How can a US citizen get a year-long visa in Canada?
It is not necessary to have a visa to visit Canada from the United States. They will issue you a document at the border good for up to six months if you say you’re staying that long; you can indefinitely renew this document by mail for a $75 fee. The renewal can be for a long time – more than a year, if you say you’re staying that long (and you should). So she can stay as long as she likes, with occasional payment of a $75 fee. You don’t have to cross the border repeatedly. However, she should not engage in work for pay while in a visitor status. She can apply for permanent residency from either inside Canada or outside Canada. Both processes take a long time and are a pain in the wazoo. Since she’s planning to be in Canada, she should use the inside Canada application process. This will take just about a year to get permanent residency, and I don’t know how they handle applying prior to actual marriage, but you shoul
A TN visa is dead easy to get (if she has a university degree and is qualified for a profession on the TN list). She needs a job offer first. She can apply at the port-of-entry with a passport, job offer, university transcript, and resume, and enter Canada with a visa the same day. I don’t think the HRDC thing is required for TN, as a similar labo[u]r certification process is certainly not applicable when applying for TN visa to work in the US. My experience with a TN visa is as a Canadian working in the US. Because it is NAFTA, I assume the procedure going northbound is the same as the procedure going southbound, but of course you should investigate more thoroughly. Keep in mind that a TN is a temporary visa, and is not intended for those seeking permanent residence. Thus, she must exit the country before getting the wife visa status (whatever that is). And when applying for the visa, she should state that she intends to stay in the country for the duration of the job and will leave C
I did exactly what you did two years ago. The Canadian gov’t was nothing but gracious and welcoming. If only the US was as kind to its immigrants. The only negative point is the waiting time–they say a year but the backlog at CIC it is much, much longer. I even managed to cross the border on a visitor’s visa, with a car full of boxes, and not being married yet. I did it at 3am on a week night near the border at Detroit. I also had a scare crossing back into the US for a vacation and then trying to come back into Canada, claiming to be a visitor, but actually living in Canada. But they did let me back in after a 3 hour interrogation. (Just FYI: It helps if you have a girl with you who can break down crying to make them feel bad, and don’t let them find a Canadian bank card on you which makes it appear like you live there). Once in the country I applied for residency with a spouse sponsoring me. Just by applying for this you are automatically granted permission to be in Canada. (Isn’t C
My husband is Canadian, I’m American and I’ve gone through this myself. The first immigration official we spoke to said that there would be no problem for me to move to Canada and live with my boyfriend, all I had to do is fill out a form. I quit my job, rented a moving van, etc. I went to the border to fill out this “form” previously mentioned and got told that in no uncertain terms it is not that easy. Long story short, we were told unofficially that it would be much easier if we got married and that’s what we did less than a week later. I moved to Canada a week after our wedding (married in Canada by a wedding commissioner) without a problem. However, I was instructed to apply for Landed Immigration (similar to a Green Card) within a month, which I did. Once I applied to become a Landed Immigrant it wasn’t a problem to get a work permit (they have to be renewed every so often) and health insurance. It took a total of 38 months (and several thousand dollars) for my Landed Immigration
