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I am a permanent resident of Canada. My girlfriend and I plan to marry in the USA soon.

She has been waiting for her asylum interview in the USA; she has already obtained her USA work permit and Social Security Number. Here are some of our questions:

  1. Once I come back to Canada after marriage and apply for her PR, does she need to withdraw her USA asylum application before getting Canadian PR approval (to start her PR application) or can she start her PR application and withdraw her asylum application after her successful Canadian PR approval?

  2. Once she withdraws her asylum application in the USA, how many days can she stay inside the USA? Once she moves to Canada, can she travel back to the USA in the future? Will there be any kind of ban for her from entering the US?

JonathanReez
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balsig
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1 Answers1

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  1. I am not familiar with Canadian PR applications. When you say "start her PR application", are you referring to steps you take while she is outside Canada? or are you referring to steps she will take after entering Canada? If she leaves the US while her asylum application is pending, without first being granted Advance Parole, she abandons her asylum application. In that case, it would not matter if she withdraws it or not. If the process is something that is completed while she is in the US, then I see no reason why she cannot engage in that process while simultaneously continuing her asylum application in the US.

  2. If she withdraws her asylum application, if her underlying status has expired or she had no status to begin with, she cannot stay in the US for any length of time. As for the unlawful presence ban, she does not accrue "unlawful presence" while a "bona fide" asylum application is pending, as long as she never works illegally. If her asylum application is denied or withdrawn, she starts accruing unlawful presence if she no longer has an underlying status. You have not told us what status she had before applying for asylum and when it ended, so we don't know how much unlawful presence, if any, she may have accrued before applying for asylum. So there is not enough information to determine if she has enough unlawful presence to trigger a ban upon departure.

user102008
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