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Legal Alien

Exactly two years ago, I was com­plet­ing my immi­gra­tion papers to stay in Canada. I was 22 years old .

I had been work­ing on the file for almost two months. I had gath­ered most of my paper­work after call­ing my par­ents back in France to have them send me my uni­ver­sity tran­scripts and my birth cer­tifi­cate. I had got­ten copies of pretty much every­thing look­ing offi­cial that immi­gra­tion offi­cers might like. I had proven I was healthy by hav­ing some blood — painfully — with­drawn from my of veins. I had ticked some many boxes on forms that my vision was blurred. I had typed count­less “addi­tional infor­ma­tion” documents.

I just hadn’t real­ized what I had got­ten myself into.
I was try­ing to final­ize the file and to send it to Mis­sis­sauga, Ontario, where it would be assessed. Then it would be for­warded to the Cana­dian Embassy in Paris where my life would be exam­ined closely.

Now was the time to orga­nize every paper I had gath­ered, and to com­plete the stan­dard doc­u­ment. Name, Last name. Am I cur­rently detained in a jail ? No. Have I been con­victed of sex­ual offense ? No. List all for­mer employ­ees. List all the places you’ve been since you’re 18 or dur­ing the last 10 years, whichever is the longest. Say that. List that. Explain that. Jus­tify that.

Once com­pleted, my file was about 2 inches high.

The same ques­tion pounded in my head like a tune that wouldn’t stop play­ing : what if I’m refused per­ma­nent res­i­dence ? I knew I would even­tu­ally get it — why wouldn’t it ? — but the though of hav­ing to appeal the deci­sion and the whole process behind it scared me. I would never have the money nor the strength to go through that.

I then went to the near­est bank to pay the pro­cess­ing fees. And the right of land­ing fees. May as well… It added up to $1 500 but I didn’t cringe. I knew what to expect. I just wanted to post the damn stuff and get rid of it. The brown enve­lope was heavy : pretty much all my sav­ings and my whole life dis­sected was inside. I didn’t even make a copy of the file. I just couldn’t stand it. What­ever happens.

How long was the immi­gra­tion processes going to take ? I had heard a lot of things. Six months for the lucky ones — the West­ern­ers. One year if you for­got to tick the right box. Two years or more if you had to go for an inter­view with an immi­gra­tion offi­cer. Mean­while, my work­ing visa was expir­ing late Novem­ber. I had no plan B : I had already used all the visas.

I grew up in Europe, in what’s called now the Schen­gen area with vir­tu­ally no bor­der con­trol. I trav­elled every­where in Europe and didn’t even need a pass­port, except to go to the UK. Some of my friends worked in Rome or in Lon­don, stud­ied in Poland or were nan­nies in Hol­land. None of them had gone through immi­gra­tion. I first heard of “visas” when I went to China when I was 16. And even then, get­ting a visa just involved fill­ing up a cou­ple of forms in Chi­nese stat­ing I wasn’t a jour­nal­ist or a human right activist, and pay­ing a cou­ple of hun­dreds Yuan. What did I know about immigration ?

Going through the immi­gra­tion process was at the same time a rite of pas­sage. My fam­ily had never been to Canada. I have var­i­ous roots but all Euro­peans. Nobody I knew crossed the ocean. I felt like a pio­neer. For the first time of my life, I didn’t have leader or a role-model. I had to explain my new life to my par­ents and my friends. I had chose a new coun­try to live in — I felt so free.

I didn’t run away from any­thing. I just made a move on the big chess­board. I wasn’t really hop­ing for a bet­ter life or a new start. I didn’t really believe in the Amer­i­can dream. I just con­sid­ered myself lucky to have a West­ern pass­port and wanted to make the most of it. I could immi­grate to Canada ? Well, let’s try it then. I might like it there, up North.

For bet­ter or for worse.

Related posts:

1. Use­ful Links For Immi­gra­tion (10÷10)
2. If You Immi­grate To Que­bec (4÷10)
3. The Two Immi­gra­tion Myths (1÷10)
4. Lucile And Mur­taza: From France and India to Montreal
5. 3 Unex­pected Con­se­quences of Immigration