Samiul A Almamu

Hello, I am engaged to a Canadian Citizen living in canada and we are getting married
in December. We want to process our immigration paperwork as early as possible so
that we don't have to wait to move to Canada after marriage. I am currently living in
USA, and my fiancee in Canada. We initially planned to apply under the fiance
sponsorship catagory but the rule changed before we could proceed any further. We
want to determine under the current immigration rules, if we can process our
paperwork as Conjugal Partner Sponsorship Application. Anyone who knows about the
criteria Conjugal Partner Sponsorship please help. Thank you.

-Sam

sclewlow

First, Congratualtions. I'm getting married to my Canadian fiance in October and also didn't want to wait until we got married. We submitted our application a couple of weeks ago.

The criteria for sponsoring a "conjugal partner" is you MUST have been in a meaningful and serious relationship for at least ONE year. I think that's pretty much how they word it.
When you apply you must prove that you have been in the relationship by submitting testimonts from friends/relatives and including stuff like telephone bills, letters etc...

There are certain other criteria and your conjugal partner must meet the financial requirements as well as certain other things (like not be in prison!!).

I was advised by Citizenship and Immigration Canada that as our relationship would change before the application was likely to complete (i.e. we would be married) that all we would have to do was send a copy of the marriage certificate once we had it. I was also informed the current processing time is 4-5 months for spousal sponsorship although I cannot confirm whether this is correct. In my own application I included a letter from the minister to confirm our marriage plans as well as loads of other 'proof' of our plans and our relationship.

You of course have another option. After you get married you could apply for PR whilst inside the country. this way you could stay with your partner. The downside is that you will not be able to work until you get an Approval in Principle. There are no guarentees on how fast you get these. So the choice is yours...
Hope this helps,
Simon

Andrew Miller

Part of Immigration Manual where the full definition of "conjugal partner" will be
has not been published yet. It probably will be unlikely to qualify as such if you
don't live together, but we need to wait for that particular Chapter (OP2) of
Immigration Manual to know for sure.

--

../..

Andrew Miller Immigration Consultant Vancouver, British Columbia email:
millercicanada.com (delete REMOVE and INVALID from the above address before
sending email)
________________________________

"Samiul A AlMamun" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:Pine.SOL.4.30.0207241003100.172...se.Buffalo.EDU...
    > Hello, I am engaged to a Canadian Citizen living in canada and we are getting
    > married in December. We want to process our immigration paperwork as early as
    > possible so that we don't have to wait to move to Canada after marriage. I am
    > currently living in USA, and my fiancee in Canada. We initially planned to apply
    > under the fiance sponsorship catagory but the rule changed before we could proceed
    > any further. We want to determine under the current immigration rules, if we can
    > process our paperwork as Conjugal Partner Sponsorship Application. Anyone who knows
    > about the criteria Conjugal Partner Sponsorship please help. Thank you.
    >
    > -Sam

sclewlow

On the sponsorship form there is a specific question "Did you live together" If you answer "No" you have to detail exactly why you did not. There are a number of questions like this whereby answering "No" means you have to list the reasons for your answer.
When I spoke to the immigration office the only stipulation was that we had been in a relationship for over one year. The fact that we are also getting married mean, she said, we shouldn't get any problems. As long as we could prove everything.

McGill

Mr. Miller,

I appreciate your comments on the conjugal partner question both here and in other posts, but I would urge you to please reexamine the reasons that they instituted this category (as per the Gov't Response to Standing Committee's Recommendations released on or about 6/28/02), in addition to how the Regulations describe "Conjugal Partner".... You will find that there is NO cohabitation requirement, and that is intentional as cohabitation is, in many instances, very difficult in the context of immigration. (We wouldn't need immigration procedures if we were always free to up and move in with our foreign partners in a foreign country.) A meaningful relationship may be challenging to prove without any periods of cohabitation, but I bet it can be done based on frequent visits, etc....

I have spoken with several agents at the CIC call centre about this, who presumably have been properly trained (maybe still a question...), and they all back up the foregoing. In addition, if the partners also happen to be engaged, it only helps to prove the bona fides of the relationship.

I am also eagerly waiting for the manual to be published, so that these questions can be answered once and for all.

Secondly, Simon, you should note that in the CIC literature, Conjugal Partner sponsors are exempt from meeting the LICO requirements...same as spouses and common-law partners.

McGill

P.S. FYI, I am also a "conjugal partner" from the USA, and my app will be complete this week. I would like to get it in ASAP, but I really want to try and hold out for the manual....

sclewlow

Really??!?!? The information I got from CIC call centre that financial requirements DID have to be met by my fiance. Although I sometimes found that I got conflicting information when I spoke to different people at the CIC centre. Hence whenever I asked a question I always try to get the person to verfiy this with someone else.

Thanks for the info and good luck with your apps.

Pickle

Andrew,

I wonder if you can still count as a commonlaw if you have been married to someone
else but going through a divorce for the whole year you have been living with your
sponsor? Does your time only start to count on the day your divorce was final or does
the whole year or more you have actually been cohabitating together count? Sometimes
divorces take a long time and sometimes there are very good reasons for getting a
divorce (such as abuse, unfaithfulness,violence) and trying to get on with your life.

hmmm..........just wondering........

"sclewlow" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > First, Congratualtions. I'm getting married to my Canadian fiance in October and
    > also didn't want to wait until we got married. We submitted our application a
    > couple of weeks ago.
    >
    > The criteria for sponsoring a "conjugal partner" is you MUST have been in a
    > meaningful and serious relationship for at least ONE year. I think that's pretty
    > much how they word it. When you apply you must prove that you have been in the
    > relationship by submitting testimonts from friends/relatives and including stuff
    > like telephone bills, letters etc...
    >
    > There are certain other criteria and your conjugal partner must meet the financial
    > requirements as well as certain other things (like not be in prison!!).
    >
    > I was advised by Citizenship and Immigration Canada that as our relationship would
    > change before the application was likely to complete
    > (i.e. we would be married) that all we would have to do was send a copy of the
    > marriage certificate once we had it. I was also informed the current
    > processing time is 4-5 months for spousal sponsorship although I cannot
    > confirm whether this is correct. In my own application I included a letter
    > from the minister to confirm our marriage plans as well as loads of other
    > 'proof' of our plans and our relationship.
    >
    > You of course have another option. After you get married you could apply for PR
    > whilst inside the country. this way you could stay with your partner. The downside
    > is that you will not be able to work until you get an Approval in Principle. There
    > are no guarentees on how fast you get these. So the choice is yours... Hope this
    > helps, Simon
    >
    >
    >
    > --
    > Simon Clewlow
    >
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Andrew Miller

McGill,

I understand the reasons behind inclusion of conjugal partners in new law.

But I am trying not to draw any conclusions until I see how "conjugal partner" is
defined in the Immigration Manual and how processing officers are instructed to deal
with such. Especially when in Regulations there is a following statement:

For the purposes of the Act and these Regulations, an individual who has been in a
conjugal relationship with a person for at least one year but is unable to cohabit
with the person, due to persecution or any form of penal control, shall be considered
a common-law partner of the person.

The above statement may be interpreted in various ways by readers and less or more
strange conclusions may be drawn - so, I prefer to be on the safe side and wait for
OP2 of the Immigration Manual before raising hopes of many people.

Also government's responses to Standing Committee recommendation are as follows:

Response to recommendation 32: The number of people who have been seeking permanent
residence as fiancé(e)s has been steadily declining. Introducing a new concept of
intending common-law partners that requires the assessment of the intention of
couples to cohabit goes beyond the scope of normal immigration assessment and would
be difficult to administer. The potential for abuse is of serious concern to
Citizenship and Immigration Canada. It should be noted that those who apply as
fiancé(e)s under the family class until June 28, 2002, when the new Act and
regulations take effect, will be processed as fiancé(e)s. The Government
acknowledges that there may be some cases that warrant exceptional relief on
humanitarian and compassionate grounds and the Act already provides the tools to
deal with those cases.

Response to recommendations 33-34: The Government agrees with the Committee's
concerns that have been raised in these recommendations. Under federal legislation,
common-law partners are those who have co-habited for one year. The Government
recognizes that the one-year co-habitation requirement may be difficult for some
applicants to meet in an immigration context. As such, the Government is creating a
new category, conjugal partners, to recognize genuine relationships in the family
class that are based on criteria other than cohabitation.

It is clear to me from the above that inclusion of a "conjugal partners" in the
family class is not intended as replacement for eliminated Fiancée category.

So, fiancée category is gone and we need to see what exactly are the **criteria other
than cohabitation** defining conjugal partnership, as **the intention of couples to
cohabit goes beyond the scope of normal immigration assessment and would be difficult
to administer**.

And this is why my advice to all of those who hope that simply being engaged (a
fiancée) and/or having an intention to marry or live together will be reason good
enough to be included as "conjugal partners" in Family class is - ***wait until we
know what "conjugal partner" definition is***. Don't rely on call centre as we all
know very well - the number of different answers given there is usually equal to the
number of calls you make.

--

../..

Andrew Miller Immigration Consultant Vancouver, British Columbia email:
millercicanada.com (delete REMOVE and INVALID from the above address before
sending email)
________________________________

"McGill" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Mr. Miller,
    >
    > I appreciate your comments on the conjugal partner question both here and in other
    > posts, but I would urge you to please reexamine the reasons that they instituted
    > this category (as per the Gov't Response to Standing Committee's Recommendations
    > released on or about 6/28/02), in addition to how the Regulations describe
    > "Conjugal Partner".... You will find that there is NO cohabitation requirement, and
    > that is intentional as cohabitation is, in many instances, very difficult in the
    > context of immigration. (We wouldn't need immigration procedures if we were always
    > free to up and move in with our foreign partners in a foreign country.) A
    > meaningful relationship may be challenging to prove without any periods of
    > cohabitation, but I bet it can be done based on frequent visits, etc....
    >
    > I have spoken with several agents at the CIC call centre about this, who presumably
    > have been properly trained (maybe still a question...), and they all back up the
    > foregoing. In addition, if the partners also happen to be engaged, it only helps to
    > prove the bona fides of the relationship.
    >
    > I am also eagerly waiting for the manual to be published, so that these questions
    > can be answered once and for all.
    >
    > Secondly, Simon, you should note that in the CIC literature, Conjugal Partner
    > sponsors are exempt from meeting the LICO requirements...same as spouses and
    > common-law partners.
    >
    > McGill
    >
    > P.S. FYI, I am also a "conjugal partner" from the USA, and my app will be complete
    > this week. I would like to get it in ASAP, but I really want to try and hold
    > out for the manual....
    >
    >
    >
    > --

The Wizzard

The financial criterea used to have to be met in the fiancee class, perhaps they were
still refering to that?

"sclewlow" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Really??!?!? The information I got from CIC call centre that financial requirements
    > DID have to be met by my fiance. Although I sometimes found that I got conflicting
    > information when I spoke to different people at the CIC centre. Hence whenever I
    > asked a question I always try to get the person to verfiy this with someone else.
    >
    > Thanks for the info and good luck with your apps.
    >
    >
    >
    > --
    > Simon Clewlow
    >
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com