I was out of status for about a quarter of 2015. As an American I've been comfortable my entire life and shielded from the difficulties of being an immigrant and the indignities of being without legal status; to some extent, I still am. If not for the hint of an accent in my annunciations and a suspicious 9 at the front of my SIN# you'd probably never know that I am an immigrant.
When I lost my status, I felt as if my worth had diminished somehow, as if I was less of a person because I lacked status. Worse was the fact that virtually no one would have any sympathy because it was my mistake in uploading the wrong file to my application that got me into the quandary.
I wasn't a migrant from South America, I didn't flea a conflict in Syria. I was actually leaving a good situation in the US. The narrative of my lack of status was not the exponent of struggle and loss, drama and politics; no, my struggle was something Kafka might have penned, how a single moment of lapse reverberated like an earthquake. I wondered if it was a flaw in my character that would doom me to situations like these for all my life. I worried that when things counted most, I had been a poor steward of my own destiny. I was Bill Buckner letting the ground ball slip through my legs undisturbed; I was the moth flying into the lamp; I went left when I should have went right...
Maybe the most disturbing thing was that for all my nearly 40 years, I had made exactly the sort of blunder that I had so quickly and exactingly pointed out in others. I had no sympathy for the suffering people, whose struggle to transcend procedural unfairness and simple mistakes had cost them so dearly. And it wasn't just that I could not sympathize with them, but that I felt as if I didn't deserve even a taste of their suffering. With my university degree, reverence and good looks, I thought I simply couldn't fail in life.
My refusal notification, however, was proof that I could fail. My refusal was a reminder that I bleed the same as a refugee bleeds. I needed my time out of status, even though it hurt.
Yes, luckily I regained my status by "restoring" it. I applied for PR via Inland in May 2015--my spouse became pregnant, so it was necessary to secure an open work permit. I want to say that as hellish as any struggle is, especially when it's an existential struggle, it only serves to force you to adapt. In adaptation there is strength. Hence, that which does not kill you, makes you stronger (Nietzsche).
