I’ve Fled the US, Now What?
I’ve been settling into a routine with my friends here. They’ve been wonderful for letting me stay in their house.
There’s a nature trail near the house, so every morning I walk about 45 minutes. It’s nice to start the day that way.
It’s been a bit chilly, certainly chillier than I’m used to for September, but nothing crazy yet. My friends have been super sweet in giving me a space heater, and setting the temperature up just a little bit more than they used to. We’ll see how I handle it once the colder weather hits.
I like it here. I like living with them. It’s been nice to have people I know and can hang out with in a place where I’d otherwise be alone.
It’s weird being here and watching everything still happening in the US. Just yesterday Charlie Kirk was shot and killed. He was not a good person. He was in the middle of fear mongering about trans folks, saying we commit “too many” mass shootings, when he was shot.
I’m frightened what that might mean for the discourse about trans folks in the country, especially with the school shooting that happened just a couple of weeks ago where a trans person murdered innocent children.
There have been calls for all trans folks to be detained to figure out what makes us naturally violent despite only 4 or 5 mass shooting events out of thousands having been committed by trans folks in the past few years. People have been saying we should be executed. Now they’re trying to classify us as mentally ill as a way to get guns away from the trans community, and as a way to lock us up.
I’m scared. I’m scared of everything the US is doing. It’s been so hard to watch my country just slide backwards into fascism. I think my country is gone, and I don’t know how to process that.
Trump and his Fascist Republicans have caused so much damage that I don’t know if we’ll see the damage undone in my lifetime. It’s horrifying to watch.
There’s been talk of a meteor cruising through our galaxy. Some scientists claim that it’s not of natural origin, and must be an alien ship of some kind. At this point, I think anything has to be better than what we’re living through, so bring on the aliens.
Residency
I’ve been looking into ways to get residency here. I would quality for the self-employed persons program, but that was paused in 2024 and won’t reopen until 2027.
So I’ve looked into the Express Entry program for Federal skilled workers, and I would qualify for that. I need to schedule to take an in person English test to make sure I’m fluent, and then I need to have my university diploma shipped to a company that can verify that my education meets the standards of Canada’s education system. Once I’ve done both of those and have those results back, I can then apply for the Express Entry Program.
They rank their jobs TEER 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The Express Entry program takes only TEER 0, 1, 2, and 3. I had to look up my visitor services manager job, and it would fall under TEER 2, so I qualify there.
I need to have worked at least 1 full year of full time employment (or enough hours part time that it amounts for 1 year of full time) in that job within the last 10 years. Since I was a visitor services manager working full time until 2019 when I stepped down to run my own business, I qualify there.
Much like the self-employed persons program, you’re ranked on a point system. For Express Entry the minimum threshold of points is 67. But I would get points for my language, education, etc. Without the English test, I can’t tell how many points I would get for that yet.
Hopefully I can take the language test somewhere nearby without having to drive a few hours. I have yet to drive here, and I’ll admit it makes me nervous. I don’t know all of their traffic laws, and what if I screw up and don’t realize it. I can walk to the store here, and my friends have been driving me around places so I don’t have to drive, but the test is supposed to take 3 hours, and I would never expect them to drive me for that.
It’s all been a bit overwhelming trying to figure out what to do. But I’m hopeful that I can figure it out. I need to figure it out. I’m worried at the end of my visa, that they won’t let me back in for more time. It’s up to the border agent, and that means it comes down to my personality to get me back in. So I’m screwed unless I can get residency.
It's been a wild year. I never thought we’d all be living through this, but here we are.