship evolved from there. We've been 'an item' for 3 of those 5 years.
The summer before last, we wanted to start the ball rolling with his PR, but I wasn't yet divorced and my ex was delaying the process, so we were not able to get married at that time. We hired an immigration consultant to figure out the best route for us, given our situation and to let them handle the filing of everything.. we didn't want to have to deal with the hassles. Our consultant told us "Conjugal Partner" class would be our best bet. She did tell us this class was a bit 'stickier', but we had over 2 years of flight records, telephone records, photographs, emails, gift receipts, etc, to prove that our relationship was genuine. We had an 'impediment' to marriage, as I had a divorce pending, and there was no telling how long my ex was going to drag things out for. He has no criminal record nor health issues. Based on all this, she didn't think we'd have any trouble, and told us at the very least, we may get called for an interview. So, we got everything sent off in the fall, and began our wait.
Fast forward to this past summer. During the time our application was processing in Buffalo, my lawyer worked some magic and got my divorce finalized (in January of 2005), and we continued on with getting our lives together. In the spring, we bought a house here in Kitchener, have a joint mortgage, opened a joint bank account, changed all our beneficiary information on life insurance policies, 401K's, RRSP's, etc. And, we got married in June.
He had to fly back the Tuesday after the wedding, and I had spent the day getting all our new info together (marriage cert, wedding photos, bank and house information, insurance policies, etc) to drop off at our consultants to send on to Buffalo informing of them of our change of status and new information.
Before I had a chance to drop the stuff off at the consultants, I opened my mailbox to find a letter from Buffalo, informing me my husband had been refused PR in Canada. Basically the officer's only reason for refusing him was that we were not married. She said she believed we had a relationship, but it was merely a 'dating' relationship with no permanence. She claimed we had no impediment to marriage. (apparently waiting on a divorce just isn't good enough)
Naturally, we were devastated... angry, upset. Our consultant sent a package to Buffalo anyway, to the attention of the Programme Supervisor, with all our new information, and a request for a reconsideration, based on the fact we were now married, and that we weren't even given the opportunity of an interview.
Of course, they are under no obligation to reconsider once a decision has been made, but in rare cases they do and we felt it was worth a try. Also of course, we heard nothing back from Buffalo, and the time had elapsed to file an appeal. Appealing wouldn't have been a good route anyway, as it could take up to 2 years, and cost thousands of dollars. Now that we're married, it would be faster/easier/cheaper to just re-apply under Spousal.
So, that's what we did. We just got our 2nd application off 2 weeks ago... complete with another set of phone records, photographs, flight records, new medicals, new FBI and State clearances, and a new set of fees. The officer in Buffalo cost our family 9 months of our lives and we're not happy about it. All this could have been a non-issue had we just been called in for an interview.
BUT, we can't change the past, and we can only look forward. Hopefully this new application will go through painlessly. We applied again 'out of Canada', because he will keep his job at Cisco until it's time to move here, at which time he may take a remote position with them, and, if we're refused again for whatever reason, we want to have appeal rights. Because we WILL appeal. To the likes of which they've never seen :D
So.. we resume our normal routine of trans-continental visits and keeping Air Canada in business. This whole process has been hard/stressful/annoying/draining. But it's been equally hard on my daughter, who loves Michael and doesn't understand why he can't be here with us "all the time". It's really hard to explain bureaucratic red-tape to a 7yr old
Anyway, that's our story! For better or worse, we're going to get through this sooner or later....
Since we're essentially 'all in this together', I thought it would be nice for everyone to post a little intro of themselves, their situation and status, and what their goals are. I'll start!
I'm a native Canadian, born and raised in Kitchener Ontario. My husband is a native American, born and raised in Chicago, but has been in California (Silicon Valley) for about 25 years. We met online about 5 years ago, on a professional level, and our relationship evolved from there. We've been 'an item' for 3 of those 5 years.
The summer before last, we wanted to start the ball rolling with his PR, but I wasn't yet divorced and my ex was delaying the process, so we were not able to get married at that time. We hired an immigration consultant to figure out the best route for us, given our situation and to let them handle the filing of everything.. we didn't want to have to deal with the hassles. Our consultant told us "Conjugal Partner" class would be our best bet. She did tell us this class was a bit 'stickier', but we had over 2 years of flight records, telephone records, photographs, emails, gift receipts, etc, to prove that our relationship was genuine. We had an 'impediment' to marriage, as I had a divorce pending, and there was no telling how long my ex was going to drag things out for. He has no criminal record nor health issues. Based on all this, she didn't think we'd have any trouble, and told us at the very least, we may get called for an interview. So, we got everything sent off in the fall, and began our wait.
Fast forward to this past summer. During the time our application was processing in Buffalo, my lawyer worked some magic and got my divorce finalized (in January of 2005), and we continued on with getting our lives together. In the spring, we bought a house here in Kitchener, have a joint mortgage, opened a joint bank account, changed all our beneficiary information on life insurance policies, 401K's, RRSP's, etc. And, we got married in June.
He had to fly back the Tuesday after the wedding, and I had spent the day getting all our new info together (marriage cert, wedding photos, bank and house information, insurance policies, etc) to drop off at our consultants to send on to Buffalo informing of them of our change of status and new information.
Before I had a chance to drop the stuff off at the consultants, I opened my mailbox to find a letter from Buffalo, informing me my husband had been refused PR in Canada. Basically the officer's only reason for refusing him was that we were not married. She said she believed we had a relationship, but it was merely a 'dating' relationship with no permanence. She claimed we had no impediment to marriage. (apparently waiting on a divorce just isn't good enough)
Naturally, we were devastated... angry, upset. Our consultant sent a package to Buffalo anyway, to the attention of the Programme Supervisor, with all our new information, and a request for a reconsideration, based on the fact we were now married, and that we weren't even given the opportunity of an interview.
Of course, they are under no obligation to reconsider once a decision has been made, but in rare cases they do and we felt it was worth a try. Also of course, we heard nothing back from Buffalo, and the time had elapsed to file an appeal. Appealing wouldn't have been a good route anyway, as it could take up to 2 years, and cost thousands of dollars. Now that we're married, it would be faster/easier/cheaper to just re-apply under Spousal.
So, that's what we did. We just got our 2nd application off 2 weeks ago... complete with another set of phone records, photographs, flight records, new medicals, new FBI and State clearances, and a new set of fees. The officer in Buffalo cost our family 9 months of our lives and we're not happy about it. All this could have been a non-issue had we just been called in for an interview.
BUT, we can't change the past, and we can only look forward. Hopefully this new application will go through painlessly. We applied again 'out of Canada', because he will keep his job at Cisco until it's time to move here, at which time he may take a remote position with them, and, if we're refused again for whatever reason, we want to have appeal rights. Because we WILL appeal. To the likes of which they've never seen :D
So.. we resume our normal routine of trans-continental visits and keeping Air Canada in business. This whole process has been hard/stressful/annoying/draining. But it's been equally hard on my daughter, who loves Michael and doesn't understand why he can't be here with us "all the time". It's really hard to explain bureaucratic red-tape to a 7yr old
Anyway, that's our story! For better or worse, we're going to get through this sooner or later....
