But, I keep hearing and reading all of these "horror stories" about people waiting up to even TEN YEARS for immigration applications to get approval, particularly in Canada. The minimum I've read has always been over a year's wait, which still seems really long to me in this age of instant gratification.
Did you just go to those places as a visitor and lived there while applying for a more permanent residency or did you do a temporary work visa or something else?
These questions coming from an American wanting to immigrate to Canada as a first choice, but is seriously looking at S and SE Asia as well.
Ten years is not that bad actually, I can point you to a family that has been living there for 30 years and they still don't have their status.
As for the process, there are different 'routes', I picked the entrepreneur/investor route through the Buffalo office, I was / am fairly well connected and in spite of all that (and employing a bunch of people and some major investments).
My visum was a temporary work permit until landed immigrant status would be given but I never reached that stage.
Canadian immigration usually was quite ok when dealing with them at the airport (once every two weeks for two years), but I've had my frustrating encounters too, with hours of waiting to be sent on my way within 2 minutes of it being 'my turn'. Road crossings were a mixed bag, sometimes no problem at all, sometimes a big hassle when someone decided to pretend they're guarding Canada from all those Dutch terrorists they've been having lately.
We ended up going back because we had had enough of it. The schools in the area where we lived (rural Northern Ontario) didn't help either and the weather is simply brutal out there.
But again, I do not regret having done this, it gave me a completely new perspective on life and living.
Last I checked it was taking around 9 months if you could make your skillset fit in to one of their priority job classes where Canada is experiencing skill shortages. It's much quicker to get a temporary work permit if you can find an employer to sponsor you, and then apply for residency once you're here (which is what i'm doing).
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But, I keep hearing and reading all of these "horror stories" about people waiting up to even TEN YEARS for immigration applications to get approval, particularly in Canada. The minimum I've read has always been over a year's wait, which still seems really long to me in this age of instant gratification.
Did you just go to those places as a visitor and lived there while applying for a more permanent residency or did you do a temporary work visa or something else?
These questions coming from an American wanting to immigrate to Canada as a first choice, but is seriously looking at S and SE Asia as well.
Ten years is not that bad actually, I can point you to a family that has been living there for 30 years and they still don't have their status.
As for the process, there are different 'routes', I picked the entrepreneur/investor route through the Buffalo office, I was / am fairly well connected and in spite of all that (and employing a bunch of people and some major investments).
My visum was a temporary work permit until landed immigrant status would be given but I never reached that stage.
Canadian immigration usually was quite ok when dealing with them at the airport (once every two weeks for two years), but I've had my frustrating encounters too, with hours of waiting to be sent on my way within 2 minutes of it being 'my turn'. Road crossings were a mixed bag, sometimes no problem at all, sometimes a big hassle when someone decided to pretend they're guarding Canada from all those Dutch terrorists they've been having lately.
We ended up going back because we had had enough of it. The schools in the area where we lived (rural Northern Ontario) didn't help either and the weather is simply brutal out there.
But again, I do not regret having done this, it gave me a completely new perspective on life and living.
There's an absolute ton of info to be had by trawling through the wiki and forums of British Expats:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=33
Last I checked it was taking around 9 months if you could make your skillset fit in to one of their priority job classes where Canada is experiencing skill shortages. It's much quicker to get a temporary work permit if you can find an employer to sponsor you, and then apply for residency once you're here (which is what i'm doing).