I am Canadian who has returned recently after living in the UK for 3 years, sponsoring my UK girlfriend under the Family Class (commonlaw). We applied from within Canada since she came over in November and is here as a visitor status. UK citizens do not need a visitor visa -- it is 6 months from the stamp in the passport.

The application is being processed currently.

She wants to go back to the UK in April for approx. 3 weeks to visit friends and family, then return to Canada.

Questions are:
Can she leave Canada while the application is pending?
After leaving and returning does the 6 month clock start again?
Will she run into problems returning into the country? When she came over the first time it took about 10 seconds at customs.
Any other info?

Thanks

She is allowed to leave but is advised not to by CIC. The reason being they cannot guarantee re-entry. 99% of the time she would be allowed straight back in but there is always the chance you get an overly intensive immigration officer who asks more questions and then establishes she sint a genuine visitor and refuses her entry. Which of course would mess up the inland PR application.

She shuold be fine though for jsut 3 weeks. What stage is she at? If she has the AIP letter from CIC she should take that with her or some evidence of her application details. Try calling the CIC call centre and trying to get your client ID# if you do not already know it. Then if you are asked a lot of questions she can explain she has an inland PR case going through and was jsut visiting family for a few weeks ans he should be fine. They probably won't ask.

Most important thing is she should not lie to immigration. Don't pretend you are just on holiday or visiting friends because if they catch her out they wont believe anything else she says and she will be screwed hehe.

Should be ok though.

As for the 6 month clock. That depends who you ask. Technicaly it should restart but i have heard CIC argue before that because the person wasnt egnuinly ending one trip then starting another that the temporary absence doesnt count and it continues. However if she has her passport stamped when she re enters i cant see how they can argue with that date.

Drew

Thanks for the feedback -- we have the client id# and it is an AIP. We have called CIC, and I don't know if you have had the same experience, but if you don't like the answer call back again and you get different advice. One agent said she couldn't leave, the next said similar to you that it shouldn't be a problem. A lot of power is given to the officer.
Thanks again -- I appreciate the info.

My Canadian wife and I went to the UK at christmas for 3 weeks to stay with my parents. I only had a working visa (becasue I was incorrectly advised on this site that a working visa allowed reentry - it does not) and my AIP. I was a little affriad when I returned to Canada in January because everyone had to show their passports to immigration officers the moment we got off the plane, I showed only my passport and explained that I was waiting for my Perm Res had a AIP letter. The officer asked me if I had papework I said yes, went to get it out and she told me it was OK. I moved on.

Next at the main passport control my wife and I approached the Immigration officer (we tried to get a nice one going by appearance!) together, explaining the situation again I pulled out my visa AIP and he wasn't interested, he asked me how long I'd been away and where I had been staying. After scanning my passport he said welcome back to Canada.

Easy! I doubt if you'll have any problems, stay together once you disembark and follow wizzard's advice and be honest at all times.

However, this war may make them pay a bit more attention but I'm sure you'll be fine.

As a side note I know there are some complete wankers working as immigration officers. When my family and friends came to my wedding from the UK the came together in a party of six. Wendy my 9 year old cousin's mother was given a hard time because here daughter had a different surname (her mother was married and divorced), the officer in his wisdom thought she was trying to smuggle my cousin out of the UK. He tried to encourage the rest of my family to pass through customs while my cousin and her mother stayed behind to speak to another immigration officer. My mother wasn't having any of this! They remained together and were generally difficult. This annoyed the immigration officer and he asked them all to go through cos he was fed up.