Here is another example of why people need a competent lawyer to represent them in immigration matters. If this woman would have sought legal representation, sh probably would not have made so many errors, or ignored the fact that her application was never made. This story seems a bit odd, no one can assume that they can simply "stay" without a formal approval.
Breastfeeding mom told to leave Canada
Breastfeeding mom told to leave Canada
By Susan Lazaruk, Postmedia NewsNovember 14, 2010
A B.C. woman, who says she’s being forced to leave the country by noon Monday despite being married to a Canadian and having three Canadian-born children, is worried the federal order will split her family apart.
Paula Terry, 48, said she’s been issued an exclusion order by Canada Border Services Agency that prevents her from returning to Canada for a year.
“They said they can arrest me if I don’t leave or they will issue a warrant for my arrest,” she said.
The mother of nine children, four of whom are adults living in the U.S., moved to Canada about 10 years ago. She married Ken LaBossiere, 55, an ironworker in 2004.
The couple have three children, ages eight, four and three, and live in Ladner, B.C. with Terry’s two teenage children from previous relationships.
She assumed she had the legal right to live in Canada, until this past summer.
“As soon as I got married and had Canadian kids, I stopped worrying (about my citizenship),” she said. “I really didn’t think I was here illegally. Until they came here in the summer. It was a bit of a shock.”
She said she paid the $500 fee to begin the sponsorship process, but suffers from dyslexia and post-traumatic stress disorder from living in an abusive relationship with her first husband and had trouble with filling it out.
The application, which required FBI checks among other data from the several states she has lived in, was returned as incomplete.
“I’m not really good at filling out forms,” she said. “If you saw the list of what they wanted you to do, it’s really daunting.”
She enlisted the help of a University of B.C. law student, who wrote that Terry’s removal from Canada would cause “undue hardship and irreparable harm” to the school-aged children and the three-year-old, who is still breastfeeding, as well as to LaBossiere.
Her children’s school principal wrote a letter urging officials to consider delaying the order until the end of the school year because “her absence from the family will bring disruption of routines, school attendance and emotional support provided by a mother for all the children.”
CBSA formally rejected Terry’s request for a deferral of the removal order on Nov. 9.
Terry said she doesn’t have friends or relatives to stay with in the U.S. and will likely check into a YMCA in Washington state with her three-year-old.
Immigration and Border Services officials weren’t available for comment Sunday.
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