Ken Burns’ tale of the US National Parks reminds me of a heritage that I have, for most of my life, taken for granted. It was in another country, but it is a heritage that I have assumed will always be there.

I grew up amongst the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks. Dead center amongst them you might say. Within two hours drive, there were five spectacular parks – Yoho, Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, Glacier, and Mt. Revelstoke.

All of these parks played a part in my childhood, adolescence, and young adult life. It has been nearly 20 years since I spent any time in these parks, but the experience I had there have shaped how I see the world around me. But only now can I really appreciate what these parks mean to us all, in all places.

The parks are a powerful reminder of the transitory effect that man has. Each of them contains some amount of ruins as a visible reminder of man’s failed attempts to exploit and tame the parks. The carcasses of hotels, remains of viaducts, the skeletons of towns litter these refuges.

A part of that failed heritage is something I carry with me, as I am descended from one of the last group permanent residents of an industrial town in a Canadian National Park, as my grandfather lived for a time in the now abandoned town of Bankhead Alberta. My family took me to this place as a child and told me that ‘Grandpa lived here’, a concept I could not understand, as I was in a National Park, wasn’t I? I had no idea of the conflict over what it meant to be a Canadian National Park at the time, as I saw them as the refuges and preserves they had become.

Growing up amongst these special places has left with a certain jaded perspective on beauty in the world. Yosemite does not awe the way it does others, as I was raised surrounded by beauty comparable to Yosemite, and perhaps exceeding it. But now I give my unrestrained thanks to those who made the effort to preserve, protect, and conserve these places.

Within the gently protective walls of the Canadian Mountain Parks, I have seen the sublime and the ridiculous. The commercial and the ethereal. Untouched wilderness and unabashed capitalism. And despite protests on both sides, it is clear that they work together, for without the treasure and largesse of one type of visitor, the other would not have a place to go.

Banff is the greatest eyesore amongst those who see the parks as the preserve of untrammeled wilderness. However, if Banff had not existed, the desire and initiative needed to protect the other four parks would not have gained ground. So a commercial pit keeps the wilderness protected, a balance that we can accept in a day of far greater compromises.

So though the idea of a National Park may have been originated in the US, Canada has done well to develop the idea on its own terms. Only now that I am many thousands of miles removed from them, can I appreciate what they have done to to shape me. These memories leave me breathless in the realization of the great privilege I have taken for granted for all of these years.

I will have been in the US for a decade as of July 27 2009. The first move saw me take my family 1,000 miles south to the Bay Area and then 3,500 miles east to the Boston area.

When I left Canada, I always assumed that my stay in the Excited States would be short. I was in the country to learn, grow, take advantage of the experience that the giant next door would give me. Then we would return to Canada and settle into a quiet life.

Ten years on, I have a Green Card (don’t ask about that nightmare) and when I come home to Canada, I realize how far I have wandered from the country that I still refer to as home.

Add to that the fact that most of the visits we make are to one of the fastest growing and most expensive cities in the country and every trip out to places I once knew brings ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ moments.

I wax nostalgic for this place, this city near the mountains, surrounded by the sea. It is the city of my young adult life, where I learned the skills I needed to get on in life; where I met my wife; where I felt at home.

What a difference ten years makes. We have placed our roots in another place, a very different place. A place that couldn’t be more different than here.

I joke that I am legally prevented from voting in two countries. As a transplant I will never be completely at home in the place where I live. The country of my birth is an interesting and lovely place, a stranger that I rediscover a little bit on every visit.

When we travel back to the country of my birth, I realize that the move to the US saved me, saved from being trapped by narrow goals and shortened horizons. But the move came with a price.

As someone who lives with a gardener, I know the value of a plant in the right place. Often you don’t discover that a plant is in the wrong spot until you have had it for a few years. Then, one season, you transplant it, and, with some more sun and a little more water, it blossoms, it thrives.

The gardener who does that is always pleased with the results, but is frustrated by the time lost by having a wonderful plant fight for life, wasting its its energy and effort to survive rather than to thrive.

To thrive, I had to leave. But I left a piece of me behind.

Being a Canadian in the United States for the last nine years has been an interesting adventure, to say the least. Although our nations are neighbours, there can be two more different approaches to the same problem so close to each other.

I can’t claim to be an expert on how Canada processes new immigrants, but I can say that it has to be better than what has happened in the US.

Nine years ago, I started out on the NAFTA Free-Trade visa, the TN-1. This is a non-immigration visa, which is restrictive in the occupations that you can work in, but essentially allows highly-skilled Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans to work in the free trade zone, a term I use very loosely in this context.

In 2001, my status was migrated by my previous employer to an H1-B. This is a much more formal visa and is used for skilled workers from around the world. It is also infamous for its quota system, and is the bane of most (if not all) high-tech firms who insist on recruiting the best talent from around the world to work in the Unuted States.

In some respects, while the off-shoring trend that was so big a concern a few years back (still?) is founded on a number of different economic realities, the driving force was the restrictive nature of the H1-B visa. I encountered a version of this when I changed employers and transferred my H1-B from employer A to employer B. When I did this, I could not leave the US, for any reason, until I had my new H1-B without forfeiting the entire process.

One of the conditions I had for switching employers was that employer B would start the Green Card process for me and my family. This process alone has taken 3.5 years, and from what I can tell, being an employment-based application from a Canadian means that I haven’t had to wait nearly as long as some of the people who apply under other circumstances or from “less friendly” nations.

This process is approaching (we hope) its final phase, as there is talk from the people assisting us that there is a chance that we may be processed through the final stages in late 2008 or early 2009. But, as with all things related to this process, this is still very much speculative.

Whew.

So, as a citizen of the United States reading this, you are likely saying “So what?”, or “How does this affect me?”. Frankly, it doesn’t. But, in a fundamental way, it does.

As a nation built almost completely on immigration, the United States has become increasing isolationist, especially in its immigration policies. Mostly at a political level. Where the conflict appears to be developing is between the political agenda and the economic needs of the US economy. US firms are reliant on importing the best and the brightest from around the world. These same firms are now finding increasing resistance from these highly-skilled employees who are looking at the current state of the US economy and the incredibly restrictive immigration criteria, and choosing to walk away, or choose other more lucrative and less restrictive opportunities.

As a person involved in this process, I can say that up until late last year, when I recieved my EAD, I was in effect an indentured serf, beholden to the company for which I worked, which none of the options or flexibility that my US colleagues had available to them.

I own a house. My children go to school in the town where I own my house. I pay US, not Canadian, taxes. I pay property tax.

However, in the eyes of the United States government, I am considered “three-fifths of a person”. A person bound to this country but not of this country.

The truly American among you may say “Shut up and become a citizen”. I chose not to. I have chosen to retain my personal Canadian Identity, those things that I hold dear that separate Canadian and Americans. I retain my Canadian passport. My youngest son holds dual-citizenship.

I have chosen to make a life in the United States. However, the process that I have been involved in does not allow me to recommend this path to any other Canadians.

To other Canadians, I say: Stay home. Make Canada the best it can be. Make it a truly integrated player in the Global Economy.

To the United States, I say: Wake up. Your destiny has come, and gone. And the way you treat your immigrants is a clear demonstration of that.

Some have said that the United States is a fading empire, most-often compared to the Roman Empire. However, as this piece in the LA Times states, even an ancient empire, in its fading glory, understood how you become great: You become more than the sum of your parts.

Ok, as someone who is waiting for his Green Card, the story of the treatment allegedly received by Hiu Lui Ng frightens me. [BoingBoing link here. NY Times here ]

My Green Card has been in process for more than three years. We are supposedly approaching the end of the long road. But how do I know I won’t be thrown in jail and deported because of some silly clerical error?

We are all enemy aliens until proven otherwise. No wonder US corporations are finding it harder and harder to sell the idea of emigration to the US to potential employees from outside their boundaries.

“Yes, it is possible that you will be thrown in jail and mistreated because of some silly clerical error. It’s more likely that we will just keep you in fear and treat you like second-class indentured servants for 3-4 years until we’re done with you. Now, about our medical plan…”

In the community of voices I follow online, one of the continuing themes is the narrowness and antiquated coverage provided by NBC(I launched into a screed on the topic this weekend).

I have also heard that many people are using the tools at their disposal (open proxy servers being the most notable) to circumvent the geo-location tools of the providers to view coverage from other national providers. I thought I would share some of my experiences with two of the providers, BBC and CBC.

BBC

Finding proxy servers in the UK turned out to be relatively simple, and I was able to get to the BBC site and view, with substantial performance penalties, some of the video on the site. This was a tactic I have used before, as I am a fan of English Football, and need to use this method to gain access to highlights and match-day broadcasts.

CBC

I am, well, disappointed with the lack of success I have had with the CBC. I hear from people in the homeland that the coverage makes NBC looks like the US is the only country in the Olympics, where the CBC provides a true global perspective. However, finding a proxy server that can fool the CBC video servers has been impossible. Therefore, I continue to not watch any Olympics at all.

I am sure that there are other means (P2P, Torrents, etc.), but I am finding that, well, I don’t care that much. It is the events in South Ossetia / Georgia, Zimbabwe, and other hot-spots that I am finding far more relevant to my day-to-day life.

So while I appreciate some of the challenges posed by circumventing the monopoly of the mind that NBC wants to claim, once that was achieved with the BBC, I found that I was in a So what? position.

But before I give up, has anyone had any success with getting the CBC feeds to work outside Canada?

This morning, the Canadian Dollar was briefly worth more than the US Dollar on international money markets.

Skating on the River Styx, anyone?

Well, now that I’m certified, the slope gets slippery very quickly.

We have until early August to get all of our docs to the lawyers before the August 17 deadline.

Many calls, pictures, doctors appointments, and huge expense.

Going to be a fun month.

Well folks, I got the good news last night: I am Department of Labor Certified.

This means that I can now actually apply for a Green Card.

Oh yeah, and based on some of the other happenings in the world of US Immigration (here and here), I am part of the group that is either going to be royally screwed over, or be part of some sort of general amnesty due to political manipulation and greed entering into the process.

Could be a fun month.

It seems that more than the usual immigration backlog reduction process has been at work in the USCIS. There are two likely scenarios that appear to be running around immigration circles these days, regarding the Green Card slot tease that has turned into such a furore.

The first is that the Department of State, which issues the Visas, was pressuring the USCIS to fill the Fiscal 2007 Green Card quota, something that has happened rarely in the last few years. What most people in the US don’t know is that most years, thousands of eligible Green Card slots simply disappear because the applications can’t be processed fast enough by the USCIS.

Recent events have highlighted this, and the Department of State may have applied pressure to USCIS to completely exhaust the 2007 pool, to avoid the embarrassment of having to explain to Congress why they can’t process applications faster.

The second reason is greed: as of August 1 2007, the government fees for Green card applications increases massively. For a family of four, the cost will increase by $2,500. So, by not allowing the flood of applications from all of those expectant people, they have guaranteed themselves a higher revenue stream for next year.

All things considered, the whole event smells.

Now, for the long-term affect on skilled immigrants, Microsoft has set the trend by announcing that it will be moving development over the border to Canada [here]. As a country with a skills-based immigration policy, highly-trained technical professionals feel welcomed and wanted in Canada, something that is not the case with the archaic and glacial immigration policy of the United States.

In the next 5-10 years, US companies will face a serious inability to recruit employees from anywhere other than the United States. Skilled professionals will simply not come to a country that actively discourages them from staying permanently and making a contribution.

The US policy policy will be a boon to Canada, Ireland, and other countries who actively seek and encourage skilled professional immigrants.

Tags: USCIS, Department of State, immigration, Green Card, skilled professionals, Canada, Ireland, brain drain

I have been reading Greg Siskind’s blog, and he has many articles on the growing hue and cry over the USCIS Visa debacle. [here and here, as examples]

Based on everything I have read, I might benefit from this scam. However, it makes me ill to think that a group of bureaucrats broke their own rules in order to boost their Visa acceptance rate, which is what it sounds like.

Tags: Greg Siskind, USCIS, Green Card, immigration