What If My Spousal Sponsorship Is Refused?

It is important to note that simply being a permanent residence of Canada or Canadian citizen does not make you eligible to sponsor your family member. You must fulfill the minimum requirements to become a sponsor. You should be an adult residing or intending to reside in Canada post completion of the sponsorship process.

If you are sponsoring anyone other than your spouse/partner or dependent children, you also have to meet minimum income requirements for the three taxation years preceding the sponsorship application.

Other eligibility requirements include that the sponsor should not have defaulted on repayment of loans, bonds, or family support payments. The sponsor must also have a clean criminal record, should not have failed to provide for basic needs of a sponsored family member in the past, and should not be receiving social assistance.

If the person you are sponsoring does not have proof or contact of family ties living in their country of origin, this will make it much more difficult for them to be eligible to sponsor. The Canadian government then sees this as a red flag.

Ineligible to Be Sponsored

The family member being sponsored must fulfill the basic eligibility requirements applicable to all permanent residence applicants. This is to ensure ineligible individuals don’t bypass mandatory requirements and obtain permanent residence in Canada through family sponsorship.

Only certain types of relatives are eligible for Canadian family sponsorship. One of the most frequent questions asked is “Can I sponsor my fiance(e)?” The simple answer is no. Engagement is not sufficient to be eligible for family sponsorship. However, you may meet the definition of common-law or conjugal partner with your fiance(e). If you don’t, you’ll have to wait to apply for sponsorship until after you are officially married.

One who is a security risk, guilty of human right violations, does not have a clean criminal record, or has significant health problems might not be eligible to be sponsored by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. This restriction applies even to individuals who are otherwise eligible to sponsor except for the fact that their family member(s) don’t fulfill the eligibility requirements for sponsorship.

Permanent Resident Living Outside Canada

Sponsorship is not permitted when the sponsor is residing outside Canada. While Canadian citizens can initiate the sponsorship process even when residing outside Canada, a permanent resident’s application for sponsorship will be denied for this reason. The sponsorship application by the citizen will be allowed only if he/she proves intent to reside in Canada one the sponsored family member receives permanent residence.

Undeclared Family Members

An individual applying for permanent residence is required to declare all his or her family members in the permanent residence application. This includes family members that the applicant does not intend to sponsor. Failure to declare the family member will render him or her ineligible for permanent residence through sponsorship if the applicant wants to sponsor them in the future. Along with denial of the sponsorship application, this omission can impact the sponsor’s status as a permanent resident as well.

Wrong Information in the Application Form

All parties involved in the sponsorship application—sponsor as well as sponsored family members—are required by law to provide accurate information in the application. Any misrepresentation, accidental or deliberate, shall result in the application being denied.

Since the process requires comprehensive submissions related to personal details, nature of relationship, financial condition, health and medical tests, character certificate and other details, you must take due care to ensure the information submitted to the immigration authorities is true, accurate, and backed by necessary documentary evidence to minimize risk of denial of the application.

Marriage of Convenience

While permanent residents and citizens are permitted to sponsor their foreign spouse or partner, such an application will be carefully vetted to prevent instances of marriage fraud. The application form requires detailed information about the sponsor’s relationship with his or her spouse or partner including details of commencement of the relationship, description of the solemnization of marriage and other aspects designed to assess the true nature of the relationship.

Couple Continues to Be Refused for 4 Years in a Row

Knope, 25, is from Toronto; Tuyisenge, 31, is from Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. The pair met in 2015 while Knope was travelling in East Africa during a semester off from university. And within the span of just a few weeks they knew they were falling in love.

Knope was in university at the time and each time she’d get a break, she would fly to Rwanda — sometimes for months at a time. The flight alone averages $1,300.

But when it came to Tuyisenge coming to Canada, that wasn’t an option, the couple learned. The first time they tried to apply for a visa around Christmas 2016, they were denied.

One of the main reasons for this being Tuyisenge’s lack of family ties in his home country.

The next Christmas, the pair tried for a visa again. By then they were engaged to be married. But once again Tuyisenge was denied.

The following spring, Knope returned to Rwanda — this time with her family in tow. She and Tuyisenge were married there on May 18, 2018. Surely now he could move to Canada so that they could build a life together.

Then came the devastating news: Tuyisenge was denied a third time although they were married this time. “That was really heartbreaking,” he said, recalling the experience. “I’m not allowed to travel because I don’t have my family members…. It was like being an orphan became another problem.”

In January 2019, the pair decided to try again, this time applying for Tuyisenge to become a permanent resident.

It took weeks to get their documentation ready, collecting personal emails and taking screenshots of their Facetime conversations, all to make the case to the Canadian government to allow Tuyisenge to join his wife Knope. This only resulted in lost paperwork, meaning they had to restart the process all over again.

In November, the news they had been waiting for: Tuyisenge had finally been accepted to come to Canada.

On Dec. 21, just days before Christmas, Tuyisenge arrived at Toronto’s Pearson airport after a 21-hour trip, exhausted and nervous — but more than anything, elated.