Immigration

HEllo to whomever can help me.

My partner and I met 2 years ago in Australia, he is British and I, Canadian.
We left Oz in November 07 and spent 3 months in NZ. Just a few months later I joined him in the UK. I decided to leave the UK and move back to Canada after being away for so long.

My British partner has now come to visit me and he has been here for the past 2 months. We want to be together and it seems the only way to do so is to get married. I am looking constantly on the Internet for information but all sources contradict themselves.

So here are my questions:

1) If we get married in Vegas, is the marriage visa valid for immigration?
2) Is it quicker if we submit our request to the Canadian consulate in the States?
3) Is it faster if we get married and then he returns t UK for sponsorship?

Am looking forward to some help.

Thanks

Why would you submitt a request for Canadian immigration for a UK citizen to the consulate in the States? That makes no sense at all, unless he was American.

If you get married in Vegas, or Vancouver, or Tuktoyaktuk, you can sponsor him as your spouse. You can do that with either an in-land application, or an out-land application, the former takes about twice as long. In either application however, he can remain in Canada if he gets an extended visitor whatchamacallit. But he may not be able to work for quite a while, so if you can afford to support him during the wait, have him stay.

For marriage based immigration info to Canada, check out the forums at http://roadtocanada.com and the forms are free to download from the Canadian immigration website http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/ ... /index.asp

So if we do get married in Vegas will this marriage certificate still be valid in Canada for immmigration purposes? Or is it better to get married at city hall. We don't have the funds at the mment for a wedding.
If we apply out of country how long is the wait? Does he have to stay in the Uk whilst he waits for PR?

Thanks

It's obviously better to get married in Canada as you don't have to deal with immigration again. If you show up married at the POE with no evidence he can stay in the country legally that could well cause a problem as he clearly does not have "non immigrant intent".

The thing to do is to go to the CIC website: http://www.cic.gc.ca/English/immigrate/ ... ly-who.asp

You can sponsor him from inside of Canada, but it's always the "did he lie when he entered about his intent" scenario, but I don't think it's such a big deal in Canada.

You need to do it reasonably quickly though, don't wait until the last day of his six month visitor status.

Takes several months for approval either way you do it. I think it's a better idea to do AOS from within Canada than going back to the UK, I don't think there is a significant time saving doing it from the UK because the Canadian High Commission in London has lots of supplemental forms not mentioned on the CIC website that you also have to do which can slow things down. It will also be more expensive to do it from the UK because of the health check which has to be done by a shortlist of approved private hospitals (although I suppose he could get then done now while he's here).

The CIC is supposedly hiring more staff to do family-based applications, but how long exactly it will take is subjective.

Again, go have a look at the forums and information at Road To Canada they can explain it far better than either Steven or I can, and there are even couples there who are Can/UK and have finished or are currently in the process.

You can get married whereever you want to, CIC doesn't care as long as it is a legal marriage. If its legal in Vegas (or etc), its legal in Canada.

You can apply to sponsor him, and he can apply for LPR while he stays in Canada, he will however need to get an extension to be allowed to stay and apply for a work permit. He can either apply for LPR "in-land" which will take approximately 18 months to 2 years (in which time he is not eligible for health benefits, and may not be able to work at all), or he can apply "out-land", which will take approximately 6 months to complete, but he may have to return to the UK for an interview, and again, he may not be able to work while he waits for approval.