According to the statistics, immigration problems concern in one way or another one person out of six of the population of Canada. To re-unite families is one the most urgent goal and key element of the Canadian immigration policy. At least, this is what the law sets out. However, the reality differs from the high-spirited speeches of ministers of immigration who appear in quick succession. Let us review the parental sponsorship program. Approximately 110,000 applications to sponsor parents have been put aside for an indefinite time without any apparent reason or warning. This situation has changed only after thousands of people went into the streets of Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa in last July and a claim was filed against Immigration Canada in the Federal Court.
But this is not the subject of this article. The main purpose of the article is to explain to the readers the essence of the sponsorship program, or, in other words, what is meant by sponsoring someone. Who can be sponsored? What is the minimum income required to sponsor someone? Where should the documents be mailed? What status will a spouse have in Canada? These are the most frequently asked questions and we will try to answer them.
One can sponsor the following family members: husband/wife, children under 22 years of age or those over 22 but who are dependent on their parents as full-time students or because of health conditions. You can also sponsor parents, grandparents, orphaned sisters/brothers under 18 years of age, or any person if you have no family members in Canada. The undertaking to sponsor lasts from 3 to 10 years depending on the category.
This is a very serious subject. It is impossible to review all the aspects and categories of the sponsorship program in one article that is why today we will examine in detail only the spousal sponsorship.
The amount of income which should be shown to be qualified as a sponsor causes most of the arguments, errors and questions.
Every day when we consult people in our office and tell them that you are not required to show their income in order to sponsor a spouse and children, people do not believe us saying “but we have been told…” or “but we have heard that…” There was a case when a young woman sponsoring her husband called Immigration Canada Call Centre and, as she told us, an immigration officer advised her that in order to sponsor her husband to Canada she was supposed to show her income. Evidently, an officer meant that though one is not required to show his/her income, he/she should submit documental proof of his/her physical presence/residence in Canada, such as Income Tax Reports, employment confirmation letters, studies confirmation letters, etc.
Even if you have only been several days in Canada and, of course, have not yet found work, or you have studied the English language at school or ESL courses, you may start a sponsorship procedure. Spouses and children fall under a special category, which is exempt from many requirements of the sponsorship program, such as health and minimal income, their applications are given priority in processing and are reviewed very quickly by visa offices.
During the last two years the processing times have been very fast, from four to six months, even if an interview is required. Certainly, a lot depends on the correct and appropriate preparation of documents. Have you answered all the questions in the application forms? Have you described the history of your relationship? Have you enclosed all the required documents to prove that yours is a real marriage and not a marriage of convenience for the purpose of immigrating to Canada?
Finally, you obtained your immigrant visa. If at that moment you were not married, under no circumstances enter into a marriage until you arrive in Canada as a permanent resident. Immediately after your landing you can return back home to marry and start preparing documents to sponsor your family members. This is exactly the situation of many adult dependants included into their parents’ applications for permanent residence. During this long-lasting process they lived their own lives, dated, entered into serious relationships and could not be torn away from each other.
Oftentimes people react very strongly to the question of sponsoring a spouse who has no legal status in Canada. In the past if a sponsored souse had no legal status in Canada, he/she could be landed in Canada only by a humanitarian and compassionate program which included spousal sponsorship. And this program lasted for years. Fortunately for thousands of illegal immigrants, the previous Minister of Immigration introduced a new law which gives equal rights to spouses with legal and illegal status in Canada allowing them to apply for permanent residence from within Canada. Trust not only our words but the experience of thousands of immigrants under this program, nobody will deport you if you apply for spousal sponsorship until there is no decision on your case.
Finally, I would like to deal with a delusion of people who were refused their refugee claims or other applications. The error is in that many of them believe that if they marry and apply for spousal sponsorship after the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment program has started, then Immigration Canada will not deport them. This is an absolute error. They will be deported without any delay. If the marriage had been registered and the sponsorship application had been submitted before PRRA started, the deportation is stayed and nobody has the right to touch you before the decision on your sponsorship application is made. If you do that, i.e. marry, very quickly after you received documents for Pre-Removal Risk Assessment, it is better for your not to apply from within Canada but from your country of nationality. The law states that previous refusals in any type of immigration or refugee applications do not affect the processing of spousal sponsorship applications. The main criteria is if the marriage is genuine, if the history of relationshipis credible, and not the preceding immigration history.
