Ok, Team Explananda; it's story time. Spencer and I are moving to Canada. He's taking a temporary job (a two-year post-doc) at an unnamed university there, and I'm going with him and may also get some work at the university. Recently, we went to the border to get our paperwork settled, and got mysteriously hosed.
Here's what should have happened.
Spencer: Here's my job offer letter, evidence that I have a PhD, etc.
Officer: Ok, you get a "skilled worker" permit.
S: Here's a notarized form declaring that Anne and I are "common-law partners". [This is a beautiful feature of Canadian immigration law -- same-sex parters and unmarried but committed opposite-sex partners both have status equal to married couples'.]
O: Ok, your partner gets a spousal open work permit enabling her to go find any job she wants for the same duration as your job.
Us: Thank you, Canada, home of openness, equality and fair dealing.
Here's what did happen. [Subtext in brackets.]
Spencer: Here are my documents; I've been offered a post-doc at University X.
Officer, 20 years old, testy, with something to prove: What's a "postdoc"?
S: A position as a post-doctoral fellow.
O: What's that?
Anne: [He doesn't know about academic positions. What would clear this up?] It's like being a visiting professor. He'll teach classes and do research, but it's only a two-year job.
Officer, later, angrily: It's not really a professor! [You're trying to scam us!]
Officer, to me: Do you have a job in Canada?
Anne: Well, no. [Why is he asking this? The work permit I'm applying for doesn't require me to already have a job. Maybe he needs to hear that I could get a job?] I'm in touch with a specific person about a specific job that he may have for me.
O: But do you HAVE a job?
A: No. But I expect I will be able to get one.
O, testily: Well, [little lady,] we don't take "maybes" at the border. [This seemed, in his mind, to settle the question whether I could have a work permit.]
O: Are you a student?
A: Yes. I'm still a graduate student at my US university, but I won't be taking classes there since my degree does not require any more classes. I won't be taking classes at any Canadian school either. I will be writing my dissertation, which I can do anywhere.
O, suspicious: What's a dissertation?
A: (pause) Uh. Uh. It's like a very long paper you have to write to get a PhD.
O: You mean like a thesis. [subtext: you've made up some weird terminology to confuse me, but I have seen through your ruse]
A: Yes, yes, exactly, yes. I will be writing my thesis.
O, thinking he's got the final killer question: So what will happen if the two of you split up?
A: Uh. Well, [it seems like you're not going to give me a work permit, so I would have no job and no partner -- that is, no means or reason to stay in Canada. So, obviously] I would go back to the US.
O, annoyed: Hm. [Types into computer. Clearly I have given the wrong answer, but I don't know why.]
A: Am I mistaken about the spousal work permit? I had thought that I could get the permit without already having a specific job.
O: Well, we don't even know if you can have a spousal work permit anyway. It depends on whether your partner is a skilled worker.
A: So is he a skilled worker?
A: I don't know, I would have to look it up.
(Long pause while we just look at each other. Spencer and I been here for an hour at this point and they haven't looked up the job description yet?)
A: [trying, trying not to be snide] He's going to be the equivalent of a university
professor; it's a job that requires a PhD. Wouldn't that be skilled work?
O: No - his letter doesn't say he's going to be a professor. [You're trying to scam us]
(Long pause)
O: Ok then, I'll look it up.
Two different officers, and two hours later, Spencer gets his work permit, in a skill class that should give me a spousal open work permit. But instead, I get an official "visitor" document, stapled into my passport, that says I cannot work in Canada, and furthermore that I must LEAVE Canada in three months.
Now, this is awful. Under Canadian immigration law, we're effectively spouses, so I should be able to accompany Spencer even if I don't qualify for a work permit. But instead I have this mandatory-exit thing in my passport, saying I can't live with my partner for the next two years.
I should say that the story has a happy ending -- a very kind and helpful administrator at the university was able to pull strings and get my status changed. (The string-pulling did not involve bending the rules, only having special access to people who could get the rules applied correctly.) So as far as we know, everything will be okay and I will be able to live and work in Canada for two years. More on the string-pulling in a future post.
The real question for today is -- what the hell happened? The transcript I've given is obviously just my perception of it, so probably isn't accurate in all the details. Any guesses from our experts in border-guard or Canadian psychology? Did they just get confused and assign me to some real category of three-month visitors? Do they hate academics, or Americans? Did we say the secret word? Irresponsible speculation, please.
Posted by anne at June 10, 2005 03:14 PMWhere did you make the crossing?
Posted by: Spaz at June 10, 2005 04:15 PMI think you just got a bad apple. Believe me, there are fucking morons when you move in the other direction too.
Posted by: Chris at June 10, 2005 04:20 PMSpaz: I'm not sure I should say exactly where. Do you know specifics about some crossings? It was a medium-sized crossing, neither a huge nor a tiny one. The officers were not especially busy when we crossed, early afternoon on a weekday. There were only two other couples there during the two hours we were.
Chris, I definitely agree; I know the American border guards can be awful. But I guess I thought it was limited to them. I'm partly ticked off because I was expecting the Canadians to be generally much better-informed, polite, etc.
Posted by: anne at June 10, 2005 05:38 PMThe string-pulling [involved] having special access to people who could get the rules applied correctly.
And you call yourself an egalitarian! Getting special access to justice?! You should be ashamed of yourself!
Posted by: Paul at June 10, 2005 06:11 PMActually, Paul, in a way that is the most disturbing part of the whole experience. (I'm not sure if you meant to be kidding, but you're dead on.) A few things:
1. I've NEVER had this experience before (authority figure makes apparently-unappealable arbitrary decision with huge negative impact on me). Pretty amazing, really; shows a lot about the kind of life I've led, how much privilege I've already been the beneficiary of, and therefore how little I know about the world.
2. Even though I always sympathize with people whose lives are full of this kind of crap, it feels different to really have it happen to me. As I said, this shows I'm very ignorant, and I think it shows that I'm morally compromised in some way.
3. Then it got fixed, magically, because we're affiliated with an elite institution. This is a relief, of course, but in another way it's terrible. It shows (what's probably obvious) that even in a very egalitarian country, status can mean the difference between justice and no-justice.
More on this later, probably. But the whole thing has left me deeply unsettled for exactly the kind of reason you suggest.
Posted by: anne at June 10, 2005 06:23 PMMy experience with border guards is that the Canadian - seriously - are much politer than the Americans. But obviously I'm coming and going as a Canadian on a visa. No idea if the treatment would differ if I were an American, or if I were looking for a Canadian visa.
Actually, Canada is not an especially egalitarian country. Or an especially polite one.
Posted by: Chris at June 10, 2005 06:28 PMHow about, relative to the US?
Posted by: anne at June 10, 2005 06:30 PMI remember coming back to Canada after having been out of the country for some years. A border guard told me I needed to be careful about staying away for so long because I could lose my citizenship. You don't need a law degree to know what utter nonsense that was but the guy was insistent about it. I imagine he was muddling temporary loss of some social benefits with citizenship.
Morons can be found anywhere but I always imagine that organizations like the customs and police forces attract more than their fair share.
I remember coming into the U.S. once and being asked by a border guard (who found out I was studying philosophy) how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. I was sort of stumped, but later it was pointed out to me by a medievalist that the answer is obvious: an infinite number, assuming that angels are non-spatio-temporal!
When I first entered the U.S., the guy at the border was very pleasant. He found out what I was studying and then told me that he taught a class on Western Civ or something like that at a high school for fun. I ended up giving him book recommendations.
Usually they're dicks, though.
Posted by: Chris at June 11, 2005 08:50 AMThe last time I went to Canada, I was held up at the aiport by a border guard who wanted to search my luggage. Out of curiosity, I asked why it was I was singled out for a search. "Oh, 95% of these searches are random", he replied. "How about this time?" [sheepish smile] Well, he was polite.
Traditionally, my experiences with U.S. and Canadian border guards has been positive. Sure, there have sometimes been some unreasonably long lines at the border, but that's not the guard's fault. In the post-9/11 hiring frenzy, we did seem to end up with some strange characters working the U.S. side of the border. Given enough border crossings, it's pretty much inevitable that you'll eventually encounter somebody who is unreasonable.
Posted by: Aaron at June 12, 2005 11:28 AMWell, I do think that the location of the crossing makes some difference. Not merely in the sophistication of the particular guard, but also in the support they have. If your entry was say at the Thousand Islands/Windsor Bridge, you'll be dealing with officials (albeit 20 year old ones in their summer jobs) who see thousands a day and they are normally day crossings. If you're at Pearson you probably get a lot more business travel and immigration (from the US to Canada! shocking!), and generally more travellers on visas. You also get a customs office with officials and supervisors nearby.
Posted by: Spaz at June 12, 2005 05:10 PMi have no comment about border guards. i'm still getting over the surprise of all these mysterious other contributors to explananda suddenly coming out of the woodwork
Posted by: upyernoz at June 12, 2005 08:32 PMI told you they were real!!!
(Although I suppose that I have no way of proving that I haven't just gotten bored and started signing in as different people.)
Posted by: Chris at June 12, 2005 09:30 PMSpaz, that is good to know. The Thousand Islands scenario was definitely closer to ours... Day crossings because it's a tourist area rather than a business area?
upyernoz, we are the ones who said to Chris "Oh yeah, you go right ahead and start a group blog. We'll be right there behind you."
Day crossings b/c it's a high traffic area for business and tourism cross border. But, its mainly routine travel.
Posted by: Spaz at June 13, 2005 12:33 PM