POSITIVE IMMIGRATION STORY

[Hnhkrk]

Hey Guys,

I've been a part of this site for quiet a while, and although it's a great resource I can't help but notice all of the negativity floating around. When I first joined I was overwhelmed not only by the acronyms, but the horror stories as well.... so I thought I'd share my story.

My name is Hannah A. I am a 20 year old American that fell in love with, and married a 25 year old Quebecois (Canadian). We started dating sometime in the summer of 2009, and we got married on August 4th of 2012. Technically I started working on my application in May of 2012 when I sent in my fingerprints for my Background Check and when I started research the process via this forum and the CIC websites, but to be completely honest I didn't fill out any of the paperwork until one day before my FBI clearance expired (disclaimer: I do not suggest doing this...).

My file was processed at the LA office before being switched to the Ottawa office. I never had any issues contacting an agent or speaking with anybody, and when it came to sending e-mails everyone always replied to me in an efficient manner. Much like everybody else on this forum, I was extremely stressed about my application getting rejected for the silliest reasons.

To start it all of I sent my application in a box instead of a folder like the CIC website tells you to do. I sincerely thought that they would ship it all back to me because of the format I mailed it in. I also thought that there were going to be problems because I applied so soon after getting married. We had a lot of proof in our chat logs and pictures, but we didn't have any boarding passes, ticket stubs, or receipts and that scared me. Hell, everything scared me.

Even though I stayed in Canadian during the application process, my application was outland (I chose this because the out land process is so much faster than the in land process). I was only a visitor, which means that I wasn't allowed to go to work to school, and if I crossed the border back in the USA I risked being unable to get back into Canada. This was especially hard for me because I went form working 60+ hours a week between two jobs and being a student to doing absolutely nothing. Seriously, if you ever want to test your relationship go through Immigration... it will let you know if you two can really stay together through thick and thin.

So, to make a long story short I'm going to skip a bunch of phonecalls and e-mails and go straight to the point: On March 8th of 2013 I got an e-mail from the Ottawa office that turned out to be my 'approval'. I was ecstatic. We had to wait a few weeks to pay the Right oF Permanent Residency Fee (my husband is a mason and was just coming off of the winter and we were kind of broke) and receive my COPR in the mail, but as soon as we did we hopped in the car and drove to the border. On April 25th of 2013, I became a landed immigration... and let me tell you.... life has never been better since. The application process took 7 months. I attribute my quick application time to how straight forward my application was. I included as much proof as I could, but I made such that it was genuine and real. There were more photos of us with our families than there were of us alone, I sent them photocopies of wedding cards and letters, and I definitely didn't edit out the private parts of our skype logs (I think it was about 400 pages...) and emails.

In my opinion Ottawa is a great visa office, as I have had nothing but positive experiences with them. I would call them confused and paranoid, and they never failed to talk me out of the trees and re-assure me that everything was going to be okay. LA was a bit more irritating for me, because getting a hold of an agent was a lot more difficult... but they obviously processed my application quickly, so I don't really have any complaints about them either.

So, this is the jist of my story. Immigrating was definitely a challenge, but I'm better and more organized for it.

If I could give anyone advice it would be to relax. If you panic and stress you're going to forget the little things, and the little things are what make all of the difference. I know it's hard, I know it's scarey, but it's worth it in the end.

I wish all of you every ounce of luck, and if you have any question do not hesitate to ask me or anyone else on the forum (watch out for the trolls, though...). I would NOT have had such a successful application if it wasn't for the people on the forum. They practically held my hand through all of it, and I cannot thank them enough.

<3

Happy Immigrating!

 

[Hnhkrk]

Here is something that I wanted to include but didn't know where it fit in, so I'm going to make a separate reply for it:

On May 21st of 2013 my grandmother passed away in my home town. I had already had PR by then but because of some issues with my photo, I had not yet received my PR card and therefore had no serious proof of my Canadian Residency. Because I was only going to be in the US for a few short days and the Canadian visa office was so far from where I was going to be staying, I wasn't going to have the time to apply for a landing Visa to enable me to get back into the country.

I spent days trying to get a hold of someone to give me some answers and tell me what I should do. NONE of the visa offices would answer any of my questions, and I couldn't even find an e-mail to contact anyone with. Provided, I was a mess because of the death of my loved one but still.... if the information was there, it's not easily accessible.

I ended up calling the border agency office in the Montreal Airport to ask them what I should do and they told me not to worry. Because I was a citizen of a visa exempt country and I had a family emergency, I would be allowed back into the country with my COPR and Insurance card. Luckily, that worked... if it wouldn't have had, I don't know what I would have done. This was probably the worst part of my whole immigration story.... so I just had to put it in there somewhere.

 

[ExiledCanadian]

Thanks, Hnhkrk. I will do my best to take your advice. I'm not happy unless I'm paranoid about something though, so it will be tough!

 

[nada3]

Hi There,
thank you for sharing your story. It's nice to hear something positive in this mostly gloomy forum. You are absolutly right, this process really tests a relationship.

Unfortunatelly many of us are not so fortunate...yet

All of us here have different obstacles but mostly the frustration is from long processing times, not knowing what is happening with the applications ; not being able to be together with our loved ones and being apart for so long.
Communication with overseas visa offices ... well, that's at a zero. They don't care, we are just case numbers for them.

So yes, I am frustrated but still positive. I will not give up or lose hope. It helps however to talk to people you can relate to, and know exactly what you are going through.

 

[charliem]

Thank you for this story.
This is the first time I hear of someone who actually applied outland while staying here in Canada (most people on the forum just talk about that route hypothetically)

 

[Hnhkrk]

Thank you for this story.
This is the first time I hear of someone who actually applied outland while staying here in Canada (most people on the forum just talk about that route hypothetically)

For me it was easy because I come from a visa exempt country, so when my first 6 months were up I was able to apply for an extenion with no problem. <3

 

[DuberBlue]

For me it was easy because I come from a visa exempt country, so when my first 6 months were up I was able to apply for an extenion with no problem. <3

Your story actually parallels mine (and, more specifically, my wife's)...she is American and had been living with me since March 2010. We were married in August 2011 and we FINALLY got around to doing the outland PR application in March 2013. And yes, it's been tough for her too...sitting around at home all day, feeling like she's not contributing.

She finally got her PR about two weeks ago so now she's begun the slow, uphill process is getting employment in Canada. She's fighting through discouragement but I keep reassuring her that it's not an instant process, and that we will still be able to manage on what I make for the meantime.

 

[Hnhkrk]

Your story actually parallels mine (and, more specifically, my wife's)...she is American and had been living with me since March 2010. We were married in August 2011 and we FINALLY got around to doing the outland PR application in March 2013. And yes, it's been tough for her too...sitting around at home all day, feeling like she's not contributing.

She finally got her PR about two weeks ago so now she's begun the slow, uphill process is getting employment in Canada. She's fighting through discouragement but I keep reassuring her that it's not an instant process, and that we will still be able to manage on what I make for the meantime.

Settling in a new country really is petrifying, especially when you have to learn a new language on top of it all.

 

[tabarnouche]

Hi Hnhkrk, nice to hear your story. I too am an American living in Quebec. How's it going with the French? I've been using duolingo.com which has helped A LOT. Forcing friends and relatives up here to speak to me in French has really helped as well.

 

[QuebecOkie]

Hi Hnhkrk, nice to hear your story. I too am an American living in Quebec. How's it going with the French? I've been using duolingo.com which has helped A LOT. Forcing friends and relatives up here to speak to me in French has really helped as well.

Haha, too funny! Hannah and I have been chatting, and we just friended each other on duolingo. It's a great program, considering it's free. I'm another 'Murican transplant to Québec.

Once you get PR, MICC offers free French courses for immigrants. If you don't know about them, I'll be happy to post some info.

 

[Hnhkrk]

Haha, too funny! Hannah and I have been chatting, and we just friended each other on duolingo. It's a great program, considering it's free. I'm another 'Murican transplant to Québec.

Once you get PR, MICC offers free French courses for immigrants. If you don't know about them, I'll be happy to post some info.

French is going super well for me. I just finished my first level of french courses and will be starting me second on Wednesday - just like Okie said, the MICC offers free french classes for Immigrants residing in Quebec. If you take the full-time course they will actually pay you. It's a small sum, but it's something and it covers your transportation.

 

[QuebecOkie]

Yeah, I saw that "l'allocation hebdomadaire" bit, and I wrote back to the gentleman at MICC who helped me register for the course. "Mais, monsieur, je ne peux pas recevoir 'l'aide social," depuis mon mari m'a parrainé pour l'immigration!" He assured me that it is not social assistance, but an allowance provided by the program. That will help with gas money, as I usually carpooled to the base with my husband for my last course.

 

[little_apple]

Hey Guys,

I've been a part of this site for quiet a while, and although it's a great resource I can't help but notice all of the negativity floating around. When I first joined I was overwhelmed not only by the acronyms, but the horror stories as well.... so I thought I'd share my story.

My name is Hannah A. I am a 20 year old American that fell in love with, and married a 25 year old Quebecois (Canadian). We started dating sometime in the summer of 2009, and we got married on August 4th of 2012. Technically I started working on my application in May of 2012 when I sent in my fingerprints for my Background Check and when I started research the process via this forum and the CIC websites, but to be completely honest I didn't fill out any of the paperwork until one day before my FBI clearance expired (disclaimer: I do not suggest doing this...).

My file was processed at the LA office before being switched to the Ottawa office. I never had any issues contacting an agent or speaking with anybody, and when it came to sending e-mails everyone always replied to me in an efficient manner. Much like everybody else on this forum, I was extremely stressed about my application getting rejected for the silliest reasons.

To start it all of I sent my application in a box instead of a folder like the CIC website tells you to do. I sincerely thought that they would ship it all back to me because of the format I mailed it in. I also thought that there were going to be problems because I applied so soon after getting married. We had a lot of proof in our chat logs and pictures, but we didn't have any boarding passes, ticket stubs, or receipts and that scared me. Hell, everything scared me.

Even though I stayed in Canadian during the application process, my application was outland (I chose this because the out land process is so much faster than the in land process). I was only a visitor, which means that I wasn't allowed to go to work to school, and if I crossed the border back in the USA I risked being unable to get back into Canada. This was especially hard for me because I went form working 60+ hours a week between two jobs and being a student to doing absolutely nothing. Seriously, if you ever want to test your relationship go through Immigration... it will let you know if you two can really stay together through thick and thin.

So, to make a long story short I'm going to skip a bunch of phonecalls and e-mails and go straight to the point: On March 8th of 2013 I got an e-mail from the Ottawa office that turned out to be my 'approval'. I was ecstatic. We had to wait a few weeks to pay the Right oF Permanent Residency Fee (my husband is a mason and was just coming off of the winter and we were kind of broke) and receive my COPR in the mail, but as soon as we did we hopped in the car and drove to the border. On April 25th of 2013, I became a landed immigration... and let me tell you.... life has never been better since. The application process took 7 months. I attribute my quick application time to how straight forward my application was. I included as much proof as I could, but I made such that it was genuine and real. There were more photos of us with our families than there were of us alone, I sent them photocopies of wedding cards and letters, and I definitely didn't edit out the private parts of our skype logs (I think it was about 400 pages...) and emails.

In my opinion Ottawa is a great visa office, as I have had nothing but positive experiences with them. I would call them confused and paranoid, and they never failed to talk me out of the trees and re-assure me that everything was going to be okay. LA was a bit more irritating for me, because getting a hold of an agent was a lot more difficult... but they obviously processed my application quickly, so I don't really have any complaints about them either.

So, this is the jist of my story. Immigrating was definitely a challenge, but I'm better and more organized for it.

If I could give anyone advice it would be to relax. If you panic and stress you're going to forget the little things, and the little things are what make all of the difference. I know it's hard, I know it's scarey, but it's worth it in the end.

I wish all of you every ounce of luck, and if you have any question do not hesitate to ask me or anyone else on the forum (watch out for the trolls, though...). I would NOT have had such a successful application if it wasn't for the people on the forum. They practically held my hand through all of it, and I cannot thank them enough.

<3

Happy Immigrating!

I agree with nada3. One of the bad things is the long processing time. It wouldn't be that bad if you would still see some progress but especially Vienna is one of the VO's where nothing happened the whole year. We still have applicants waiting from July and September 2012 and the processing time increased from January to October from 8 to 13 months. And we are all scared that the time will increase again. You see applicants from all over the world getting their COPR and we applicants from Vienna see nothing.

Your application took 7 months. That means I would almost be done by now if I could go through Ottawa. But it seems like I have to wait another 7 months or more :'( I would be happy if I could go through London or Paris because they are super fast but unfortunately I'm German and have to apply through Austria.

 

[CanadianJeepGuy]

In my experience here the bulk of applicants are from non exempt visa countries where there is no luxury of crossing one border. Americans have a unique experience due to geography.

My issue has always been based on the huge disparity between CIC policies and what you really get. If the process was as easy as it should be forums like this would be unnecessary. That is why you get a lot of negative comments.

 

[Hnhkrk]

In my experience here the bulk of applicants are from non exempt visa countries where there is no luxury of crossing one border. Americans have a unique experience due to geography.

My issue has always been based on the huge disparity between CIC policies and what you really get. If the process was as easy as it should be forums like this would be unnecessary. That is why you get a lot of negative comments.

I understand why there are negative comments, and I'm not saying that the CIC shouldn't try to improve their methods... but I think that a bulk of the problem comes from the stress that people come over. The CIC could make everything as easy as brushing your teeth, but human error would still cause a hell of a lot of complaints.