Thanks for your support everyone. I am truly upset that my government has failed me, and called me a fraud. After everything I showed them, they were just stretching for reasons to deny us. They wanted a lease contract or something, and I mean come on! My Dominican landlady with a third grade education would have laughed in my face if I had asked for that. She just gave me receipts every month. But immigration says anyone at anytime could have created those receipts. So in this process, you are assumed to be a fraudulant liar first and foremost. I had testimonials from my entire family saying that I was there and living with him, but they say those hold no water either. They are just letters.
They also said I didn't have a valid working permit, therefore that's even less proof I was there. I spoke to Dominican officials who told me it wasn't required, and even submitted a letter from the DR Embassy telling my case worker that this was irrelevant, and I never needed it to work.
I am appealing obviously. Applying again would do nothing, as I have no further proof to give them. In this way, I will get to be my own witness and tell them all the mistakes they have made. It takes 6 months to a year to get a hearing, and it's still no guarantee. But trust me... I will be walking into that hearing with a marriage certificate.
I suggest NOBODY apply under common-law. It is a bogus category that is impossible to prove when dealing with the DR. They are set on denying people, and there's nothing we can prove that will change that. We have been wronged. We were told being married made no difference, and look where that got us. We were lied to, and they wasted our time and money, asking for more documents, making him go to an interview, when all along they thought our supporting documents were flimsy and fraudulant.
Just so everyone knows, we are as legitimate as it gets - same age, no kids, no previous marriages. We are young, in our twenties, and just trying to start a life together. Immigration has made it so I have wasted almost two years of my life living in a foreign country. I gave up Canada, and my family, to be there so we could apply this way, and it wasn't good enough. And bottom line is they don't believe I was there. They are mistaken. I haven't been denied on some technicality, I have been denied on someone's incorrect judgment and assumption, and ignorance about the country they are dealing with.
So anyways, yes we are appealing, and I'm going to take yet another trip and spend thousands more dollars that I don't have as a twenty-three year old, and go get married in some dinky hotel. Without my family, as they cannot travel right now. My country is forcing heart-ache into my whole family, and forcing me to take a course of action in my life that I didn't want to take. I wanted to marry my husband when we were together permanently and could start a life together. But this is what Canada does to honest, innocent, legitimate people.
Applicants for PR Visas, beware. If you have any doubts about your case, don't bother. Because immigration will expose them and waste your time.
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