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Subject: Immigration articles
  Immigration Matters: TELL THE TRUTH, ALWAYS
Friday, 15 April 2005
BY SUKHRAM RAMKISSOON

From time to time some of our readers are not forthright with immigration in their bid to enter Canada.


This is reflected by the many callers to my office, and I will highlight a typical question. I may have addressed a similar issue some time ago:
I am a landed immigrant desperate for help and legal advice. My mother came to Canada and became a landed immigrant and then sponsored me.
During the sponsorship period and before I had my final interview at the Visa Office, I became pregnant. This was to be my second child.
A few months before I was granted my landed papers, I gave birth to a baby but withheld this information from Immigration.
My second child has now entered Canada illegally. I have no close relatives in my native country in the West Indies. All my relatives have emigrated. I am very happy to be reunited with my second child but that happiness is marred because one of my children is here illegally.
What difficulties am I going to encounter? I want to enroll her in school as early as possible and I am worried that I could lose my landed status eventually."
Signed, Perplexed.
Well, Perplexed, you do indeed have a problem. Not declaring your second child to immigration prior to your entry into Canada, and more specifically failing to mention it when you were being examined at the airport at the time you were entering Canada as a landed immigrant, may lead to your loss of permanent resident status.
Another major problem you will be encountering is that you are not eligible to sponsor this second child, as you have not declared the said child. You may wish to pursue a humanitarian and compassionate application, but then again there is no guarantee.
The present law prohibits persons from sponsoring a member of the family class that they have not declared in their application for landed status.
You signed a statement on your landing document that you have only one dependent who was landed with you and that you had no other dependents at the time of your landing.
By withholding the birth or existence of your second child, you committed a breach of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Perhaps, you felt that if you made such a revelation that officers might have cancelled your permanent resident visa. Nevertheless, it is advisable that one should not withhold pertinent information.
Withholding information could only result in complications later on. This is tantamount to misrepresentation of a material fact, which could lead to an immigration inquiry resulting in a deportation order being issued and you being banned from entering Canada for two years.
Immigration Officials request that parents declare all dependent children as defined by the regulations for the purposes of ascertaining whether they meet the requirements of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and are admissible, irrespective of their intentions to bring the children with them to Canada.
If you have been granted Canadian citizenship, it does not make it any easier. In your application for citizenship you must confirm that your particulars in your application for permanent resident status were true and correct. Concealment of material information or misrepresentation in your citizenship application could lead to loss or citizenship and possible loss of permanent resident status.
~~~~~~~~~~


Sukhram Ramkissoon is a member of CSIC and specializes in Immigration Matters at 3089 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario



[30-05-2005,15:19]
[***.123.170.131]
SW
wow (in reply to: Immigration articles)
thanks for posting this. I hope everyone on the forum reads this. It could save people a lot of anguish.

Change in marital status is equally important.

[30-05-2005,15:59]
[***.20.170.23]
sharon
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