Need to live in the States for undetermined amount of time

Mods: sorry if this is in duplication of the thread entitled "maximum time allowed per year for Canadians visiting USA" but it did not address this particular question. And I could not find anything that closely matched this situation.

My aunt has been in the States now for two months providing care to her daughter (mid 40's) who has brain cancer. She is hoping to not "HAVE" to ditch her adult child and go back to Canada mid treatment.

She does have to go back to her permanent home in Ontario for a couple of weeks to take care of her own personal doctor's visits, appointments, mental holiday, etc and was planning on having her husband go to take care of their daughter while she was in Ontario to provide the consistent family care but only for a couple weeks as he doesn't fully understand the complexity of the situation. Their daughter has lived in the States now and is a citizen for 20+ years and owns her own property.

My guess is that the US immigration department has some sort of compassionate form providing unlimited time to provide assistance to family bypassing the six month habitation deal. If this is the case I would love to get the links to these forms, websites providing this information. As anyone can imagine this is a very stressful situation to the family. And for sure this has happened before.

I-539. You can extend your visitor status for six months.

Butr this implies that you are not leaving US at all.

Much simpler to just come back to canada and return.

So basically it is true then that all you have to do is be in the States for weeks or months to a maximum of six, then leave back to Canada for a period of time and then go back to the States for a maximum of six. Is this in perpetuity?

This would actually work well in my aunt's case because I'm sure she has stuff to do at home for a few days every few months -- even if it's just for a mental holiday.

thanks so much for the info.

This will not work "in perpetuiyty".

Eachj entry into US requires that you demonstrate clear and unbroken residential ties in a foreign country. This will prove more and more difficult the longer you spend out of canada.

Moreover, the longer you do spend in US, the more likely it is that you will not be able to avoid coming under US laws in temrs of taxation, driving, insurance, etc.