The following is completely true. I am stuck in the UK until May, and I have lost the 3.5 years of residence toward the 5 years I need to apply for permanent residence. And why? Read on...
In
Prague, I wake up every morning to my cat's purring. I feed him, then
look out the window at the beautiful park as I get ready for work.
When I arrive at the school, I'm greeted with smiles and cheers. The
children grin and shout “Hello, Miss Megan!” Some of them run up
and hug me and tell me they're ready for English. I've got first and
second graders this year, but the third, fourth, and fifth graders I
taught last year always give me a happy hello when they see me in the
hall.
I
think of this every morning now as I wake up on the sofa provided to
me by the only friend I could find outside of the Shengen zone, here
in Edinburgh, Scotland. I look out the window at the gray sky and the
wet, cracked bricks and concrete splattered with garbage. We do not
live in a nice part of town. We don't have the money. I take a deep
breath and inhale the terrible smell of a rodent that has died
somewhere in the air vents of the building. The landlord promised
he'd get it taken care of soon, but it's been three weeks already and
it's only getting worse. I wish I was exaggerating or, better yet,
making this up completely. But this is my reality. I'm terribly
homesick, but I can't go home.
The
first thing I do is check my email and phone for any news from the
Czech Ministry of the Interior, the bureaucratic institution that has
rendered me homeless. Most days there is nothing. Occasionally I get
a message informing me that the committee decided not to meet again
this week. They'll get back to me within 30 days, they say. They will
send the decision by registered mail to my official address in Prague
– where I am legally not permitted to go to pick it up. I've asked
them if they would send it to me here in Scotland, or if I could sign
a power of attorney for someone else to get it for me. So far, the
only answers have been “I don't know” and “we'll get back to
you on that.”
The
committee is legally forbidden from communicating with people who
have submitted appeals in any manner other than writing. No email, no
phone. The only contact I have is a clerk with a stutter who always
looks terrified because, as he told me at our fist meeting, this is
his first case and he really has no idea how any of this works.
I'm
a teacher at a Czech state základní
škola. Not
a language school or a private school, but a normal public one for
the local children. We've got a great English program which takes
place in the afternoon, after normal classes, but is still integrated
with the school as a whole. All of the children in our program learn
from native speakers in small groups. It's a spectacular program, and
each of the teachers requires a great deal of experience and training
before they begin work here. To be sure, it's not easy to replace a
teacher that suddenly gets deported.
At
the end of last June, I submitted my request to extend my long-term
residency. I've done this twice before and I was terrified. They
always manage to find some kind of problem, even if you've done
everything exactly the same as last time. I handed the woman at the
desk my application and all my documents. Proof of accommodation:
newly signed lease for my apartment. Proof of reason to stay: letter
from the živnostenský
úřad extending
my trade license. Proof of no debt: bezdlužnosti
from the
social and finance offices. Proof of finances: official, stamped bank
statement showing regular deposits into my account for the past year,
averaging several times more than the minimum required income.
The
woman frowned at the bank statement. She wasn't sure if it was
acceptable. Normally, she said, they want a document from the tax
office. However, this was an official statement for a full year. She
consulted her supervisor. Yes, they decided, this would be
sufficient. I clearly make enough money to live here. I breathed a
sigh of relief and went about my business, knowing it would probably
take at least 9 months for them to process and approve my
application.
It
was nearly 4 years ago that I got my first visa to live in Prague. I
had left behind my abusive family in America, vowing never to return
to the country where everyone had guns but no one had health care.
I'd had a miserable life there, had been depressed to the point of
being near-suicidal for many years. There was nothing for me there.
No friends. No home. Since coming to Prague, I had made a new life
for myself. I had a beautiful apartment in a nice part of town and
tons of friends, many of whom were like family. I paid my social
security every month, filed my taxes every year. I had a happy,
honest life, and most importantly, I wasn't living only for me. I
wasn't working for a paycheck: I was teaching children. I was
changing lives. Every day I saw those smiling faces and I knew how
valuable I really was to the world.
I
don't work at the school every day. Some days, I work for Bridge
Publishing House. I'm a writer and editor for Bridge and Gate
magazines, educational publications for Czech students learning
English. While I'm teaching, I'm also brainstorming. I'm coming up
with ideas for exercises and articles for the magazine. I'm making
lists of grammar and vocabulary topics that should be covered and fun
ways we can help the readers learn and understand them. Teachers are
our main subscribers, so I keep notes on what would be helpful to
have in my own classes. I love writing for the magazines. I can take
all the ideas I use for my lessons and pass them on to other
teachers. Indirectly, I'm teaching all of their kids, too, from
primary school all the way through gymnazium and beyond.
A
few months after submitting my application, I got a letter in the
mail saying I had failed to prove my income. I had ten days to fix
this error in my application, or else it would be rejected. I went to
the finance office and obtained an official copy of my dáňové
příznány, my
tax form from the previous year,
and
brought that to them in person. The woman at the desk shook her head
and told me she wouldn't accept that. I had to give them a platební
výměr, a
summary
from the finance office of the taxes I'd paid last year. I quickly
called the finance office and asked them for the document. Normally
it takes them a week to process a request like this, but fortunately
they were understanding when I told them it was for the foreigner
police. They managed it in a few days, and I submitted it via
registered mail. Back to waiting again.
I
also have a private student whom I've taught for years. She's a
teenager now, a student in gymnazium, and so tall I can hardly
believe it. I always test out my ideas for the magazine on her, and
we have a great time coming up with new ones. Her grammar and
spelling have improved so much, it makes me so proud. I have taught
her younger brothers as well, and even babysat a few times. They're a
great family and always make me feel at home. They always invite me
to stay for dinner and ask how my visa application is going. There's
almost always an application in processing because it takes them so
long to process them. By the time you get your residence card, you
have about six months before it expires, and you have to get your
next application in by then.
After
another month, I got word that I still had not proven my income to
their satisfaction. I had only a few days to fix the mistake. This
time I went in person with a stack of signed, stamped invoices and a
new, updated official bank statement. I figured it will be easier to
sort this out in person, face to face with a living, thinking human
being. I showed the woman the documents, explaining that this was the
only proof of my current income that I had, but she pushed them away.
She wouldn't accept them, she said, because they were not suitable
proof of anything. These documents could be faked. The only document
that mattered was the one from the tax office, and according to that,
I didn't earn enough money.
How
could that be possible? My average income is several times what I
need to get by. In fact, I earn more per month than the average
Prague resident. She showed me the tax document and, after making a
few rude remarks to me (you learn to ignore those, as they're
standard procedure), she said they only look at my tax-free income. I
don't really understand the details of taxes, but my accountant
submitted mine with a 60% deduction, as a business owner. The clerk
did some math and calculated that I earned 400 kc less per month
(after taxes) than I required. 400 kc. That's it. If I could somehow
prove that I earned 400 kc more per month, I would be all set.
Well
that's easy, I told her. I earn way more money now than I did then.
These are last year's taxes, and it's already October. But I can't
file my taxes for this year until January, so what do I have to do?
Should I re-file my taxes for last year, without the 60% deduction?
Because I'm happy to do that, if that's what is necessary.
The
woman's eyes went wide. No.
She said I absolutely must
not re-file my taxes.
She pointed again at the 60% deduction: that's the maximum I can
take. According to her, if I took any less than that, it would
actually reduce
my income in the eyes of the foreigner police.
But,
I told her, that doesn't make any sense. If 40% of my income is
taxable, that doesn't mean I'm paying all of that in taxes. I
obviously earn plenty more than this. By this logic, you'd have to
earn 30,000 kc per month in order to survive in a cheap apartment.
The
woman shrugged her shoulders. Sorry. I know it doesn't make sense,
but it's out of my hands. This is the way it works. She sifted
through my documents and pulled out my lease. This is the problem,
she said. Your rent is too high. Your landlord doesn't specify how
much you pay for heat and electricity, so the state automatically
adds 1000 kc to cover that.
I
nearly laughed. In fact, my heat and electricity were included in my
rent, we just hadn't written it into the lease. The woman nearly
smiled then and said well that's it, you're all set. Just re-submit
the lease with a line saying the utilities are included in the cost
of the rent, send it by registered mail with a letter explaining you
are correcting a mistake, and your application will be approved.
What
a relief. I went home, made the change immediately, and sent the new
lease by registered mail with a letter the very next day. A week
later I got a letter saying my document had been accepted and my
application was in process once again.
I
hesitate to keep typing now, because I want the story to end there. I
did exactly what the woman told me. That should have been the end of
it.
A
few weeks later, I got another letter. I opened it excitedly, certain
that my application had been approved.
Czech
legalese is nearly impenetrable to me despite having studied the
language for years, so I passed it off to my Czech-speaking
co-teacher. Her face was serious. It was not good news.
My
application had been rejected due to a failure to prove sufficient
income and failure to respond to a letter that I had never received,
which had allegedly said, once again, that I hadn't proven my
finances. According to them, I had ignored this letter, although I
most certainly never received it.
The
rejection letter was many pages long and went into details about the
numbers. The information the woman had given me was completely wrong:
it wasn't the 60% they were using to calculate my income, but the 40%
I claimed for taxes. And I hadn't been 400 kc per month short, but
more than 2000 kc. What's more, despite the previous letter I had
received, they now wrote that they hadn't accepted my corrected
lease, because there was a small typo on one of the pages. The
landlord, a 75-year-old man, had changed the numbers on the lease,
but had forgotten to change one of the words, leading to a
contradiction. It was an obvious typo, but the ministry of the
interior really didn't care.
The
silver lining? I had the right to appeal if I disagreed with the
decision. I had my boss call the police and ask exactly what I needed
to do to successfully appeal. The woman on the phone said I should
send them invoices, bank statements, any and all proof I had of my
income – essentially, all the documents I had tried to submit
before, the ones the clerk had refused to accept. Then the appeal
would probably be rejected again, but then it would be passed on to
the next level, and I would still be able to stay in the country
until they made a new decision.
But
I'd been misinformed before. I once had a clerk tell me I had the
right to stay in the country, and then later found out I didn't. I
nearly got deported that time, and only sheer luck allowed me to
discover the problem in time to fix it. I wasn't about to take that
risk again. What could I do that would guarantee approval the first
time around?
The
answer was the same as before: a platební
výměr from
the finance office showing that I earned enough money last
year
to pay all my expenses this
year.
Could I simply re-file my taxes? Why, yes, of course I could,
according to the woman on the phone. In fact, that's what I should
have done in the first place.
I
resisted the urge to punch the wall in frustration. The woman at the
office had insisted that re-filing my taxes was not an option. Either
she had lied, or she didn't know what she was talking about... But
there is no other source of information than those clerks. I had no
choice but to trust her.
We
had one more question: this fifteen days, was it calendar days or
business days? She said it would surely be business days. These
things are always calculated in terms of business days. But what if I
couldn't get the document from the tax office in time? No problem,
she said. If you're waiting on another office for your paperwork, all
you have to do is send us a letter requesting more time to submit it,
for the reason that I'm waiting on a government office. They'll
extend the time and everything will be fine.
The
company hired an accountant for me, who got to work re-calculating my
income with a smaller deduction, and the boss wrote a letter for the
police requesting more time to submit the document. I took my new tax
forms to the finance office in person and sent a stamped copy of the
tax form (with my newly calculated income) along with the letter
requesting more time by registered mail. This was 9 business days
after receiving the rejection letter.
It
took the finance office a few days to process, but at last I got my
new platební
výměr and
sent it in along with an official appeal letter. This was 12 business
days after receiving the appeal letter. At last, I wasn't worried. I
had done exactly what they told me to do. One might think I would
have learned by then, but I was foolish enough to think that
everything would be okay.
Two
days later I got a letter saying my request for more time was
rejected for the reason that I had no right to request more time. How
was this possible? Because we had made a tiny mistake in the letter.
Instead of saying it was an appeal (odvolání),
my boss had written the word for appending
documents to the application (dodatky).
I had no right to append anything because I had already been
rejected, and therefore I wasn't given any more time.
But
I should still be fine, said my boss, because I had still submitted
the appeal letter 12 business days after receiving the rejection
letter. But my stomach fell through my feet into the floor below,
because somehow I had a feeling that wasn't going to work out.
The
foreigner police refused to give any more information over the phone,
so my boss went with me in person to the office to sort out what had
happened. We explained the situation to the woman at the desk, who
was looking at my file on the computer screen. We never received any
appeal, she said. Your case is already closed.
That's
not true! It was all I could do not to shout. I showed her my copy of
the appeal letter, and the sentence in the rejection letter saying I
had 15 days to submit it. That's business days, right? I asked her.
She nodded her head, yes, of course that's business days, it's always
business days. She smiled. Well in this case, you should be all set.
This is exactly what we needed from you. Let me just get my
supervisor.
The
supervisor was not smiling. She pointed at the sentence in the
rejection letter: 15 days. If it were business days, she said, it
would have said business days. You submitted your letter 16 calendar
days after receiving this. Your case is closed. You have to leave.
It
was at this point that I broke down sobbing, and my whole life in
Prague started flashing through my head. I'd been living there nearly
four years, paying social security and taxes, teaching children,
doing educational work. My boss continued trying to negotiate with
the clerks, pointing out that it was a question of a single day and
that I had been misinformed, but they kept robotically repeating the
same sentences over and over again: She did not appeal within the
assigned period. Her case is closed.
She
did not appeal within the assigned period. Her case is closed.
There
is nothing we can do, they said. She can submit an application for a
new visa, but she can't be in the country until it's approved.
At
last, my boss got them to admit that yes, I could try to appeal. But
unless I could prove that they'd
made a mistake, it would almost certainly be rejected.
I
almost shouted again, trying to speak through the tears and the sobs.
You DID make a mistake, I said. The woman told me I couldn't use bank
statements and invoices as proof. She told me I couldn't re-file my
taxes. She said if I changed my lease, it would all be fine. I did
everything she said. She gave me the wrong information. And then two
other people told me I had 15 business
days to submit my appeal. The woman on the phone said we could get
more time to submit my documents. I've done everything I was told to
do. You
made the mistakes, not me.
Again,
the woman shrugged. Do you have any proof of this?
…
Proof?
I've
tried in the past to get proof. I've asked clerks to write things
down for me, and they've always refused, saying they're not allowed.
I've asked them to speak to friends over the phone so I had a witness
to what they said, and they said no, they're not permitted to speak
to anyone on the phone. I thought once that I would tape our
conversations, but then I found out that's illegal, too.
My
boss hired a lawyer and they wrote me an appeal anyway. They went
through my whole file, page by page, looking for discrepancies. They
wrote about the misinformation I was given face-to-face, even though
I didn't have any proof. They attached photos of me with the kids I
teach, photos with my friends and co-workers, letters from my bosses
at the school and the magazine emphasizing that I could not simply be
replaced if I had to leave, begging them to let me stay. They also
attached all my financial documents, showing that I clearly earned
more than enough money and met all the requirements to stay in the
country. The only issue was a single day, a tiny mistake based on
misinformation and misunderstandings. I added a letter I wrote myself
in Czech explaining my abusive family in America, the fact that I had
no other home, the fact that I had done everything I could and would
do anything to make this right.
We
submitted my appeal on 18 December. I was given 60 days to remain in
the country while it was processed. It was just before the holidays,
so we'd lose 2 weeks, but of course I wouldn't be given any extra
time to make up for it. The woman shrugged. They'll give you an
answer sometime in January, she said. Legally, they have 30 days to
send you an answer. Meanwhile, I would be permitted to stay in the
country until 8 February. If I overstayed that period, I'd be
expelled, not only from the Czech Republic, but from the entire
Shengen zone, for 2 years.
I
decided to submit an application for a completely new visa right
away, in case my appeal was rejected. Better to do that sooner rather
than later. Applications for new visas can't be submitted within the
Czech Republic, however, so I'd have to go to Vienna to do it. Fine,
I thought, no problem. I'll do it immediately.
But
the clerk corrected me pretty quickly. You can't do that, she said.
You have an exit order in your passport. The moment you leave the
Czech Republic – not Shengen, just the country – you legally
cannot return for 90 days. If you try to submit an application for a
new visa, they will inspect your passport carefully, and when they
see that exit order, they'll make sure the police prevent you from
returning home.
No
new application. No possibilities. Just waiting, waiting, waiting.
I
kept working. The kids needed their teacher. I had to hide my stress,
fear, anxiety, and give them a smile every day. The magazine needed
to be written, no matter how I was falling apart inside. I spent
Christmas all alone. I stopped sleeping normally. I was shaking and
foggy-headed all the time. I
didn't know where I'd be living in two months.
My
friends, coworkers, and students' parents were all incredibly
supportive. They'd do anything they could to help me, they said.
They'd write letters. They'd call the police for me. But there was
nothing they could do.
My
boss at the school started to worry. There was no replacement for me,
should I be forced to leave. It was the middle of the school year. We
were planning the next few months, trying to carry on as though
nothing had happened. Every day, my coworkers asked me if there was
any news. Every day I just had to shrug and shake my head. It took
all I had to keep myself from breaking down at work.
28
days after I submitted my appeal, I got a letter from the ministry of
the interior. It said that they had received my appeal and were
beginning to process it. (It turns out the “answer” they were
obligated to give me within 30 days of me submitting my appeal was
nothing more than an acknowledgment that they had actually opened
it.) It told me the name and the contact info for the man responsible
for my file. He was to be my only contact from there on in. The
letter said I had 5 days to add anything new to my file before it was
judged.
I
went with my boss again and we met this man in person. He was
nervous, stuttering, hard to understand. He'd never done this before.
He said they would try to judge my file the next week, but they
already had a lot of cases and they probably wouldn't get to mine
yet. The committee only meets on Wednesdays, so it'd probably be two
weeks before they looked at my case.
I
did some quick math in my head. If I had to leave, it would be that
same week. They'd judge my case on Wednesday and I'd have to leave by
Sunday – not enough time for me to get their answer, since they
only send information by certified mail, which wouldn't be sent until
Thursday and always takes 3-4 business days to get through. What was
I supposed to do?
The
stuttering man didn't know. He said he'd try to find out. He'd try to
prioritize my case so I'd have my answer in time, but he wasn't sure
if that was possible. One thing he was sure of: I did not
have the right to extend my permission to stay in the event they
didn't judge my case in time, because my appeal had been submitted
one day late. He shrugged and said he hoped my appeal was successful.
The
following Wednesday I had a serious panic attack. I ended up in the
hospital that night with stomach pain so severe I thought I was
dying. The doctor said it was just stress and ordered me to rest and
relax for a while. I got hysterical then at the mere suggestion that
I should relax. He gave me some diazepam and said I should take it
for a few days. I
didn't know where I'd be living in two weeks.
The
committee didn't get to my case that week. It would be another 7 days
before I'd have any kind of information. I had 11 days left on my
exit order.
The
next week, my boss and coworkers called the stuttering clerk about
six times in one day demanding information. He kept saying he didn't
know, he'd call us when he knew. I tried to work, but I couldn't
focus. I
didn't know where I'd be living in 2 days.
Finally,
we got word that the committee had decided not to meet that week.
They'd meet the following Wednesday. 3 days after I had to be out of
the country.
So
that was it. They'd had my appeal for nearly 2 months and hadn't done
anything with it. When we demanded that they give me some kind of
permission to stay, that it was inhumane to deport me when I had no
other home and they still hadn't judged my appeal, they said sorry,
she submitted her appeal one day late. She has no right to stay.
I
had to leave.
I
got in touch with my only non-Shengen friend in the world, here in
Edinburgh. He said I could sleep on his sofa for as long as I needed.
Plane tickets for the weekend were double the weekday price, and I
would have no right to work in Scotland, so I had to save money where
I could. I bought a ticket leaving Friday. I had 24 hours to get my
things together and leave Europe.
I
ran around like a crazy woman, making duplicate keys so a friend
could check on my apartment, dropping my cat off at a coworker's
place and saying goodbye to him for I didn't know how long, wishing
my best friend a happy birthday and apologizing for having to miss
his party, arranging my bank account, trying to clean perishables out
of my apartment, trying and failing to apply for a new trade license
so I could apply for a new visa in England (in one final twist of
tragic irony, they said this was impossible, and I'd have to wait
until I got back to Shengen to apply for a new visa), and meeting my
friends for one final goodbye drink.
No
one could believe it was really happening. My boss was frantically
searching for someone to take over my class until I could come back.
My friends hugged me and cried with me and promised they'd do
anything they could to help. One person at a neighboring table
overheard our conversation and insisted that it was my own fault that
this had happened. I should have made sure I had the right
information. If I hadn't followed correct procedures, then the
government had every right to kick me out.
My
friends saved me from that argument and sent the guy packing. The
next morning at 4:30, numb from shock and lack of sleep, I left my
apartment, took the bus to the airport, and said goodbye to my home.
If the ministry of the interior didn't somehow approve my appeal and
give me a way to go back home, I'd have to be gone for 90 days. 3
months homeless, jobless, far away from my friends, my family, my
life. 3 months without the smiles of the children, the songs and the
laughter, the view of the park, the cuddles of my cat. 3 months in
gray, cold, wet Einburgh with no job and no life.
And
so, every morning I get up and I check my email and my phone for any
news, any information. I try to convince myself that I'm on vacation,
that it's just free time off, but I can't make myself believe it. I
look back over this long story and I try to find the point where I
did something wrong, where I made a mistake beyond doing as I was
instructed by the only sources of information I had, and come up
empty. I try to keep in touch with my friends in Prague. I wish I
could just drink the waiting time away, but I don't have enough money
to buy alcohol in this country. My savings is already starting to
dwindle.
It's
not permanent. I know they probably won't approve my appeal, won't
let me go home until my 90 days is up. But I have a return ticket for
the 9th
of May, and I cross the days off on the calendar and pray for the
time to go faster. I try to think about how it will feel when I see
the children again. When they all chorus, “Hello, Miss Megan!”
and tackle me with hugs. My boss at the school is trying to manage my
lessons without me there. The parents have sent supportive emails
wishing I can come home soon.
It's
finally sunk in, these past few days, that I can't go home.
I
can't go home.
And
it's not just me. This happens all the time. Every single native
English speaking friend I have in Prague has a story like this. I do
not know a single person who has ever applied for a visa, or for an
extension, and had everything go smoothly. Not once, not ever.
Depending
on who you talk to, you always get different information. According
to the EU, all visa information is supposed to be freely available to
anyone who wants it, but it doesn't work that way in the Czech
Republic. Sure, they have a web site. They even have information in
English. But it's all very vague. It says, for example, that your
application requires proof of income and lists the minimum each
person requires for their expenses, but it does not say what's
acceptable proof. That information can only be gotten from the clerks
at the foreigner police. And they can tell you whatever they want.
They can make mistakes, or even give you false information on
purpose, and there's not a thing you can do about it. They refuse to
ever provide you with any proof of the information they give you, so
that you can never claim the mistake is theirs, and it's not
permitted to ever contact directly the people who actually make the
decision on each case.
Some
people ask me why I even want to go back, after all the hell they've
put me through. The answer is as simple as this: it's my home.
That is where I live. That is where my life is. I have no other home
in the world.
I
have only one problem in Prague, and that is the ministry of the
interior, the foreigner police, who do nothing but repeat the only
thing that matters to them:
She
did not appeal within the assigned period. Her case is closed.
