Background:
I am a Canadian Citizen by birth. My husband is a naturalized US Citizen.
He came to Canada in 1996 and married me and stayed on for one month and we left together to the USA.
He applied for me for US residency and I am currently a legal US permanent resident living in USA.
We are happily married and have 4 US born children. I applied for Canadian citizenship for all 4 children and they are now dual US and Canadian Citizens as well. The only person that has no Canadian status is my US Citizen husband.
We want to apply for his Canadian Permanent residency and all of us move over to Canada to live.

Question 1:
What is the best and fastest way to go about this ? Do I apply while we are all still in USA and we all move together after he is approved or should me and the kids move permanetly to Canada and apply for him while he is waiting in USA alone or can we all just move over to Canada and then I apply for him while he is in Canada together with us ? All so confusing..geez.
He is medically very healthy, has a great job as a senior I.T. professional in the USA and could probably get work easy in Canada as well. I am a stay at home mom with the 4 kids.
Possible Problem : ??
The only one thing against him is that he got a charge against him recently for forgetting to update the address on his Auto registration Tag after we moved to a new house. He updated license and all other documents but just forgot to do the auto tag in good faith. He has all kinds of US security clearances due to his job and there is no reason for him to defraud the State of Florida by not updating the auto tag address. Simply forgot. He wasn't arrested or anything like that. Just ticketed by the street cop during a routine check because the auto tag address didn't match the drivers license address. Now we learnt that this seemingly small issue is actually a CRIMINAL CHARGE in the the USA for some reason.....He will just have to go to court in front of the judge and prove that he updated the address (which he did within 4 hours of getting the charge) and pay a possible maximum $500 fine and it is over. But we are told it WILL show on his record as a CRIMINAL MISDEMEANOR CHARGE of 2nd degree which is the LOWEST level of misdemeanor. Will this be a SERIOUS problem in getting him to become a permanent resident in Canada ? He has an otherwise TOTALLY clean record.

Thanks

check this out:

http://roadtocanada.com/

I liked britishexpats.com

are you going to get dual citizenship? or do you not care if you have status in the US down the road (as in don't plan to come back to the US in the future).

You can apply for him while you are both still in the US and then move either while the application is processing or after the visa is granted. If you move before the visa, he'll get a temp resident visa at the border which allows him to live in Canada (and import all his belongings) but not work.

In case he is found inadmisible because of the criminal charge here's the CIC page with some info http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/a...ides/5312E2.asp

In the end, its up to the border official whether or not they'll let him in, but if they decide he's not admissible, its a right pain in the ### to get all this paperwork done!

When he goes to court, if the judge doesn't do it without asking, have him ask for the charges to be dismissed for two reasons.... 1) it was an honest omission and; 2) that he is preparing to emigrate so a criminal charge on his record will be a hindrance to his application. There's a show on t.v. here in Lake County where they film the local court cases (minor, like your husband's) and the judge is very kind and quite lenient when it's something like what you've described. Unfortunately, I can't recall what it's called, but you may get it where you are.

Good luck.

It will depend on if the charge "equates" to a Canadian offence and if the offence in Canada could possible be a inditable offence. My suggestion is when he gets to court to try to plea it down as much as possible or best dismissed. Keep all court records with disposition whether dismissed or convicted and the actual penalty/fine he pays. When is is done PM with what the actual charge was that he was convicted of and that states definition of the offence if you can. I will see how it equates to Canadian law. It may only equate to a summary offence in Canada or may not even equate to a charge in Canada and then he will be fine. Once that is settled I can give you some more info.
As to your first question - your whole family can move to Canada and you can make application for your husband in Canada. He will not be able to work/study in Canada. After he is approved at the first stage he will be able to apply for a work permit.
If you have any other questions feel free to PM me as I may not be checking the board as often anymore.

Also, just to clarify, you can make application outside Canada and wait in the US until his PR status is approved and then move to Canada. You may consider this a better option if your husband is the primary income earner and need his job for economic support. If feasible, location wise, your husband could also still commute to his job in the US and live with you in Canada until his PR status is approved and he can get a job in Canada.

["If feasible, location wise, your husband could also still commute to his job in the US and live with you in Canada until his PR status is approved and he can get a job in Canada. "]


we're in a very similar situation. let me just clarify this because my husband suggested this to me, and i honestly don't know what the answer is. we've contacted the canadian embassy, but they haven't replied back.
so are you saying that they will allow us to live in canada as long as he keeps his job in the us?

Your US/foreign spouse can live with you in Canada while the PR application is in the process but he/she will not be authorized to be able to work or study in Canada. Your US spouse can commute from Canada to the US to work, both during the PR application process and after he/she becomes a PR of Canada. Both situations are acceptable.

I do believe that the foreign spouse can apply for a work/study permit in Canada once your PR application is approved at the first stage but I am have no idea how long it takes to get approval at the first stage.

Also, to clarify more: the foreign spouse does not need to keep his/her job in the US in order to live with you in Canada. He/she can be unemployed and still live with you in Canada but you must prove that you have sufficient financil means to support your foreign spouse until his/her PR is approved.

hmmm......

i see a problem with this now. my husband is the only one that works. i stay at home w/ our 3 small children. how does this affect the whole sponsorship if i can't provide for him? but i mean, he's the one providing for us.

Your husbands income can be used to meet the support requirements.
Please see the following link http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/guides/5482E.PDF http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/forms/IMM1283E.PDF

Your husbands income can be used to meet the support requirements.
Please see the following link http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/guides/5482E.PDF http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/forms/IMM1283E.PDF
[/quote]


Thank you for this info. So basically, he's acting as a co-signer, is that correct?

Just remember if you move to Canada being a permanent US resident you will lose that status and if you ever decide to move to the US again you would have to re-do the entire process. There are certain exceptions like applying for a Re-entry permit which allows up to 2 years absence from the US. Or a N-470 which preserves your residency in case you wanted to apply for US citizenship, but even with that, it's only good for about a year absence.

So if you ever wanted to move back to the US (Your husband and kids would be fine, you would be the issue), you could face problems and maybe denial until your husband files for a K-3 (or whatever it is). Best bet is for you to get US citizenship so you can have both US and Canadian and then you can travel and live where ever you want in the world.

If you never plan on ever moving back to the US, then yeah go for it, abandon the Green card etc since you won't ever need it again. The only problem is with the Green Card if you wanted to come back. So some things to think about...

thank you for the insight. as much as i'd like to become a US citizen, i don't think it's feasible since i was already naturalized to become a canadian citizen when we were younger. i don't know how much truth there is to this, but i heard before that you can only be naturalized once. and i think that if i decide to become a US citizen, then i would have to denounce my canadian citizenship, which is something I don't think I would do.

there are dozens upon dozens of threads here at VJ that explain dual and multi-citizenships.

You can have multiple citizenships, and dual between the US and Canada is allowed.

Yes it's perfectly fine. I have both citizenships right now. So you won't ever denounce your Canadian citizenship unless you want to do that...

I'm back again.
So we're really thinking about moving to Canada. Is there a website where I could gather all this information, regarding absences from the US and such?

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis