Hello Everybody,

I need your help in detemining when to apply for Permanent Residence in Canada. I am currently holding an H1B Visa and working for US based company. My company is currently processing my work permit for Canada for my next assignment. I would like to apply for perminant residence but had few questions:

1> Can I apply for Permanent Resident immigration for Canada from US if I am holding an H1B Visa OR
Should I have to apply from the Country of my citizenship ?

2> Should I wait for my work permit (skilled workers) to be processed first and then apply for permanent residence? Is there any impact on processing of a PR application if have a work permit ?

Your suggestions/Comments are much appreciated.

Thanks for the time for reading through my query...

Cheers!

Raj

Hi Raj:

I have tried to answer your questions here to the best I know, here they go:

1. When you apply for Canadian Immigration either you can apply from your country of your citizenship or from a place where you have resided atleast one year and ideally are going to be there for atleast a year or so. If you have lived in the US for atleast 1 year then you are eligible to apply from the US. If not, then you will have to wait till you complete 1 year of residence wherever whether it is Canada or the US.

2. Work permit might take atleast 1-3 months I guess. If you have had a 1 yr residence in the US then why don't you start the process from US rightaway? From the US it takes roughly 1-1.5 yrs to complete the process depending how well you adhere to the Consulate's requirements to the T. I just applied last March and this March I got my visa! So it does not take a long time. I would suggest you apply from US if you have had a 1 yr residence and not wait till you get work permit. However, I might caution you that you have to get together a lot of paperwork before you can apply like letters from your employers in India, your sealed transcripts, if you have relatives in Canada their passport copies, not to mention the the FBI fingerprints take quite a while anyways and give atleast one month for your Indian PCC. So getting together paperwork is a tedious task.

Let me know if you need any help.

Thanks,
Me2Canada

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