A recent article in the Toronto Star, confirms much of what we have come to know as the truth over many years of practice. The article reports on the study by McMaster University professor Vic Satzewich on how marriages are assessed by immigration officers.
(www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2014/02/01/a_rare_look_inside_the_black_box_of_canada_immigration.html).
Immigration officers reviewing spousal applications look for what they see as red flags; differences in age, social class, education, ethnicity and any pattern in courtship, which they see as non-conforming to the particularly social norm. They think that this is how they catch marriages of convenience. Admittedly, this is sometimes true. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true, there are fraudsters around the world, which make it their business to manufacture marriages, they provide everything from the spouse, to the ceremonies, to cards and pictures and even guests. We have seen a case, where they even manufactured a wife (the woman did not even exist !), the fraudsters created fake documentation for an non-existing Canadian woman. Therefore, many cases of such marriages of convenience pass without an interview being convoked because they FIT the profile the visa officers expect to see in these applications, and the prospective immigrants are never tested. However, what often happens is that once the officers have seen the same wedding party guest for the 100th time, the bells go off and the fraud is detected.
On the other hand, real marriages are seldom quite as cookie cutter as an officer may expect them to be, particularly in a country as culturally diverse as ours and where social divisions are not what they used to be. It is not unusual for first generation immigrants to end up in genuine relationships with people from other cultures, where couple’s only shared language may be English. Age differences may be larger than expected, but as the old adage goes: "love knows no bounds". So how do such seemingly "imperfect" relationships make it through? The answer is simple. Preparation. Counsel must anticipate the areas of concerns which may be raised by a visa officer and prepare the clients for a tough interview. It is not unusual that even genuine marriages are routinely refused by visa officers, however, if the relationship is genuine and logical and reasonable explanations are provided for any potential issue that may be red flagged by immigration, couples will save themselves much angst and frustration of going through the lengthy appeals process, so they can look forward to starting their married lives together, sooner.
