EVEN UK FOLKS GET HURT BY VISA AUTHORITIES
Similarly, due to visa manipulations at the Wiesbaden Integrationsamt over the previous three years, John Walker of the UK moved with his wife, Melia, at the end of last year, to Canada.
John has been a life-long trainer in various companies and at universities in the UK and abroad over the last few decades . Three years ago, John had arrived in Wiesbaden, Germany with Melia in order to teach and work in universities and training centers in Frankfurt and Mannheim. John liked his work here in Hessen, but his wife, Melia, was constantly having visa troubles. In two and a half years, the couple had to apply 5 times for a visa for Melia to stay in Germany
You see, Meli, who had lived in the UK for the previous 15 years of her life, was of Taiwanese descent. In short, Melia had never bothered to get a European passport.
To make a long story short, after her husband, John, had fought the German bureaucrats for nearly three years, Melissa (and John) decided to take the first visa- and job offer to Canada in November 2008.
MORE FLEEING TO CANADA FROM GERMANY
Similarly, after fighting the German bureaucrats in Wiesbaden's Integration Offices most of 2009, the Abdul Riad family will be flying this very October (2009) back to Canada to restart their lives--even though he hasn't yet found any replacement work for himself and his wife.
For several months, prior to giving up on their dream to move to Germany, Abdul and Melissa, had candidly considered fighting the inhumane treatment of their family under the currently questionable visa restrictions employed in Germany, i.e. they had thought of taking the whole case of visa discrimination to their household through to the Supreme Court in Germany. However, in the end, in order for their family to be spared the probability of facing even more certainty in 2010 while their visa case chugged through the German courts, the Riad family finally took what little they have left of their savings back to Canada, in order to start over.
Molly, too, is throwing in the towel this year on ever getting a decent work visa in Europe. That is a kind of visa that would obtain her legal protections if she lost her job or at least a visa that would lead to her employers helping her pay for the expensive German healthcare system. (Molly will be returning to the USA by the end of November this year.)
HESSEN AND BEYOND
Wiesbaden is not the only city in Germany that seems to strive to get North Americans kicked out or that seems to try to keep North Americans unemployed in Europe.
Let me tell you about Donald.
Donald's father works for a major U.S. government agency, so Donald's mother and father moved over to work out of Frankfurt over five years ago. With this job situation, both Donald's mother and father have received diplomatic visas to live and work in Germany. Alas, some years ago, Donald had been told upon his arrival by authorities in Germany that he was too old to be covered by his parent' s visa. So, when Donald was in his early 20s he went through the process of applying for a German work visa on his own.
Over the past 4 years, Donald has seen more flipflops and loopholes and criminal irresponsibility at Integrationamts in Frankfurt than even Molly, John & Melia, Abdul and Melissa observed in other locations in Germany.
For example, one year Donald was told point-blank that he couldn't work in Germany no matter what. Another year he got a work visa with a great fight. Still, another year he was told the visa would not be renewed. He and his parents fought the Integration Office in Frankfurt until the visa was, in fact, renewed last year.
Late this year, 2009, however, Donald was told by Frankfurt Integrationsamt employees that Donald had never needed a visa at-all because his parents' diplomatic passports stated very clearly that Donald could live and work in Germany under their visa--after all--until the age of 27 as long as he wasn't married and was in the same house living as a dependent. (Was this was a European-wide law that had suddenly been rediscovered? Or was this something more than incompetence? Was it an anti-North American policy in Frankfurt?)
