Photo by Laura Lai
by
Laura Lai/ Comment
In May 2019 the U.S. President
Donald Trump announced his Administration’s new American Immigration
System more merit and skill focused and points-based as Canada has, in order to
replace… this current situation of either applying for H, L, O, P or Q work
visa or of illegally be smuggled into the United States of America.
Smugglers’ business
have been thriving, due to the fact that a work visa is difficult to get and
due to the fact that the United States have no physical border, not necessarily
with Canada, that is equally developed economically and it is not a source of
immigration, but in the South, where the U.S. neighbors are less developed
Central and South American countries and a source of massive immigration.
Smugglers have been
thriving as long as politicians hesitate what kind of immigration policy to
adopt and to implement, when illegally crossing people into Europe over the
Mediterranean Sea. And from a recent investigation of the journalists of
LBC I have learned the way (and the price for which) each illegal immigrant is
smuggled into the United Kingdom from France.
In 2007 I applied for immigration
to the French-speaking region of Canada, Quebec. I was exhausted of day internships
and night study in the capital city of the European Union (with conference
participations, paper presentations, etc.). I was interested in getting a job,
go on with my research and pay my thesis defense from my money not my parents’
working class pension. I wanted to go to Canada to work, become a PhD in
Political Sciences in Belgium and return to Canada if I was feeling great
there.
The fees required
to emigrate to Quebec were much lower than those required to emigrate to the English-speaking
part of Canada. Given my very good level of both French and English –
particularly at that time when I was using them both on daily basis – I applied.
The points-system is easy to navigate, the minimum required points to apply are
easy to score particularly if one is young, bilingual, a PhD candidate and has
some professional experience. Besides the fees paid in order for the officials
to work your dossier, there is a medical check that also costs money, in which
they check for the immigrant to be healthy and not carrying contagious diseases
that may put in danger the host society. The last phase is the invitation to
interview. I was having a 4-month scholarship in Denmark and I had to pass the
immigration interview in Vienna. In the spring of 2007, I made the trip to
Vienna, passed the interview in both French and English. By the middle of
August 2008 was my visa ready and I went to the Canadian Embassy in my country
of origin.
I was granted the
work and residence visa to Quebec, Canada. But it was valid only for two weeks
until the 28th of August 2008, while other applicants have at least
one year to relocate from the moment their visa is granted. In two-week time
one barely finds an affordable flight for a long-distance trip. When I asked,
the woman who released my passport did not provide any argument, but answered: ‘If you don’t go in two weeks, you will never be allowed to emigrate to
Canada’.
I put this
expensive experience in the complex PhD experience, where I was constantly kept
on paid or unpaid internships without absolutely no job perspective and in
which people I met used all their resources so that I give up my PhD. I have
never logically understood why it was so important for a bunch of people that I
give up my PhD that was a theoretical thesis. But I know that most of them had neither
the skills nor the will to do a PhD, and that they would put all their evilness
in enjoying mocking somebody else’s work, time and money. The time I spent in Brussels,
the so-called capital of the European Union, did not give me any feeling that I
am in the heart of the European democracy, but it reminded me of the communist
old times in Eastern Europe, when leaders (like Nicolae Ceausescu) with a few
classes, had all the power to follow, to persecute and to massacre the intellectuals. And
the communists did eliminate priests, teachers, engineers, doctors,
philosophers and so on leaving the country everywhere equally uneducated. I
have not met the European Union’s leaders, but associations’ leaders, all ‘small’
people – from a human and intellectual point of view – that the big European
Union’s leaders are very fond of, I suppose, since this bunch of people were unaccountably
allowed everything including ringing communist bells in their beloved so-called
‘heart of democracy’. (to be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment