Did you know you could be found inadmissible to Canada for Permanent Residence if your spouse is found to be inadmissible? Bet not many people are aware of that, and this is why there are so many refusals when one spouse who fully meets all of the immigration requirements to become a landed immigrant in Canada suddenly is shocked when they receive a refusal of their application.
This is exactly what happen to Janice. Janice worked extremely hard to immigrate to Canada. She applied to immigrate to Canada under one of the provincial programs, was approved, received her nomination and then proceeded to apply for permanent residence to the federal government. While her application was in process, Janice met Chandler. They fell in love, started living together, and then married. Janice submitted an update to Immigration Canada asking to add Chandler to her application for permanent residence.
The problem was that Chandler was a failed refugee claimant in Canada (meaning that his request for refugee protection was denied). This also meant that he was already inadmissible to Canada. Luckily for both of them, they came to LegallyCanadian for our free 15 min consultation.
At the consultation it became clear than unless something is done, both Janice and Chandler will receive a refusal for their permanent residence application, and both will be found inadmissible to Canada. We discussed various options available to the couple to overcome their inadmissibility.
In this particular case, Janice and Chandler decided to proceed with a request for an exemption on humanitarian grounds (H&C). We helped them to put together a comprehensive and compelling package, asking the officer to use their discretion and to allow both of them to immigrate. There was never a guarantee that the H&C request on its own will do the trick. However, working diligently with Janice and Chandler, outlining the humanitarian considerations of their application helped to achieve the needed result.
So what happened?
Chandler and Janice received their H&C exemption from inadmissibility and are now permanent residents of Canada.