scan

All,

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

My current situation is as follows (I’ll explain best I can)

Myself, wife and three children initially in Canada on a TWP which expired on 21st March.

Approved PR application and request for passports received (from buffalo) on Monday 2nd March.

I was made redundant from my job which was associated to the TWP on Friday 13th Feb (yes I know).

I left Canada on March 6th to look for work and plan to return on May 6th.

I have managed to secure employment for a UK based company working in the Middle East.

The rest is a little more complicated:

I initially considered driving to buffalo before I left Canada to have our passports processed to enable us to land as we re-entered (the same day) Canada. However, it was/is my understanding that this facility at buffalo is only available on a Thursday and the only Thursday available for me to do this was the 5th March which was the day before I left Canada! As I had a flight to catch the next day and my lawyer advised that I might end up staying overnight this became too much of a risk!

So not to be discouraged & on advice from my immigration lawyer I left Canada on the 6th and took all the family’s passports with me and was instructed to courier all the passports together to buffalo when I arrived at my destination. I was instructed/advised that as long as buffalo received our passports before our TWP expired all would be ok.

I complied with this request and buffalo acknowledged receipt of our passports on March 16th.

This is the point at which our nightmare has begun as we only received our passports back from buffalo yesterday March 30th. This was after several calls to buffalo and an email that went unanswered! At one stage yesterday morning my wife after several attempts to place a call with buffalo and lots of pleading with buffalo for information was informed that our passports were being processed and we should receive them today March 31st. She then a couple of hours later went to our mailbox and to her surprise there was our passports! The fact that they were in the mailbox is also a mystery as we had paid for the expedited service from Canada Post as indicated in the CIC document.

She was a little bewildered but happy to have the passports back. We then proceeded with the next part of the plan which was for her to courier my passport back to me and for my wife to contact our local CIC office to arrange for her and the children to land.

Again it was/is my understanding that she and children would be able to land without leaving Canada which is a recent amendment to the PR process.

She contacted the local CIC office using the number provided and was told the bombshell that as my/our work permit had expired she and the children no longer had status in Canada and should leave immediately!

She explained that it was our understanding that due to fact we had made sure buffalo received our passports before our work permit expired we were doing the right thing.

She then called another CIC office in Toronto and was this time informed that under no circumstances should she leave Canada and our only course of action would now be for us to apply for temporary status that would allow her and the children to stay in Canada until I return in May and land at Pearson International Airport.

She communicated all of this back to the lawyer who is now claiming that it’s all a misunderstanding on our part and she should have left Canada before the work permit expired.

He also is asking for a substantial amount of money to process the “temporary status application”

This has left my wife very upset and confused, we genuinely felt we had taken the correct approach with me going out and looking for work and my wife providing a stable environment for the children.

I apologize for the length of the post and would really appreciate any advice.

Thanks in advance,

Sean

kleinluka

WOW I'm really sorry to hear that!

The way I understand the rules your wife and kids should have left with you before your work permit expired because their status in Canada was tied to your TWP. But because they were still in Canada after the work permit expired they overstayed the visa and remained in Canada without status.

This is where bureaucracy kicks in with all its stupidity. It is ridiculous that they give you guys a hard time because you received your PR visas 9 days after expiry of your TWPs. And because of those 9 days without status they are giving you guys hell now it seems I hope you can work something out and that maybe someone here can help you. Sorry I couldn't be of more help but I'm sure you will find some support on this forum.. All the best!

scan

Thanks kleinluka,

Exactly that, we cannot believe we are in this situation after waiting so long for our PR status to be approved!

I appreciate rules are rules, but at no stage did CIC Buffalo contact us to let us know we had a potential problem.

In fact it was the total opposite in that we could not get CIC Buffalo to respond to our attempts to understand the situation.

Sean

kleinluka

well, to CIC's defense it's the responsibility of the visa holder to make sure that he/she stays within the law. It's not their job to babysit people through the rules, that's what immigration consultants are for. And your lawyer should have told you right away that you needed to leave the country or extend your temporary status to make sure you can all legally stay in the country until your PR visa is issued. This shouldn't have even been an issue. I think your lawyer failed you. But yes it would have been nice to at least get some kind of information from CIC on what is going on. Keep us posted on how this story unfolds. I wish you the best of luck!