Monday October 19, 2009-The Day From Hell

The day started off beautifully and I had a lovely walk the length of the beach.

Today was the day we were going to Canada Customs to get our cameras and computers registered for border crossing. After that we were going to cross into Buffalo and scope out our route to check on construction etc for leaving tomorrow.

We pulled up to the U.S. border and gave the lady our passports. She swiped it and obviously something came up on the screen so she said that we had to go inside. She kept our passports.

Eventually I got called to the desk and was immediately treated like a criminal. Apparently what happened was I applied for a green card in 1992 as we had been married in 1990 and Gordon had not gotten a job in Ontario yet so since I worked for State Farm we thought I would just transfer to somewhere in the US, Virginia Beach was on the table. However, Gordon got a job and I never moved to the U.S.

Gordon was with me when I got my green card and I was not told that I had to return it if I didn't use it, so I still have the card. I kept it as kind of a souvenir. Anyway after a certain time they started deportation proceedings against me which is ridiculous since I never lived there and I have been back and forth across the border often during that time visiting family and twice a year in the past five years of fulltiming.

Anyway, this Immigration person was rude, nasty and was basically calling me a liar. It was freaking me out! Eventually he said that they would fingerprint me to see if I had a record - Who Me? With that being done I guess they ran my prints, then he came back to me and said that I could apply to have the deportation set aside and gave me a form with instructions. Nowhere in the instructions did it tell you where to go about doing this or what forms were needed or anything else. He did give me the phone number there for Immigration and a phone number for the Judge. We stopped at a couple of lawyers in Fort Erie but none of them could help with US Immigration, only Canadian Immigration.

So we're heading back to Ottawa on Wednesday and will probably get the RV winterized although my sister thinks I should hold off till we go to the US consulate in Ottawa and see what they say. At any rate, I don't think this will be resolved quickly. We are, after all, dealing with the Government.

We're both exhausted, angry and very tired and I'm quite put out about being treated the way I was. There is more to it but I'm trying to do a synopsis.

So, we'll see what happens from here. We've cancelled all our reservations that we'd made for Ohio, called all the kids and Gordon's sister and will have to call our park at Port Lavaca to let them know what's happening.

I have a line on a place to live if it works out so we'll have to buy winter boots and a snow brush!