Canadian marrying US/living in US and working in Canada

[harlick123]

Hello,

Sorry if this question has already been asked, but there's seriously hundreds of threads on here and I don't have time to go through them all right now, but if anyone could help me out or give me some insight that would be wonderful!

So here's my story...I am a Canadian citizen and I'm with a US citizen. I live in Ontario and my boyfriend lives in Michigan. We;d like to get married, but honestly I have absolutely no idea where to even get started with all of this immigration stuff. I have two main questions...the first is: what is the process like for US/Canadian citizens who get married? And the second is would I be able to live in the US (Detroit area) but commute to work in Canada (Windsor) on a daily basis?

Also, I've heard stories about US/Canadian citizens who get married and then get stuck in whatever country they get married in (ie they get married in Canada, they are unable to visit the US and vice versa). Ideally, we would like to get married in Canada and then reside in the US.

Like I said, any kind of insight would be a huge help and much appreciated. It seems everything I read online says something different. It's all very confusing.

 

[Jackolantern]

If you get married in Canada, you can expect trouble visiting the US because marriage to a US citizen who lives in the US is evidence of immigrant intent, and under the visa waiver program or visitor's visa you are not supposed to have immigrant intent.

If you get married in the US, there is nothing stopping you from going back to Canada because you are a Canadian citizen. However, your spouse may have trouble visiting Canada, because he would then be married to a Canadian citizen who lives in Canada, so the Canadian agents won't believe that he will return to the US with his wife being in Canada (however you may want to investigate this, as I am not very familiar with how Canadian immigration agents behave and the laws that control them).

So ... what to do? You could get married in either country, then you would return to Canada and apply for a K-3 visa as his wife, or directly apply for a green card by filing an I-130. Or you could use the fiancee visa (K-1), and use it to enter the US and get married and pursue the green card. Once you enter the US you can get advance parole which would allow you to travel back and forth to Canada, although it may not be feasible for you to use advance parole on a daily basis because it is not meant to be used frequently. So if you plan to keep going back and forth to Canada you'll probably need to apply for the green card directly.

But those visas (or the green card) take about 6-12 months to process, and during that waiting time you'll likely have trouble visiting the US because once having filed for either of those visas you have shown immigrant intent.

As far as continuing to work in Canada while living in the US is concerned, I'm not so sure. If you were working in the US and living in Canada you could get a commuter green card, but your situation is the reverse.

I would advise you to find somebody who has been through the same process in similar circumstances as you, or seek a consultation with an immigration lawyer. You don't need to have them process the application end-to-end which would cost thousands; just get a one-time consultation for a couple hundred dollars to answer your questions and plan a strategy for applying. It is very important to do everything right in a situation like this, because any step that is done with bad timing (e.g. marrying too soon or too late relative to other specific steps in the process) or one simple mistake could result in long periods of separation of being stuck in one country or the other.

 

[Jackolantern]

To summarize, here is a high level overview of the options (there are other details associated with each step, so don't take this is a complete detailed list, these are only the major milestones).

1) Apply for and obtain a K-1 visa -> marry in the US -> file I-130, I-485, I-765, I-131, I-864 -> interview for the green card -> get the green card.
or
2) Get married in any country -> apply for and obtain a K-3 visa -> enter the US -> file I-130, I-485, I-765, I-131, I-864 -> interview for the green card -> get the green card.
or
3) File I-130, I-864 while you are in Canada -> interview for green card in Canada -> enter the US in green card status -> get the physical green card.

 

[Triple Citizen]

You can live in Detroit and commute daily to Windsor.
For a green card, you can either go the spousal route or the K-1 route.

I have two main questions...the first is: what is the process like for US/Canadian citizens who get married? And the second is would I be able to live in the US (Detroit area) but commute to work in Canada (Windsor) on a daily basis?

 

[harlick123]

Wow, looks like I have a few different options here. Thanks for the input. How hard is it to get a visa? Do they have a lot of specific requirements? I feel like they deny people pretty easily and it's going to be a very complicated process.

 

[Zadex]

I'd advise you to get a good immigration lawyer since your situation is complicated. It'll probably cost $2000 for the lawyer fee alone not including the filing fee but it may be well worth it, if it works out. You don't want to mess up somehow if you do it on your own because then you're screwed.