Immigrant Women’s Experiences with Canadian Immigration Law and Partner Sponsorship

By Yaqi Wei

I am an immigrant woman from China. When I first arrived in Canada, I fantasized about a simple life route of college-work-obtain status. As immigration policies have been tightened, it has become increasingly impossible to obtain status through work. The most effective way for immigrant women in a similar situation as mine seems to be through marriage or Common Law sponsorship. The combination of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IPRA) and the institution of marriage cleverly provides a “shortcut” for foreigners to access Canadian citizenship or permanent residency (PR) through a contractual romantic relationship. However, the truth is this route to obtaining status guarantees the Canadian citizen or PR holder control over their foreign partner, especially female foreigners. And these unbearably painful experiences are rarely discussed publicly by immigrants themselves. In this article, I will elaborate on the role of Canada's current immigration policies in the process of possession that immigrant women being seen as property, the violence and harm that immigration policies and the institution of marriage may bring to immigrant women, and interpret the invisible dilemmas of immigrant women's experiences from three aspects: status, agency, and self-discipline.

Canada's current immigration laws contribute to the control and possession that Canadian citizens and PR holders have over their foreign partners, or rather, foreign property. Previous literature has shown that women face limited choices in marriage because of the expectations of their families and society and economic imperatives (Pierson). Many immigrant women, also have to consider marriage because of the difficulty in maintaining or obtaining legal status. Obtaining legal status through marriage is actually a high-risk route. “You can withdraw your sponsorship application any time before the person you’re sponsoring becomes a permanent resident of Canada” (Government of Canada). And the sponsor may also be forced to interrupt the application because they cannot afford the sponsorship. As a result, the sponsored person may lose their legal status. Not only that, but immigrants who have already obtained legal status may also find themselves in a more serious status crisis due to malicious reports and accusations from their ex-partners. It is not difficult to see that the collaboration between immigration law and the institution of marriage does not facilitate immigration access to status, but rather provides Canadians and PR holders with the power to control their romantic relationships with immigrants. With the tacit approval of the state, partners possess and control the lives of immigrant women, treating them as property.

The application mechanism, which can be cancelled at any time, provides a breeding ground for the violence of cisheteropatriarchialization and imposes an “otherness” upon immigrant women. According to the Rights of Non-Status Women Network, many women come to Canada through legal sponsorship and are subsequently abused by their sponsors; if they run away before getting their legal status, they may become non-status women. To maintain their legal status, many women endure domestic (sexual) violence, humiliation, and even imprisonment in marriage or common law relationships. Sometimes, they think their partner has submitted the application for them, only to find out later that their partner has not done so. According to Locke’s theory of individuality, to be seen as a subject requires agency and self-awareness (Bhandar). Some immigrant women have to be attached to their partners and lack agency; thus, they are not considered subjects in Western society to some extent. The harsh reality is that immigrant women are enacted as “subordinate other” (Pierson) through partner sponsorship because of the structural violence and fragility of their status.           

There are three main reasons for the invisibility of the experiences of immigrant women and women with precarious status: status, lack of agency, and self-discipline. First, some undocumented women avoid talking to government workers and police for fear of being evicted or subjecting unaffordable punishments. Immigrants with legal work or student status may also avoid getting into trouble because they fear that the justice system will be biased in favor of locals. As a result, violence related to immigrants and undocumented women is rarely reported. Even when this kind of case is investigated, systematic data analysis is not successfully established. This is well supported by the responses I received from a Freedom of Information request I submitted last year. Second, for most 1^st-generation immigrant women, the language barrier is a disadvantage that has to be emphasized. Not being proficient in English can lead to an inability to understand legal documents and establish a sense of belonging in Canada, which in turn prevents them from defending their rights through government agencies or non-profit organizations. Many immigrant women also lack agency because they do not have access to higher education, are unable to work full-time, and lack the necessary life skills (e.g., driving). Third, Immigrant women may be subject to both internal scrutiny within the family (partner) and public opinion, and as a result, self-discipline may arise. According to Brown, the design of the Panopticon is meant to engender in many a prisoner a certain self-discipline under the threat of external observation (35). The combination of immigration law and the marriage system confines immigrant women to private space, and they may be regulated and threatened by their partners, which is in part a "disciplined exercise of (state) power" (Browne 34). In situations where partner sponsorship is widely seen as a shortcut, women who acquire status through this route may be stigmatized as unscrupulous bitches who play with the feelings of others (mainly men), therefore, their performance in romantic relationships is also regulated by public opinion. This self-discipline also occurs in situations where women are afraid to consult with the police and internalize their pain because of the fragility of their status. The intersectional self-discipline of immigrant women is generated by gender, status, violence and threats in heterosexual romantic relationships, and structural violence against immigrants. Bentham’s Panopticon model also tries to “minimize the communication between inmates and making for lateral invisibility” (34). Immigration laws, marriage institutions, and the self-discipline of some immigrant women have in turn reinforced their plight and isolated those who share the same "destiny".

All in all, with the recent tightening of immigration policies, the ideal citizens desired by the Canadian government have gradually excluded many non-science and engineering immigrants. It has also become increasingly difficult to obtain legal status through employer sponsorship. Many migrant women have to “use” partner sponsorship to obtain status. However, Canada’s immigration laws and marriage institutions effectively empower citizens and PR holders over their immigrant property and provide cover for violence in intimate relationships. The partner sponsorship system became an accomplice to immigrant women being treated as property. The voices of immigrant women are often absent from public communication, and the invisibility of their experiences is mainly due to three factors: their fragile status, lack of agency, and self-discipline that has been repeatedly reinforced by the synergy of heterosexual romantic relationships and immigration law. These systemic and structural disadvantages have led some immigrant women to be afraid to seek help and even gradually internalize patriarchal and colonial ideologies. Therefore, there is an urgent need to publicize the experiences of undocumented or immigrant women and establish relevant databases and better support systems to close loopholes in Canada’s immigration laws. On this basis, we can look ahead to more radical, non-reformist reforms of immigration law.