 |
Immigration to Canada;
the Result of a Blessing in
Disguise
Immigration to Canada... At the time it seemed like an absurd idea and
it
certainly did not occur
to us during the first twelve
years
while we used to live in the USA. I had heard of Canada, but thought
of it
as a
very cold place to live. Other than that I didn't know much about
Canada. If you're also clueless, start learning some quick
facts about this cool
country, because it has been consistently listed in the top
ten best
countries to live
in... Something I am well aware of, now that I
live here, and
which I agree with wholeheartedly! It has also
recently been
rated as one of the friendliest countries in the world.
The relocation to Canada idea only came up briefly after I bought a
book about the Pacific Northwest, because we were planning on a trip to
Oregon in the summer of 2003. That book was my first encounter with
British Columbia... My curiosity had arisen! I remember thinking: "What
a beautiful place!" and I started wondering about what life in Canada
was like and how
immigration to Canada works.
However, I still liked living in the
USA very much, just not in Atlanta anymore. I really wanted to move to
Oregon after visiting that beautiful state. But the problem was, we
were not living in the States legally. At least, not since our first
hearing for political
asylum was denied. This was the first factor leading up to
the road of immigration to Canada.
If you're finding yourself on the
same road, and need plenty of information on immigration to
Canada, the official Citizenship
and Immigration Canada (CIC)
has loads of it. You may not even need an immigration
attorney's help. We didn't, and this
is how we did it.
After having spent nine years in the US, working and paying our taxes,
giving birth to two American citizens, and being perfectly good
residents, it came as a shock to learn that we were supposed to pack
our stuff and leave the country. This happened in 2000, and at that
time we didn't think of immigrating to Canada at all. We decided to
stay, being wrongly
under the impression (thanks to the very incapable immigration lawyer
we had) that
within another year we could apply for a "Stay of Removal".
Instead of trying to get our case re-opened after another year, we just
got caught up in life and didn't focus on it anymore. But as three more
years passed and my mother's health was deteriorating, I wanted to
become a legal resident as soon as possible, so that I could visit my
mom in my home country, Suriname,
if
anything were to happen to her. And so we went to an immigration lawyer
who
specialised in deportation cases.
Please, heed
my advice and do your own extensive research about immigration!
From what we have experienced,
immigration attorneys in the States are not very trustworthy. Of course
not all of them are crooks, but be careful in choosing one. Make sure to do your own
research! An
informed person is less easy to fool. Besides, these immigration
attorneys are not exactly charging a small fee for their services, so
the more you know the less you might need their help.
The very first US immigration attorney we had hired was not a
great one
either. By advising us to apply for political asylum, he sent us on the
wrong path. At that time we didn't have a computer, and the Internet
was not so easily accessible. We could only depend on what other people
advised. The Internet certainly helped me a lot in my
research about immigration to Canada.
But the worst one of all the lawyers we had met was this deportation
lawyer we
approached in the end. When we told him about
our case,
he gave us hope that we had a chance to get the "Stay of Removal". In
the meantime he knew fully well that it was a lost case, but he was
not going to tell us, of course.
We started the process of re-opening
our case in 2003. Instead of doing that, I wished we had thought about
immigration to Canada. My mom's health was getting worse. In
November 2004
she passed away. I couldn't go to her funeral, because I would
jeopardize my chances of getting legal status in the US. Once I would
leave the
country, I wouldn't be able to go back. Too bad we hadn't thought about
Canada back in 2000, when our first hearing went wrong.
The worst thing, I found out later on, was that this deportation lawyer
had
received a notice from the Supreme Court in October 2004, that our case
had been denied, and that we were soon going to be deported. He didn't
bother to tell us. We received a notice in the mail from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service in February 2005. Our world fell apart when we
read the notice. We were to report to the INS (now USCIS - United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services)
by somewhere in March, ready to depart from the country. It's a good
thing that even before we
received the notice from INS, this time we had in fact started the
process of immigration to
Canada...
Continue to:
Part
2 of this journey
How
We Did It
Living in
Canada
Canadian Citizenship
Back to
top
Back to Homepage
|
|
