Maria got refugee protection in Canada because she was in an extra-marital relationship with a woman and her country of birth did not look kindly on this. She then filed for permanent residence and included her husband, Ramon, and their children as her dependants. This ought to have been a typical application, butImmigration Canada refused Ramon’s PR application because they did not believe that Ramon and Maria had a genuine marriage. They cited Maria’s previous relationship with a woman as the cause.
When Maria reached out to Legally Canadian for help, we were shocked with the reason she was given for the refusal. We took the case and intended to go all the way to the Federal Court to fight this refusal, but just as we were about to go before the judge, the lawyer for Immigration Canada offered to settle – that is, drop the refusal and have Ramon’s PR application sent for a re-assessment.
Maria wanted to settle since it meant moving the application forward faster. They considered the matter done, and decided to proceed on their own.
Alas, within a few months, Ramon’s application was once again refused, and again for the same reason.
We were happy to help, and this time we went to Federal Court.
So what happened?
The judge accepted our claim and found a number of mistakes made by Immigration Canada in assessing and refusing Ramon’s application.
The application was sent once again for review, but this time, with explicit instructions from the judge on how to assess it.
Let’s call a partial win, since we’re not out of the woods yet.