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American wanting to live in Canada
Awk
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello!
My girllfriend is interested in moving to Canada to work and live here. I am canadian. We looked around but we're getting confusing information on the internet regarding where to begin. How can she receive permanent living status in Canada? She must live here for 3 years to apply for citizenship, but how can she live here for 3 years without her citizenship?
Please point us in the right direction. Where to begin? Who can we talk to? What about marriage?
My girllfriend is interested in moving to Canada to work and live here. I am canadian. We looked around but we're getting confusing information on the internet regarding where to begin. How can she receive permanent living status in Canada? She must live here for 3 years to apply for citizenship, but how can she live here for 3 years without her citizenship?
Please point us in the right direction. Where to begin? Who can we talk to? What about marriage?
Awk on
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We're going to try contacting the Canadian consulate in Miami and see what advice they can provide.
Any more info still appreciated. Thanks again!
You could contact Service Canada and see if they have info.
She needs to apply for permanent residence (basically immigration) there are a number of options for applying. It will take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years for this application to go through and it requires a police background check, a medical (has to be with some fancydancy immigration doctor) and something like $600 cash.
While your waiting for them to get around to approving that paperwork, you want to get a 1 year work permit (or study). These are pretty easy to grab if she has an job or school lined up in Canada that will vouch for her. Once she is here and working/studying and has applied for her permanent residence she can just apply for a 1 yr extension on her work/study permit saying she is waiting for immigration Canada to process her stuff.
Word to the wise-don't wait till last minute on these things, there is a warning that they won't give you extensions and such if you leave it down to the last 60 days on your work/study permit before applying for one....I didn't test them on this. Get the ball rolling on the permanent residence stuff ASAP, you can send in the paperwork first and do the medical a few months later -they don't care.
The Immigration Canada site has all the information you need. Download the relevant set of application papers and look through them. My wife and I managed to do it all on our own, so you definitely don't need an immigration lawyer, unless you don't have a cut and dried case (say she has a felony on file, or something).
Timeline was something like:
- Fill out paperwork and bundle it up with supporting paperwork including a physical by an approved physician, passport photos to their specifications, documented support of the existance of the relationship (phone bills, receipts, ticket stubs, pictures, family/friend accounts), and some other pieces of ID. Oh, and a large check. I want to say it cost us around 1000$, but don't quote me on that.
- If you screw up anything, they'll mail it back to you asking you to fix what went wrong and send it off again.
- Once the application is considered complete, one of their offices will review it.
- If it's approved, you'll get an appointment set up for you at a (hopefully) local region canadian consulate in the U.S. (For us it was Buffalo)
- Be aware! That appointment is actually going to be the transitioning point into permanent residency. We were very suprised when we took an overnight trip to Buffalo for the appointment, only to have her treated as a landed immigrant on our way back to Canada. You'll need to have an itemized list ready of everything she plans to bring with her, even if she isn't bringing it over on that particular trip (we had to quickly sketch out an inventory, which we used when moving her stuff up later on).
- Congratulations on permanent residency. You then need to get all of the ID stuff taken care of. Driver's License, Health card, SIN card, and so on. Refer to each of your provincial agencies on guidelines for when she'll be eligible and when she needs to apply (for example, in Ontario you apply for the Health card immediately, and gain eligibility after living in Ontario for six months).
- 1000 and some days of residency in Canada later, she'll be able to apply for citizenship.
My wife actually moved up with me prior to us doing the whole permanent residency dance. I want to say that when we crossed the border we got her a visa that was eligible for a year, just on the basis of her starting the permanent residency process.
During the process, my wife paid a lot of attention to the Livejournal community Canadabound which is just what it sounds like, a place to ask questions and read up on the process of immigrating to Canada.
Best of luck on the process! If you need a friendly ear to bend about it, don't hesitate to send me a PM. It's pretty overwhelming, but just do it in small pieces and you'll get through no problem.
There are 3 main paths that seem like likely options for you:
1) Get married: The "outside spousal" track is the easiest and quickest way to do this pretty much. But it's still kind of a pain in the ass.
It takes about 6 months to a year on average to process (after you get your application in completely). However, she wouldn't be able to work in Canada during this time, so you'd have to make sure you have enough savings to cover it. (I think there is a visa program for people who are waiting for their applications to be processed, but likely the application would be done by the time you'd be getting the visa.)
Terminology note: "Outside" means that your spouse is supposed to be residing outside of Canada during the processing. But -- Americans can "visit" for 6 months without a visa (and that clock resets any time you leave the country. While we were waiting for my application to process, my clock reset when I went home for Thanksgiving, and again when we went on a vacation in Florida. But you could drive to Buffalo and turn right back around and it would do the same thing).
There is also Inside Spousal, where your spouse is allowed to live with you while your application is processed, but: a) it takes a lot longer and b) if your spouse leaves Canada while it's still in process, they'll consider her application abandoned and toss it. Soooo... unless you're fleeing an oppressive regime or something, outside is the way to go.
2) Skilled worker: If your gf has a college degree or a special trade, she can apply under this class for permanent residency. It takes a couple of years, I believe.
3) Go to school: If she's in school still or is interested in getting another degree or something, it's apparently extremely easy to get a visa for uni/college. Newish rules allow students to be able to work off campus while they're in school. And if she finishes a degree up here, she can get a visa for after graduation, and after that (if she has taken two years of school or worked for two years), there's a new class for PR that she could take advantage of.
Also if your partner is doing an Outside application, that alone will be evidence enough to get a full on visa which you can renew officially rather than having to wander back to the U.S. and then back into Canada. I want to say the one my wife was given would have lasted for a year prior to renewal, so it may not even be necessary.