Last week I received a call from a man in immigration asking if I'd be home b/c he had some papers to deliver to me. Lo & behold, I am now the proud owner of an appeal in the Federal Court of Canada. It seems that the Citizenship Judge who permitted me to continue in the Citizenship process made an error in judgement in the Minister of Citizenship & Immigration's eyes.
I made an appointment with an immigration lawyer & yesterday Chad & I went to see what his take on my case was. He said that the nice Judge man had probably liked the fact that Chad was studying to be a minister & decided I was a nice person & judged in my favour. He did not follow the laws & maybe he was on drugs when he made the decision.
So, what are my chances? I could go through with the appeal, it would take about 1 1/2 years & cost about $4000, or I could wait until June 2010 when I actually have enough time in Canada to apply again.
The issue was that when I applied I had not met the 1095 days residency in Canada in the last 4 years, & it's only gotten worse with Chad being in school in the States. I had read somewhere that your time still counted if you were outside of Canada accompanied by a Canadian spouse. We fell under that category, so I applied. However, the Canadian spouse rule was for Permanent residence, not citizenship. So here I sit, still 2 years from being able to say, "I AM CANADIAN!"
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