Adventures in Immigration
Immigration to Canada is no simple thing, even for an American. One would think, "Hey! I'm an American - here I am." Nope, that doesn't happen sorry to say.
I've been working on my permanent residency papers. Which means that I've been given 6 months to get the papers and information collected that will allow me to continue living in Canada. My 6 month deadline is approaching at the end of September.
Here is the excitement so far.
About two weeks ago Jeff and I went to go get my fingerprints taken. I needed three sets - one to send to the FBI, one set to the State of Michigan, and the third set to the State of New York. Basically I would send to any place I've lived in the last 10 years. Thankfully I haven't been that many places. We found an official place that would take my fingerprints and went to see what we would find. We found a nice lady who was quite efficient at taking fingerprints. It makes sense since she said she sees about 20 people a day.
Next part of the big excitement was today. My medical exam. Nothing tremendous, just exhausting. I knew in advance that the appointment was supposedly going to take two hours, but I didn't know how it was going to be broken down.
We got to the doctor's office at 10:45am where they sent us two buildings over. We walked over. It was hot. With the humidity built in - it's around 100 degrees today. I had blood taken, HIV and whatever else they wanted to know about. She did an okay job taking the blood, but I'll have a bruise where they took it.
We headed back to the doctor's office where they sent us to the basement of the same building to get an x-ray of my lungs. There was a long line ahead of us. That actually turned out to be useful since they didn't accept credit or debit - only cash or check, which we didn't have on us. We took about 15 minutes to find a bank in the area and return, and we still waited. In the meantime, we texted Talya and smiled at little children. I finally got called in and x-rayed.
We returned a third time to the doctor's office. I met the doctor, nice enough lady, and answered her questions. I got to tell her about my gallbladder surgery and ACL surgery. That being said, she told me that I am unremarkable. I'm quite happy to be unremarkable medically.
Then we went home and had lunch. After lunch I laid down for almost two hours. I'm feeling better now.
So the major stuff is out of the way. We're waiting for the FBI, the States of Michigan and New York to send my criminal record (nothing there) back to me. The doctor's office will ship my records directly to the Canadian immigration people. And I have some more papers to fill out in the meantime. When I get all my records shipped to me - I collect it all and ship it along... and wait at least six months to hear from them.
We're also going to fill out work permit forms at the same time to try to allow me to work while we're waiting to hear about permanent residency. Yay!
In the meantime, I'm writing on my blog and puttering around the house. Good fun had by all.
Comments
The appointment running around was two and a half hours, not including the drive there to the doctor and back again. Long morning.
Posted by: Shira | August 17, 2009 6:03 PM
When all this is done, are you going to end up with a dual citizenship, or are you going to have to give up US citizenship?
Posted by: Avi | August 18, 2009 9:03 AM
Well, before you start looking at citizenship you go through the process of permanent residency. Once you get through permanent residency supposedly citizenship isn't so hard to get. Also, it used to be that you had to give up the US citizenship, but nowadays you don't. Thank goodness. I haven't thought about Canadian citizenship yet, I'm just taking one immigration process at a time.
Posted by: Shira | August 18, 2009 10:16 AM