mellybear

18 minutes ago, Boiler said:

Some serious and I mean serious, reading is required.

I'm assuming the process isn't as easy as simply filling out an application and that it does take time, but for non-married couples it is an alternative that can be considered. So I was just curious if they had already considered that route.

As for his actual issue.  I would not recommend applying for Canadian residency for your fiancee because: a) hopefully, by the time she'd be granted it you'll already be well on your way to having your US residency approved; and b) you don't have any intention of living in Canada permanently so it's pretty much a waste of money.  Having her enter Canada as a visitor would be the most logical option...although be prepared for her to get additional questioning at the border, especially if she tells them that she is coming into Canada to visit her husband...you may actually want to contact Canada Border Services, explain your potential situation to them and ask what the best way to avoid complications at the border is.

As for evidence of a bonafide marriage, if American visa officers are anything like Canadian ones, they'd be looking for proof of an ongoing relationship (i.e. - pictures, emails, receipts from trips you've taken together, etc), living together would just be additional proof but not something that is definitely required....but like boiler mentioned it does seem that Montreal is mostly concerned with your fiancee being able to show that she has a domicile in the US - which based on what you posted doesn't look like it should really be an issue since she is employed by a US company and currently is living in the US...and I'm assuming she has a US drivers licence, car insurance, US bank accounts, etc. which are other things that the visa officers in Montreal seem to look for as proof that the US spouse satisfies the domicile requirements. 

My bigger concern, which isn't related to the question about domicile, is since the wedding is taking place in Washington...I'm hoping that Thomas1988 won't have any issues crossing the border....border officers may get suspicious of a non-US citizen crossing the border to get married to a US citizen 😕

43 minutes ago, Thomas1988 said:

Hi everyone, hoping someone can guide us or give us some thread link or smth, fiancee(usc, Seattle) and I(PR in Canada, Vancouver) are getting married in May (in Washington State). She's a nurse, currently picking up a few shifts every once in a while in WA, and just got a job to work remotely for an NGO in Atlanta, (very mobile/flexible schedule), I work full time for a Canadian bank (not mobile/not flexible sched), we are planning on applying for the CR-1 once she changes her name on all her documents and spouses are added to insurance plans etc. I understand that having joint tenancy agreement is evidence of our bonafide marriage, I also gather she should maintain US domicile for CR-1 purposes, here's my question:

1 - Working mostly remotely, can she keep her parent's house mailing address as US domicile, while at the same time sharing a tenancy agreement with me for an apartment in Canada as evidence of bonafide marriage? 

2 - If so, should we apply for her Canadian residency(takes 8 to 12 months), or should she keep crossing as a visitor(max 6 months per calendar year) while we wait for my US residency? 

We would like to live together as much as we can, but understand that this may or may not be possible if we want our application to go smoothly.

(if there is some sort of Canada CR-1 group anywhere, that'd be amazing, I'm having trouble reading/finding stuff on VJ)

Thank you!

I know that you mentioned that you work full-time for a Canadian bank and don't have the option of working remotely....but since you're planning on ultimately immigrating to the US AND you aren't married yet, have you considered applying for a K-1 non-immigrant/fiance(e) visa along with Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization as an option instead of applying for the CR-1?  If you're granted a K-1 visa, once you're married you are then able to apply for a Green Card  using form I-485 (along with another Form I-765 so you'll be allowed to work while you're application is processing) from within the US.

It would solve the whole issue about having to live apart while you're waiting to be granted your US residency...

1 hour ago, Michelle_VM said:

We will be purchasing a home in the U.S. before moving. It sounds like the U.S. wont care about my Canadian status, but I might run into trouble each time I visit Canada as they try to figure out if I am a PR or not. May be held up at the border or something. Thanks for the info. 

Once you're established in the US, that's the best time to make the decision of whether or not to voluntarily renounce your Canadian permanent residence - but like NikLR I highly recommend that you contact Canadian Border Services and/or Citizenship & Immigration Canada to explain your situation and inquire what the best course of action is. Basically see what possible complications NOT renouncing your PR status could cause if/when you visit Canada.

But, as I said, if it were me I wouldn't make any decisions about giving up your Canadian PR status until you and your family are settled in the US....and you're 100% sure that you will not end up deciding to move back to Canada. 

36 minutes ago, Michelle_VM said:

As a U.S. citizen, does anyone know if any formal steps need to he taken to "renounce" my Canadian permanent residency in order to return to the U.S? By the time we move (assumingJuly/August) I will only have 2 months left before it "expires". 

Permanent residency doesn't "expire", only your permanent resident card (which is basically a travel document and proof of your status in Canada) expires.   And, as far as I know, you don't have to formally "renounce" your Canadian permanent residency in order to return to the US....as a US citizen you're able to return to the US at anytime of your choosing. Even if you had gotten Canadian citizenship while living in Canada you wouldn't have to renounce it before returning to the US.  The only issue would've been if you had at any time formally renounced your US citizenship which I'm assuming from your posts you never did.

Oh, living with my mother would most definitely be a temporary accommodation, especially with having our daughter - it would just be until both my husband and myself are both employed and/or we have a steady enough income that we won't have to worry about not being able to pay rent & utility bills.

Would you know if it's possible to simply go down to Connecticut to start the process of establishing residence by importing my car, transferring my driver's license, and registering & insuring my car down there then return to Canada to be with my husband and wait with him until he receives his visa?

As for a home, my husband & I actually rent an apartment and we're technically on a month-to-month lease since our landlord doesn't require us to sign a new 1-yr lease every 12 months. So unfortunately we don't have a house we can put on the market and once my husband gets visa approval we would give our landlord our notice that we'd be moving out on XXX date since we only need to provide 1 month notice. My main concern about giving notice prior to his visa getting approved is that if the visa was delayed for any reason and he didn't get it by the date we gave our landlord we/he would have no place to stay in the interim period....and with a young child not having a place to live wouldn't be very good.

It just seems so odd that it seems to be easier to bring your fiancee to the US than it is to bring your spouse. Or it may just seem that way since the process of bringing your spouse to the US is a lot more difficult if you've been living out of the country for an extended period of time.

Reading this thread has left me feeling extremely worried.

I am a USC who has been living in Canada since 2004 with my Canadian husband. We have a 2-yr old daughter who received her CRBA in February. Since having my daughter I've been feeling extremely homesick so my husband and I have been talking about moving to Connecticut so that we can be closer to my family. Of course living in Canada for so many years it is obvious that I don't have a "domicile" in the US. When I initially began looking into the whole visa process I wasn't very worried about not being able to satisfy "intent to re-establish a US domicile" to the consular official performing the visa interview, but after looking at everyone's experiences with their interviews at the Montreal consulate now I'm not so sure.

Our plan is it initially move in with my mother (who would also be acting as co/joint sponsor for my husband since I will not meet the financial requirement of the AOS alone) until we both find jobs and are able to afford an apartment of our own. I have maintained my US bank account and during our last visit I made sure that it was still considered to be an active account at my bank. I am behind on filing my US taxes, but I have downloaded/printed all of the forms that are needed to get back in to compliance and plan to do so before even submitting the I-130. I was also considering going back to school once we moved back so I can finish getting my Bachelors degree.

Given the age of our daughter, it would be extremely difficult for us if we had to be separated if me and my daughter - since she's also a USC and my husband would not be able to care for her on his own - had to move to the US in order to provide proof of domicile that would be accepted by the Montreal consulate. I would be willing to go to CT temporarily and apply for a driver's license and import/register my car and apply for car insurance but remaining there without my husband really isn't much of an option at this point in time. While there I would also apply for my daughter's SSN since we didn't do this at the same time we filed for the CRBA.

I don't work in a specialized field so the chances of finding an employer who would give me an offer of employment without a guaranteed date on when I could start is extremely unlikely. And I don't have any friends or relatives who own their own business who would be willing to hire me and provide a letter of offer of employment.

Since we haven't actually begun the process, right now I'm basically looking for advice on what types of documents are being accepted by the officers at the Montreal consulate as proof of or proof of intent to re-establish domicile. Any help all of you would be able to provide would be very much appreciated. I really really don't want my family to be separated.

Since making my original post I've been reading through the Canadian regional forum looking at how to prove "intent to re-establish a domicile in the US" and it has left me fairly discouraged. It appears that the US Consulate in Montreal which handles all immigrant visa interviews for beneficiaries living in Canada is almost unreasonably strict when it comes to the domicile requirement of USC petitioners currently living in Canada with their spouse. As in, most people who go for their visa interviews get denied and asked to provide more proof of domicile before a visa can/will be issued.

I know it would be about a year from now that I would have to start worrying about this but it has me a bit concerned. I work in the retail/service industry so the chances of receiving a job offer from an employer who would be willing to wait for me to start until my husband receives his visa is most likely nil. My husband, daughter, and I would be planning on living with my mother upon our initial move to the US and I would be planning on drawing up an official rental agreement between us and her to submit with our AOS.

As I mentioned in my initial post. We have a 2-yr old daughter and I don't want to separate her from my husband. My husband and I cannot afford to maintain 2 separate households, and personally I cannot afford to move back the US with my daughter to establish a domicile since I'd only be able to work part-time and would have no one available to care for my daughter since all my family members work full-time.

This is all extremely stressful and I don't even begin to know who to contact for advice since hiring an immigration attorney is no where near financially possible for us.

Hello, I'm brand new to the forums and looking for advice on how to sponsor my Canadian husband for US permanent residence.

For a little background information - I am a US citizen by birth. My husband and I got married in 2003 in Oshawa, Ontario. After our marriage I immigrated to Canada and have been living in Ontario as a Canadian permanent resident since then. We have a 2-year old daughter who I applied for (and received) a Certificate of Birth Abroad for earlier this year.

Since having my daughter, my husband & I have been talking and seriously considering moving back to the US so that I can be closer to my family. All of my family lives in Connecticut and being away from them has been hard....especially when such a young child.

I've been looking at the USCIS website as well as whole bunch of others and all that has managed to do is give me a huge headache.

I know that I will have to file the I-130 petition. However my problem comes with the fact that I have been living in Canada for the last 10+ years, so as a result I don't have a "domicile" in the United States. My mother has already told us that she would be willing to act as a co-sponsor for the Affidavit of Support since I know my finances alone will not be enough. I know that I could establish a "domicile" in the US by returning there alone (most likely with our daughter) and obtaining employement, etc....but given how young our daughter is I don't want our family to be separated. I know that we could also file for the I-129F so he could get a K3 visa in order to be able to come to the US and work while waiting for his immigrant visa to be approved, but then I see mention of having to apply for an adjustment of status? When would that need to be done if we decided to go that route.

As I mentioned, I could really use some advice on where to start as I'm feeling extremely overwhelmed.