Can i move to Vancouver and work in Washington?

LLary: Im a US citizen..planning on moving to Langley BC next fall.. I'll be residing with my Canadian citizen girlfriend. From what we have gathered so far, it will take up to 10 months to secure a legal Canadian visa for me to live and work in Canada. This is a problem for financial reasons. Is it possible for a US citizen to live in Canada and commute across the border to work in the states? Is it possible to cross back and forth every day for work with just a Canada visitor visa at all? In either direction? Would I need more than a Canada visitor visa to work in the states across the border? Even just until the proper residency visa processing is over in 10 months? I'll actually be visiting Seattle and Vancouver in May (about 5 months before I move there), Is it possible for me to apply for residency in Vancouver while im on that visit? I ask this because I realize some countries only accept applications from a consulate in the foreign nationals home country. The Canadian consulate visa office in Seattle reports a 10 month processing time. I was wondering if applying for a visa in Vancouver would speed up the process. So basically my main question is..during the lengthy and costly residency visa process, can I stay at my girlfriends home in Langley BC with a visitor visa and commute across the border to work in Washington? Oh, one other thing..should we be hopeful at all about me obtaining a conjugal partner visa? Ive heard its very difficult if not impossible. If I stayed with my girlfriend in Langley for a period of time (with only a visitor visa), would that further help me to get a conjugal or common law partner visa? Thanks for any help regarding this :)

Looks like you need to do quite a bit of homework. Hard to say where you should start and what you should focus on. You might start by doing some reading about visiting Canada in general, and about family class sponsorship, sponsored by a partner, more in particular, all of which can be accessed by following links from the CIC home page (this is a link).

A few things loom large right off the top:

-- U.S. citizens are not ordinarily given visitor's visa. U.S. citizens are visa-exempt. They can, and usually do visit Canada just by showing up at a POE (border or at the airport upon landing) and showing their passport, answering a few questions (where do you live, how long you will be in Canada, what's the purpose of your visit, among others), and then being allowed to enter Canada.

-- Americans cannot just move to Canada. Some do. Not so many as in the past. In a sense I once did (to establish a secondary residence) but that was, essentially, in another life time relative to how the border is controlled these days.

-- A couple consisting of a Canadian citizen and an American citizen will not qualify for the conjugal partner class of sponsorship. You can totally forget that avenue for a sponsored PR application. You will have to qualify as either a married couple or as a common-law couple. To meet the common-law criteria, you must establish a mutual household and actually, physically be cohabitating a full year before the sponsored PR application is made.

Regarding the conjugal partner class: I do not have time to explain why this does not, will not, cannot apply to an American/Canadian couple, but there is NO doubt about this. Not going to fly. Period. No chance.

An American/Canadian couple who is legally married, or who qualify for common-law (those who have lived together, who have established a household together, for a full year), should have a relatively easy time sailing through the sponsored partner family class PR application process. For couples without issues or problems, with easy cases, it should go faster than the reported timeline by CIC. (The reported timeline is for 80 percent of cases, whereas what most well-qualified applicants are really dealing with is how long it takes for 50 percent or so of the applications to go through the process -- this information can be obtained at the Canadian government's opendata site).


Back to the point that U.S. citizens are not ordinarily given a visitor's visa (I had one once, but it's a long story). U.S. citizens are visa-exempt. They are sometimes given a Visitor's Record at a POE upon seeking entry, which is not a visa but is what its name suggests, the Foreign National's (like all other non-Canadians, U.S. citizens are "Foreign Nationals" (FNs) when it comes to Canada) copy of a record of entry into Canada as a visitor. Upon entering Canada a U.S. citizen is presumably allowed to stay in Canada for up to six months, but anyone announcing an intent to stay for any length of time, particularly if that is to stay with a person with whom they have a close relationship, is at risk for questions and restrictions, such as being given a must leave by date allowing a stay for much less than six months. Or, even, denied entry if the border officers apprehend that the FN's intent is to live in Canada or to work in Canada or to stay longer than allowed. In other words: crossing the border for an ordinary visit is incredibly easy, tens of millions of Americans do it every year, but as soon as border officers are aware that it is not a routine [v]visit the dynamics change.

Absolutely be honest in all your statements to Canadian border officers. The downsides for being deemed to have made a material misrepresentation are not worth any advantage fudging it might gain you in the short term.

If you are in a qualified relationship (established common-law, or married) and the sponsoring Canadian accompanies the American, and the Canadian affirms every intention of going through with the sponsorship application process, Americans are frequently given a Visitor's Record that allows them to stay in Canada for even longer than six months. Technically this is in recognition of what is called dual intent, meaning an intent to come to Canada to live, if and when authorized by immigration, while in the meantime intending to only stay in Canada temporarily pending the outcome of the PR application, with every intention to leave if your time runs out.

Technically the Visitor's Record terminates as soon as the American next leaves Canada. But, for an American with a job in the U.S., this would probably (no guarantee) mean that the American could indeed essentially commute between Canada and the U.S. job for an indefinite period of time while the sponsored PR application is pending.

Problem with this is that the qualified relationship must already exist.

An American can apply for a Nexus card which will facilitate easier, frequent crossings. You may want to research that a bit. (You have time.) If you obtain a job within commuting distance of your girlfriend's place in Canada, and you obtain a Nexus card (you absolutely need a U.S. address to do this), once you have that, you pretty well come and go as you please across the border, usually with no questions asked, or if asked very routine questions.

There are many angles and nuances to this. Many ways to approach things. Do some homework and get yourself more familiar with the more technical side of things, using the CIC website, and then come back and ask more questions. Probably better to pose your questions in the conference for "Family Class Sponsorship" (which is where you are probably headed, process wise). There are other options: a NAFTA qualifying job in Canada, for example, would get you into Canada to live and work temporarily, and then you go from there.