Visiting a spouse in Canada: How to best present your application

Credit to Author: Steven Meurrens| Date: Mon, 09 May 2022 13:31:48 +0000

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)’s processing standard for spousal and common-law sponsorship applications is generally around twelve months.  The actual processing time can be much longer, or shorter, depending on an applicant’s country of origin, and the delays for certain countries have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given these wait times, many foreign nationals with Canadian spouses or common-law partners residing in Canada understandably want to visit their spouses in Canada while their immigration applications are in processing.

Unfortunately, IRCC’s temporary resident visa (“TRV”) approval rate for people wishing to visit their Canadian sponsors in Canada while they have an application in process is low.  Indeed, the TRV approval rate for foreign nationals who wish to visit a Canadian spouse or common-law partner is lower than the overall TRV approval rate.  In 2019, for example, IRCC’s overall TRV approval rate was 64 per cent.  The TRV approval rate for those with sponsorship applications in processing was 47 per cent. These rates are relatively consistent year after year.

Given that the TRV approval rate for those with sponsorship applications in processing is around 50 per cent, it is important that applicants understand what IRCC’s test for TRVs is, and how to best present their applications.

TRV Factors

Canadian immigration legislation requires that visitor visa applicants satisfy visa officers that they will leave Canada by the end of the period authorized for their stay. The onus is on applicants to provide sufficient evidence of this. With limited exceptions, visa officers do not have an obligation to inform applicants of their concerns prior to refusal.

The factors that visa officers consider in assessing a temporary resident visa application include:

• length of time that the person plans on spending in Canada;
• purpose of the person’s visit to Canada;
• person’s means of support in Canada;
• obligations and ties that the person has to their home country. This can include their immigration status in their country of residence, their family ties in their country of residence, their current employment situation, and their employment prospects in their country of residence;
• past compliance with immigration legislation of both Canada and other countries; and
• credibility of the documents and information that they submit.

The IRCC website also provides that visa officers should also consider the following factors for TRV applications from those with sponsorship applications in process:

• whether the sponsorship application has been approved;
• whether the application for permanent residence has received stage one approval (a determination that an applicant’s relationship with a Canadian is genuine and was not entered into for immigration purposes);
• to what extent the applicant has retained ties in their home country; and
• what the applicant’s plan is should their application for permanent residence be refused.

The first factor is obviously somewhat meaningless as if the sponsorship application is approved the foreign national does not need a TRV.  However, it is imperative that applicants satisfactorily address the remaining three factors in addition to the general TRV factors outlined above.  Applicants in their TRV application should provide extensive evidence that their relationship is genuine, and perhaps also provide any new evidence to strengthen their existing permanent residence applications.  Indeed, it is not uncommon for such an approach to lead to a faster approval of the permanent residence application.  Applicants should also explicitly affirm through a letter what they would do if their permanent residence application is refused.

A final thought

While the TRV approval rate for applicants who wish to visit their spouses is under 50%, the approval rate for spousal sponsorship applications typically exceeds 90%.  This suggests that many refusals are perhaps unnecessary delaying family reunification that will eventually happen.  As such, while the onus understandably is on applicants to satisfy IRCC that they meet program requirements, officers should, in my opinion, consider the likelihood that a visitor visa applicant’s sponsorship application will be approved, and if it will, whether it makes sense to delay that family’s ability to reunite.

The post Visiting a spouse in Canada: How to best present your application first appeared on Canadian Immigrant.
http://canadianimmigrant.ca/feed