Outland vs Inland / Canadian wife & Me american citizen

victorlm777

New Member
Dear Community/Forum Leader

I have a couple of questions in regards to our situation and I hope you can point me in the right direction. I have been with my canadian wife for 4 years. We got married two years ago and have one daughter together and have plans for a second child. I currently reside in Seattle and up until the pandemic was traveling back to Vancouver every week to visit my family. Pandemic hit and now border is closed, etc. Although I can reunite with her via provisions given by the gov't (immediate family member of canadian), we want to start the process of spousal sponsorship. I have the following questions.

1 Upon resuming business by IRCC, will Outland (US office) applications be faster or would inland + OWP be faster?
I keep on reading around the web (reddit, other forums) experiences of CAN/US couples in similar situations that the US office is the biggest and fastest outside of Canada. Almost all of the cases I have read about seem to have their cases completed in the 4/6 month mark. Is this a reasonable expectation?

2 Are outland applications electronic vs inland all paper? Can inland be done electronically?
I have researched that paper applications aren't being processed atm, whereas electronic applications continue to be processed during pandemic.

3 Given I have had a criminal charge (charges dismissed) back in US, will it be better to submit outland vs inland? Will this make a difference in case they request more information about the case and it's outcome.
I too have researched and it seems that I qualify for deemed rehabilitation given the pettiness of the crime committed, it's equivalency to canadian law, plus the length of time (13 years ago since charge) and the fact that it has never been a problem in the 10+ years that I have been crossing into Canada. I understand that a PR application is different, but my previous record was not even a problem when I applied for a TPW (successfully approved) and disclosed my record to the officer when I arrived in Canada back in 2015.

4 If my record was to be create a delay for my case, would that delay move faster via inland vs outland?
My ultimate goal is to be in Canada with my family but being able to work too. With the research I have done in forums, it seems that americans get their CoPR around 4/6 which is the same time people tend to get their OWP.

My consultant continues to nudge me in the direction of inland application but he is honest with me and says that he does not have much experience with american cases. He is almost exclusive with vietnamese, south east asian applicants.

Any and all information will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
 

Riley Haas

Administrator
Staff member
Location
Toronto
I will try to answer these questions as best as I possibly can.

  1. I honestly don't know. If you've read this online it's probably pretty accurate. Crowd-sourced information on forums is likely more accurate than the "average" times provided by the government. The latter have been pretty inaccurate since 2015.
  2. All on paper but I can see this changing in the future, as a result of the pandemic. (Also, IRCC has been moving more and more applications online in the last half decade or so. But these are some of the most complicated so they are harder to transition.)
  3. You weren't convicted? You are probably fine. You should disclose it just to be safe.
  4. Honestly don't know that a dropped charge would delay your application. Does your consultant think it would?
 
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