Answers from Colombo!

Aaahhhh! That feels so much better!
I have a much better understanding of what is expected of us from Citizenship and Immigration Canada!

After we got this ridiculous email, last week, we had tons of questions.
Pablo tried calling the Canadian High Commission in Colombo. Since we have 11.5hrs difference with Colombo, he had to stay up late to call during their office hours. Only to be told that they did not provide information over the phone and that, if we couldn't find what we needed on their website, we would have to either come to their office in person (yeah right!) or send out an email.
So I sent out a nice, long, detailed email with a list of questions.

I received a reply just a week later (which is pretty good, given that there was a long weekend in there).
And the reply answers all my questions very clearly!

So here is what you need to know if you're using the Immigration process for your adopted child:

• The threat of refusing your application if all documents are not received in 30 days does not apply to international adoption.
• There is a list of required documents specific to each country on the CIC website. They can all wait until you have accepted a child. This way, all forms will have the right name, gender, date of birth, etc.
• If the Schedule A document is listed on your checklist, you don't need to send it for the adoption of a child under 16 years old. If you want, you can send it with NOT APPLICABLE written on it, just to be on the safe side.
• If you need to send out IMM5406 - Additional Family Information, you do need to include yourselves as the parents.

According to email I received, Pablo and I do not need to provide Police Checks or Certificates of Citizenship. But I would confirm with the Visa Office in the country you are adopting from.

If you're going to email your Visa Office, here's one tip I want to share: Include a list of all the documents you understand are required. I did this, all in bullet points, and then asked the Visa Office in Colombo to confirm that the list was correct and complete. This will give you the assurance (and written proof) that you're not missing any important (and time sensitive) document when you travel to pick up your child.

I am feeling sooooo much better now that I have a better understanding of what we need to do! For now, that's pretty much nothing, anyway... The guy did ask for an email update on our adoption every 2 to 3 months, but that won't be a big deal.
And to be fair, after the initial email and phone call, we got some very good service from the High Commision in Colombo.

So here's to clarifying another bit of the process!

Welcome to Canada

Do you think Canada is a welcoming country that treats immigrants with respect?

We received our Approved Application to Sponsor earlier this month. As you know, this gives us permission to sponsor our child into Canada, provided that we assume full responsibility for meeting her needs.
Here are some bits from the approval letter:
"Dear Gen, This refers to the Application to Sponsor a Member of the Family Class you submitted on behalf of the child you intend to adopt..."
"... You have met the requirements for eligibility as a sponsor. Accordingly, details of your application..."
"... Should you need to submit additional information or make any enquiries during the processing of the Application [...], you may contact the visa office by email, fax or in writing..."
All in all, pretty courteous.

The email I have received on Monday, addressed to my not-yet-Canadian baby (also not-yet-born, but that's a detail), has a somewhat different tone. Here are a few extracts:
"Dear " ", We have received your approved application to sponsor. We are awaiting submission of a completed application for Permanent Residence..."
"We require the following information from the applicant in order to continue processing the application..."
"... The information /documents we have requested should be provided to us within 30 days from the date of this email. No further requests will be made. If we do not receive the information within the time indicated, we will proceed to assess the application based on the information on file which may result in refusal."
And I did not add the bold and underlined...

Is it me or are they a lot less polite to my child? 
I hate to say it, but I think Citizenship and Immigration Canada thinks potential immigrants don't deserve to be treated as nicely as Canadian citizens.

We see ourselves as a pretty open, tolerant, multi-cultural people. It makes me wonder how welcoming our institutions really are...

We're Moving (backwards) on the Immigration Front

It's a well-known fact: I just don't get Immigration.
I was great at dealing with adoption agencies, organizing home-study appointments and fingerprints, finding out how to go about the next step of the process, gathering documents and sending everything off in time.
But the Immigration process is waaayyy above my head!

I have received an email, this week. It is addressed to my child. They call him/her " ", since we don't know what the first name is.
The email states that the sponsorship approval was received in Colombo. It then lists several documents that " " is required to send out.
Some of those documents are not yet available (birth certificate, adoption order, passport, etc). Others were sent to the Mississauga office with our Application to Sponsor.

And then it asks for these documents to be sent out within 30 days. Hummm... We may not have a birth certificate for our unborn child in 30 days...

I get that the sponsorship for family member can be used to bring people of all ages into Canada. But this letter has a few specifics about adoption. Why didn't they also adjust the last sentence? In fact, there is even a bold and underlined statement that failure to send the documents within 30 days could result in " "'s application being refused.

It's just plain stupid. I hate trying to figure out instructions from Citizenship and Immigration Canada!

Immigration - Part 1

We have received our Approval to Sponsor from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Part 2 of the immigration process is the Permanent Residency Visa application. It requires documents such as our child's Birth Certificate, a name and a date of birth, among all sorts of forms to fill out. So we can't really do anything for now...
All we can do is wait for our referral!

Sponsorship Application

OK... So the Immigration Process is slowly starting to appear clearer in my mind... As you know, we chose to obtain Canadian Citizenship for our child through the Sponsorship process.

The concept of Sponsorship is that you become accountable and responsible for the person who is immigrating to Canada. You have to provide food, shelter, money, etc. For a set period of time (10 years for an adopted child), this person cannot benefit from Employment Insurance or Social Wellfare. Any money they could need has to come from you.
Obviously, adopting a baby involves way more accountability and responsibility anyway, so that doesn't scare us.

Once Immigration and Citizenship Canada has approved you as a potential sponsor, you can apply for your child to obtain a Permanent Residency visa in the Canadian Visa Office of their country of origin. To do this, you will need some documents specific to the child. This means that this step cannot be completed before the referral.

Our Sponsorship Application is ready to be sent out!

We have just finished puting together our Sponsorship Application. We'll send it out this weekend. Adoption related applications are treated as priority cases by the office in Mississauga, so we hope to hear from them really soon! That's why I've printed ADOPTION in gigantic letters on the envelope :-)

To compete our application, we used Guide IMM 5196.

If you're getting ready to fill out an application too, it would be wise to search for "Sponsorship of adopted children and other relatives — The sponsor’s guide" on the CIC Website. I'm guessing these get updated every now and then!

And if you have questions, brew yourself a pot of coffee (or two), call CIC (1-888-242-2100) and keep trying until you get someone!

I'll let  you know when our application gets approved :-)

Immigration: Which Process to Choose?

In this previous post, I had told you a bit about the different parts of the international adoption process in Canada.
So far, we've completed 1 step out of 3:

- Canadian Process (Home Study)

- Sri Lankan Process (Dossier and Match)

- Immigration Process

Step 2 is well under way (our Dossier is completed and we're waiting for a Match).

And while we wait, we're starting Step 3. The immigration process cannot be completed before you have your kid, but it should be started while you wait. If your country has a particularly quick process, you should probably even start while you're still in the Home Study process... I know some countries also require that the immigration be started before the Dossier can be sent out. It's not the case for Sri Lanka.

Pablo and I have just started looking at this process a few weeks ago. At first, I was severely overwhelmed by the amount (and vagueness) of the information to process. But my naturalized husband was unimpressed and took things into his own hands.

The very first thing to do is to decide on which process to use. Let me explain:

There are 2 ways for your internationally adopted child to become a Canadian citizen. 

1- Immigration Process: This is the old way of doing things. It's also slower and more complicated. It involves sponsoring your child, obtaining a Permanent Resident Visa (which will grant her Permanent Residency upon entry to Canada) from the Canadian visa office in her country of birth, and applying for Canadian Citizenship once the child is in Canada. Travelling outside of the country will be more complicated for your family as long as she remains a Permanent Resident. It may mean obtaining visas for her that you do not need for Canadian citizens. 

2- Citizenship Process: This newer process was put in place to simplify our lives. It's done in 2 parts. First, adoptive parents have to prove that they are eligible. Then they apply for their child's Citizenship. They can then obtain a Canadian passport for him. 

If the automatic Citizenship process is so much simpler, then why doesn't everybody use it?

There are several reasons to go the extra mile and choose the Immigration process. First, adoptive parents may not be eligible to apply for automatic Citizenship. There is a long list of conditions you have to meet... The other good reason to consider the long process is that automatic Citizenship is not hereditary...

If your grandchildren are born in Canada, then that's no problem. But if your kid ends up living abroad and having kids in, say, Zimbabwe, then your grandchildren will not be Canadians. In some cases, the only citizenship your grand-kids could have is that of your child's country of origin. And in extreme cases, your grand-kids could be stateless... Of course, if it's important to him, your child will come back to Canada before his children are born. But this limits his lifestyle options as an adult.

So how exactly do you decide? These are questions you should consider when choosing your process:

- Are you eligible for both processes? The conditions are listed here. 

- How important is it to you to keep doors opened for your child to make his own decisions about where he lives in the future? Does your family culture encourage relocation and long term travels?

- How limiting is your child's country-of-origin's citizenship? If your grand-children end up having citizenship only from a third world country, travelling (even to visit Canada) could be an ordeal for their whole life. If, however, you adopted from a rich country with an easy-to-live-with citizenship, you may decide the consequences of them not being Canadians is bearable.

- How much will you need to travel in the months after you bring your child home? Are you willing to obtain a visa for her every time you travel out of Canada? Approximate processing times for Citizenship Applications are available here.

For all the information about the differences between the Citizenship and the Immigration process, see this page from Citizenship and Immigration Canada's website.

There is detailed information about the first generation rule on this page too, under New Citizenship Law and Adoption. 

And if you end up choosing the long, unclear Immigration process, stay tuned! Pablo and I, although eligible for both, have decided that the risk of our grand-children being Sri Lankan and not Canadian outweighs the extra paperwork. We're going to try to sponsor our Cinnamon Bun and obtain the PR visa for him/her. In the coming weeks, I'll post about how the paperwork is coming along, and what I understand about the process...