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How I started applying for Canadian immigration. I decided to apply for Canadian Permanent Residence primarily because my partner was a Canadian Permanent Resident. I am an American and, before he thought of immigrating to Canada, both of us always assumed he would eventually become an American, too. However, the terms of his visa required that he remain outside of the US for three years before he could apply for any US work or resident visa, and for us separation that long was unthinkable. We had already gone through a one year separation because his initial student visa expired and didn't want to undergo that ordeal again. For some reason, we never considered his applying to Canada until one fateful vacation we took together to Canada where we both fell in love with the country. I constantly remarked how it looked like the kind of place I would love living in. I didn't realize I eventually would live in Canada. He applied as an independent applicant for permanent residence through the services of a Montreal law firm he visited in person after learning about them on the Web. This is a law firm that has a regular presence on the Canada Immigration newsgroup and has a very informative web site that I referred to often in my own immigration process. About a year later he coincidentally received a job offer in Canada, so off we went to Canada--him to work and me, technically, as a visitor. Shortly thereafter he received his landing papers and became a Canadian Permanent Resident. Now that he was a Canadian PR we could stay together... or could we? My own citizenship now became the issue. As an American I was free to travel to Canada, but only as a visitor. That meant I could only legally visit Canada for six months at a time and I couldn't work or attend school in Canada. Now we had to find a way that I could stay in Canada. Fortunately, I loved Canada and welcomed the chance to be able to call Canada my home, too. The only choice of immigration that would allow us to settle down together was an Independent Application for Permanent Residence... but would I qualify? I was very well educated, I had two years work experience in my declared occupation, a lot of general work experience throughout high school and college, but I was unemployed. But first things first... Time to learn. Here are the very first things I did soon after I decided I wanted to apply for immigration to Canada: Search the Internet Since I was in North America I had to apply through the Buffalo Consulate. That's what my application kit said when I applied. I was worried about applying since I was in Canada, but I figured out that the term applying from within Canada meant those who are physically in Canada and submit their application to an office inside Canada. I was in Canada, but I would be applying through Buffalo, so I was fine. In addition, as an American, I would have no problem attending an interview in the US. (The instructions say that applicants should only submit applications to countries they can legally enter to take the interview. That is, if you can't enter the US legally, don't apply to Buffalo since you won't be able to attend the interview.) Sometime after I received my application I learned about LEGIT so I contacted them. Contact LEGIT for information: I
requested my first immigration application kit in mid-1996. I was so
full of self-doubt that all I did was read through the application and
instructions and take the self-assessment test. It was very
discouraging as I knew I wouldn't have enough points. Everything about
immigration was so new and unfamiliar, but I kept trying to learn more
about it. Before I heard about H&C grounds, I read about gettinga
minister's permit. For us American's, ministers are church ministers,
not government heads, so I looked into getting ordained thinking if I
was an ordained minister I could get into Canada. The following summer I came across a mention of LEGIT and what they were doing, so I contacted them and got LEGIT's Guidelines booklet: Canadian Immigration for Same-Sex Partners--How to Prepare an Application on Humanitarian & Compassionate Grounds. After I got it, I faxed Buffalo for a new application kit and got started.
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