ramac

I apologize if this has been asked before.

My daughter is a Canadian Citizen and works and resides in Ontario. Her fiance is a US Citizen, and he lives and works close to Buffalo, NY. As they love within 2 hours of each other, they spend every weekend together. They also have a wedding planned for August 2017.

They have been together for over 1 year, and would like to apply for immigration under the category of conjugal partner.

They are under the impression because they can travel to see each other, that they would be considered as having no barrier to them living together and therefore would not qualify.

I would welcome any views or advice on this category of application..

Thank you

Shirtback

Your daughter & her fiancé are correct that they wouldn't qualify under "conjugal partner", see definition/explanation here:
Determine your eligibility – Sponsor your spouse, partner or children

Once married, a spousal application would be the easy/straightforward way to go (see above link and the amazingly comprehensive Wiki: http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Spousa...sorship-Canada ).

Vulcanoid

Conjugal partner sponsorship is for people who cannot either marry, or live together, due to strict legal or cultural reasons. Think a Canadian ex-pat with his travel-banned boyfriend from Saudi Arabia (so culture bans them living together there, law bans them living together elsewhere). Or an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish person on their second relationship who can't get a divorce from the first one.

There is no barrier to them either living long-term in each others countries as visitors, or (as they are) simply getting married. So conjugal is out of the question.

SchnookoLoly

Just chiming in that conjugal is out of the question.

Basically, the first question you ask yourselves is "Can we go to a courthouse tomorrow and get legally married?" If the answer is YES, then you have zero chance of being approved for conjugal.

As others have said, the conjugal class is for very, very specific circumstances. Vulcanoid gave you a few options, and there are a few others outlined in the wiki article. There is also an example of someone who DID get approved as conjugal in the wiki, and you will see from reading their example that they have some pretty extreme circumstances.

So your daughter has to either properly live with the boyfriend for one year to apply as common-law, or wait until they get married and then apply as a married couple. (They can also choose to do a courthouse wedding now in order to get their application in earlier, and have their formal wedding party, but not legal ceremony, in 2017 as planned. Friends of mine did this, they were running into all kinds of immigration issues in Europe where she was on a work visa but he couldn't get proper residency because they weren't married and the country they were in didn't have common-law, so even though they were planning a wedding for 7-8 months' time they just did a courthouse wedding to facilitate is immigration paperwork, then in their proper wedding they didn't do the 'legal' part of the ceremony - honestly, none of us noticed. The person who officiated didn't have any legal power, he did not actually perform any legal parts of a wedding, and when they 'signed' the registry, they just signed a little certificate that the guy who officiated made up to commemorate their ceremony, haha.)

ramac

Thank you all for your replies.

Snowy560

You could also look into whether either of their professions qualifies under NAFTA professionals. If so and that person could get a job offer in the other's country, that meets the criteria, they'd be eligible to apply for a work permit. This may enable them to spend more time together while waiting to qualify for spouse sponsorship.

S

SchnookoLoly

... Assuming Trump doesn't repeal it all, haha. (I laugh, but seriously...)

Snowy560

Yes good point 🤔

ramac

Thank you, I will look into that.


At least there was a bit of good news yesterday with the spousal application process being changed.


Thanks everyone

Shirtback

The new spousal application process probably won't change much for your daughter's & fiancé's situation.

Quickest, easiest, simplest solution (as Schnooks mentioned) is courthouse wedding (either here or there), then apply.

They can still visit each other at weekends during the process, or one or other of them can go stay with (visit) the other for up to 6 months at a time (renewable if fiance comes to CA) as a visitor.

Their situation is really one of the simplest that comes up here from time to time .