Most immigrants have a PR visa and never bother with going the next step (citizenship) because the only difference between a Permanent Resident and a citizen is citizens get to vote....wait, citizens HAVE to vote--if you forget to vote you get a fine!
The PR visa is around $2,000/ person (so $10,000 for our family)...+ all the other tests which incur a cost.
Today we finished our health exams ($1,000 for the family). The tests took 4 hours and we did everything from blood work (checking for HIV) to chest x-rays (checking for Tuberculosis), to a regular physical (half naked...the kids were mortified), eye tests, weight and height (BMI) tests, blood pressure, urine tests (checking for drugs) and so on.
Basically if you are fat, on drugs, old (over 45), sick or have any medical history you don't get into the country. Olivia was red-flagged straight away. She is now smaller than Mary. We were pulled into a dr.'s office and I was trying to explain that Olivia just had a positive renal test and has been discharged from her pediatric urologist. ALL BETTER. He won't pass her unless we submit more paper work & her x-rays. It didn't help that right then the kids decided it was time to loose all control (we were coming up on 4 hours by then) and I could not hear what the Dr. was saying and he couldn't hear what I was saying... thanks to yelling, screaming, laughing and banging of toys that my kids decided to display RIGHT THEN.
Another fun part of our PR application is getting finger printed. We need police clearance from all the countries we have lived in during the last 10 years. For some reason the police stations here no longer finger print for visa applications. So you have to make an appointment at the visa office in the city...which has a 6 month wait for finger printing. Since our visa's were going to expire before then we were told to fly back to America to get them printed...I decided I would have to beg. We went to 6 different police offices and begged them to finger print our family. I finally got a YES! I got the prints and then left...only to realize the police officer didn't sign the document! I went back the next day...but GUESS WHAT...that exact police officer has just left for his honeymoon and would be back in 5 weeks. The other officers remembered me but wouldn't sign the document because that would be forgery and we ARE in a police station....
We went back (after a tip that ALL police stations are empty around 10:00am on a Sunday morning)...NEVER try on a Friday evening, they will be swarmed; and we got them done again :-)
Last but not least- PAPER WORK! We pretty much have to certify (notarize) everything in our application. This includes, all passport pages...for each kid...+ the old passports that had their current visa in them + marriage certificates, birth certificates, university degrees, CV's, pay stubs, taxes, bank accounts etc...
THANK goodness I have a lawyer friend who sat down with me for a little over an hour and certified every copy with her stamp and signed each paper...I think we had over 75 documents.
Stan's work has assigned us a Visa Consultant (she helps us submit everything) and gives us tips and helps us fill out the papers correctly. We have 4 months exactly until our current visa runs out. Most visas take 12 months to grant...so things should get exciting around October!
3 comments:
At least you don't have to work for a "green" card. Your diet sounds interesting. I definitely couldn't do it! Thomas is awesome! Glad you had a fun birthday. Love you
Boy, now if the United States could only follow some of Australia's leads in permitting, or not, people from other parts of the world into our country, it may be safer for everyone and on so many fronts. Sorry you had to jump through so many hoops, but they probably find it necessary, AND NOW IT IS DONE! Good for you; you are so diligent!
Wow! Good luck with all of that paperwork! Hopefully they let you in!
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