I am a dual citizen, U.S. and Canada, though I was born in the U.S. and have never resided in Canada. I have a Canadian citizenship card and an expired Canadian passport as well as a current U.S. passport.
My partner Mr. Mallard is a British citizen whose U.S. work visa will expire in a year or so. It does not look like he can renew it. So, we must move. We are not entertaining the idea of illegally overstaying the visa or a fraudulent marriage for obvious reasons.
We are domestic partners in California. We did not marry during the window of opportunity here on the advice of our U.S. attorney, who felt it might adversely affect us at the national level, but we’re not averse to doing so in either another state or Canada if it would help us.
My questions:
Where can we both live together? I know the U.K. and Canada will allow gay immigration; I’m less clear on the complex rules of the E.U. member states and other Commonwealth nations. (I think, for example, either of us could go to any commonwealth state for two years on our own merits, but I don’t know how it works.)
How long, on average, does it take to get a permanent partner immigrated to Canada or the U.K.? Are there restrictions on employment for the partner so imported? I looked into this a while ago and I remember that there are for the U.K. but that doesn’t seem right now that I think about it.
I’m not looking for legal advice so much as pointers to clear reference sites (I got lost very quickly) and any relevant experiential anecdotes.
About the EU, once you’ve been cleared for the UK you’re automatically cleared for the rest. Mr. Mallard is cleared for every EU country, same as you’re cleared for every US State and Canadian province; that means you could pick any country in the EU and you’d be the only one who needs to do any paperwork. He’d only have to get a “local” Social Security number when he got his first job, but that’s normally done by the employer and the procedure is the same as for a anybody else’s first job.
Is there any kind of official-looking certificate of this “domestic partnership” situation? If you were trying to move to Spain, being able to produce a government-stamped paper documenting that you two are a “kit” would make things easier, you’d be treated as Mr. Mallard’s de facto spouse and would get a work permit automatically (depending on your field of work you’d need to get certified, for example in the medical field, accounting, law and teaching); you’d be able to get permanent residency or nationality in the shorter period available to spouses of nationals. Spain has both same-sex marriage and registered domestic partnerships.
All I can tell you is that Canada recognizes gay marriages (and as far as I know, if you’re a citizen, your spouse gets the fast track to living here legally). I’m sure there will be other Canadian Dopers along shortly to tell you more about it.
Under the law, it looks like Mr. Mallard would be considered your “Common law partner”, and you would be able to sponsor his entry into Canada, assuming you’ve been living in a conjugal relationship for at least a year, and that you have a joint household.
The same is also more or less true in Quebec, which has a separate immigration system, in which case, Mr. Mallard would be considered either your de facto spouse or your conjugal partner.
Thanks, all, this is really helpful. I wasn’t aware that Quebec did their immigration separately; Montreal is a realistic possibility given Mr. Mallard’s career. We’ll probably start the paperwork from the Consulate here in L.A.
Nava, your post is encouraging. I’ve been hearing conflicting information on the subject, especially regarding Italy.* And I gather freedom of movement is largely dependent on getting a job in the destination country first, unlike between the U.S. states? We do have a certificate of domestic partnership, duly signed by the 16-year-old FedEx employee who notarized it and thus “married” us.
I think what we’re going to have to do is apply to sponsor each other in Canada / the U.K., and then just see which country we can find a job or jobs in, since the visa process is about four times as long as the hiring process. Wow, this is difficult. Here’s hoping the economy improves before next summer.
*We have to stick to English- or Romance-speaking countries, I think, and regions of those countries where being gay isn’t a dealbreaker, but within that we’re flexible.
Once you are a legal resident of a EU country with an unlimited work permit, you’re pretty much a legal resident of the EU with an unlimited work permit (some countries have limited work permits, some only have unlimited ones). How you get to the “once” is where you’ve got the problem: some countries will accept a “domestic partnership” as a spousal relationship, some won’t; some will accept same-sex spousal relationships, some won’t… but this is a problem only for getting to the “once.”
IANAL but I understand that once you’re a permanent resident of the UK or Spain or France (to pick 3 out of a hat), Italian immigration wouldn’t have much of a choice about letting you in. This has come to bear in the case of sportsmen for example (mainly soccer players), often people can immigrate (but not always as an automatic national) from outside the EU to the country of their ancestors more easily than to the rest of the EU and since some sports limit the amount of “foreign” players fielded, there’s been a lot of noise about whether a Turk national who is a permanent resident of Germany counts as “national” or “foreign” when playing in Spain.
Getting a job offer is helpful (and depending on your immigration path, necessary) for getting to “once.”
Ah. That actually clarifies things a lot, and I see the piece I was missing. Mr. Mallard’s country of residence is what matters for getting to “once.” Since he’s British, we have one hurdle fewer than if he had been Italian.
If Canada winds up being a top choice the transition can be very smooth. You come to Canada as a resident. Mr. Mallard obtains a travel visa, or visitor’s visa for 1 year. (Tourist visa?)
Once in Canada you can set up residence together and marry at your leisure, within the 1 year time frame. In order to seal the deal for Mr. Mallard, you then leave Canada as a couple - typically to the US for 72 hours - when you return Mr. Mallard is cleared and is now eligible to live/work/play in Canada for ever, assuming you stay married for at least 3 years, or if it’s less than 3 years he can prove you beat on him or something.
At least that’s how it worked for my brother and SIL when they married 10 years ago - she was a citizen of Japan in Canada on a tourist visa. Assuming Mr. Mallard has no felony convictions he should be able to obtain a visitors visa without issue. (Well, true except for the beating on part).
Mr. Mallard should apply for his tourist visa now, before you’ve made any travel plans or wedding plans or whatever. He should maintain some sort of tie to CA, even if it means keeping an empty apartment for a couple of months - this will make things smoother. (i.e. if he can show that he’ll likely go home the gov’t will let him in on the tourist visa. Once you’re married, the point is moot.)
Actually, the problem there is that Italy doesn’t recognize same-sex partnerships (I don’t know whether they have “domestic partnerships”, probably not).
You could immigrate to Spain (which recognizes both) on grounds of Mr. Mallard saying “I’m a EU citizen moving to Spain and Dr. Drake here is my fiancé, please let us in.” And, since Canada recognizes the equivalent of Spanish civil marriages, you’d also be able to marry if you wished.
No, that’s not correct. I say this as someone who until recently was a legal resident of an EU country with an unlimited work permit - it gave me no rights whatsoever to go and live/work in another EU country. (I now have citizenship of that country, so I do have those rights now.) These are still matters for the member states and not for the EU.
If Dr Drake and his partner want to immigrate to Britain they also won’t be able to exercise EU freedom of movement rights since those only apply outside the EU national’s member state of origin. But that shouldn’t be a problem since Britain recognises same-sex unions.
If you mean for the EU national, that’s not correct either - he has the right to enter and stay for a few months looking for a job. Eventually, however, he’ll have to either find one, or become somehow self-supporting, or leave.
See, this is where it gets confusing. I suppose the thing to do if we really want to go straight from the U.S. to elsewhere in the E.U. is to hire a European immigration attorney, but I think we’ll stick with Britain and Canada for now. Or I can try to get a job in Italy on my own merits (difficult but not impossible) and Mr. Mallard can arrive separately. I seem to have been totally wrong about freedom of movement within the Commonwealth.
Look for a thread about the move next summer, either in IMHO or the Pit depending on how I feel about U.S. federal policy on gays.
Yes, the Commonwealth isn’t like the EU - status as a Canadian citizen doesn’t entitle one to move to another commonwealth country and work there - still need to go through the immigration process.
If you’re thinking of Canada, I’d strongly recommend you contact a Canadian immigration lawyer. Our laws are very gay-friendly - that’s not the problem. See the CIC FAQ for definition of “spouse” for example.
The problem is that the laws are complicated and sometimes quirky. For example, if you are both living in Canada and he applies for permanent residence and is turned down, there’s no appeal. If you apply from outside Canada and he’s turned down, there is a right of appeal. (See this CIC FAQ.) Why? I dunno. Since I don’t practise in this area, I don’t know if there’s a work-around for the problems that might pose. That’s what a good immigration lawyer can provide.
If you google “canada immigration same-sex” you get a lot of hits that you might find helpful.
Just as a point of nosiness - how are you a Canadian citizen without ever living here? parents?
One parent, actually. There was a fairly specific set of criteria I had to meet. I had to wait until my mother stopped being an illegal alien here in the U.S. (when I was 29! Crossing the border was always a mini-ordeal). Only then could I prove that she had still been a Canadian citizen at the time of my birth, in wedlock before 1977, and file the paperwork to register. The technicality of “registering” rather than “applying for” is apparently what allows me legal dual citizenship with the U.S. from the American point of view.
Be aware of the fact that Québec requires immigrants to have a certain level of French language skills. I assume that you, as a Canadian citizen, can move to Montreal without any issues whatsoever, but the immigration requirements for your SO might be different than for other provinces. Being recognized as married here will probably make that requirement less important.
I don’t know any details, though, and I’m not a lawyer. I just know that the French-language requirement exists in some form or other!
Another issue about Quebec is that if you have kids, you won’t have a right to have them educated in English, only French, due to the more restrictive scope of s. 23 of the Charter in Quebec. Don’t know if that’s an issue for you, but it may be a factor to consider.