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Friday, July 18, 2008

Same Sex Marriage Citizenship Questions & Answers

I received a blog comment today asking me about Same Sex marriage citizenship laws. I did a little searching and this is what I was able to find:

If you marry a Canadian, can you get Canadian citizenship?
If you marry a Canadian, your spouse may sponsor you for permanent residency in Canada. You can apply for citizenship after becoming a permanent resident and meeting additional requirements including living in Canada for three out of four years and passing a citizenship test.

If you get married in Canada, can you sponsor my same-sex spouse for U.S. citizenship?
No. There's a law that says the federal government will not recognize same-sex marriage, and that includes the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now known as Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services). While this policy may be challenged in court, you could be putting your non-national partner at risk of deportation by attempting to sponsor him or her until the courts have struck this policy down or Congress has repealed it. To tell Congress to change this discriminatory policy, click here.

Married same-sex Canadian couples who wish to move to the U.S. should expect similar treatment from the Bureau. A same-sex Canadian spouse who gets permanent residency in the U.S. will not be able to sponsor his or her spouse for residency here.

I hope this helps.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey;

Thanks a lot for addressing my question directly. Gives me an idea of how to go about things in the near future. I suppose an immigration lawyer will be our next sit-down. If any Canadian ones are reading this feel free to hit me up.What about kids, any idea if they would be dual-citizens or not.....still so fresh and tricky all of this stuff.

 

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