TRANSCRIPT
Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world.
Gissele: Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. If you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/love and compassion. Today we’re gonna be talking about immigration and the immigration experience, which is personally important to me ’cause I’m an immigrant. And our guest today is Andy Semotiuk, who is an author who has been published five times.
Gissele: So he has five books. He is a US and Canadian immigration Lawyer in practice law in Los Angeles for 10 years. Worked in New York for five and helped over 10,000 clients with various Legal problems. Andy is a former United Nations correspondent for the last 10 years.
Gissele: He has written for Forbes where his articles have been read by over 1 million readers. Previously, he served on the tribunal panel of the Canadian Human [00:01:00] Rights Commission. Past president of the Canada Ukraine Foundation. He is a distinguished Toastmaster and a communication expert. Please join me in welcoming Andy.
Gissele: Hi.
Andy: Hi. Nice to be with you. Thank you for having me on.
Gissele: Oh yes. Thank you for coming. This is a topic near and dear to my heart because I myself am an immigrant . I was wondering if you could tell the, the audience a little bit about your own history or your own experience with immigration and why you became interested in immigration law?
Andy: Yes, I can. I was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, but my parents were both immigrants from Ukraine. And for those who don’t know anything about Edmonton, it is a very distant, far north city, one of the top cities in, in the northern hemisphere. Very cold during the winter. It drops down to 50 below sometimes.
Andy: And I remember in my childhood days where I was going to school and [00:02:00] the temperature was something like 50 below. And, it was so cold that you could hear sap in the trees, cracking the trees from freezing when you were walking to school. And, it was a city in which you had to have a block heater to plug in your car at night in order to get it started in the morning.
Andy: That kind of a place, but. For raising young kids. It was a great city and I had a good childhood. Now, my parents came at different times to Canada. My father, my natural father came before world War ii in between the two wars as an immigrant, and my mother came after World War ii. And they met up in a sort of a strange way.
Andy: Basically my father when he came to Canada, he came married to another woman [00:03:00] and he had five children. And a six child was born on the way. And he came to a place called Park Court, Alberta, which is, 60 miles west of Edmonton and then 10 miles north. And the way you could describe it is
Andy: Park Court is not the end of the world, but you can almost see the end of the world from Park Court. It’s in the middle of nowhere.
Gissele: Oh, wow.
Andy: And when they arrived they. Started a homestead. He built a hut there, a house and et cetera. But one day while the mother, not my mother, but the mother of the children there, excuse me, she was cooking breakfast over a logs stove and she keeled over, she had terrible pain in the stomach.
Gissele: Wow.
Andy: And, so he ran out trying to get help to [00:04:00] get her to the hospital. There was nobody around. And so he got one of the kids to hit, hitch up the horses to the wagon, and they put her on the wagon and they drove to a place called Evansburg, which was 10, 10 miles away. There was a doctor there. The doctor looked at her.
Andy: He said he, she needs to go straight to a hospital. Closest hospital was in Edmonton. It was a 60 mile ride. So there, the guys trying to get the wagon down to Edmonton. She’s in terrible pain. Meanwhile, some of the children back on the farm found the one and only farmer who had a car and talked him into catching up with the wagon.
Andy: They transferred the woman to the car. They drove to the University of Alberta Hospital where they opened her up of the surgery and she died on the table. She had died of appendicitis. So my father. Was left with six [00:05:00] children on a farm no wife. And they’re all young children small, young children.
Andy: So he arranged to bring the body back to the farm and eventually they buried her
Gissele: The oldest child, I think was something like 12 years old. He was in need of help. Meanwhile, my mother who grew up in Ukraine, in western Ukraine, which was under Austrian rule when she was born, and then under Poland she, as she was growing up as a small child, she came down with spinal meningitis.
Andy: And it took away her hearing in her left ear at age two. And then at age 12 she came down with Scarlet Fever and it took away her hearing in her right ear, except for a small 20% still capacity to hear. Wow. So she was effectively deaf. And this is a long story there, but the [00:06:00] short version is the Red Army was coming the Germans were retreating and the family decided they’re going to escape, and she ended up in a displaced persons camp in in Salzburg, in Austria.
Gissele: Wow.
Andy: So my father wrote a letter to the camp through a priest. Saying, is there any woman there in the camp who could come and help me with my children? It didn’t quite identify how many children, but just some children. And the letter ended up in the hands of a girlfriend of my mother’s who read it and said this guy’s too old for me.
Andy: Maybe you could hand the letter over to her, maybe you’d be interested. And she read it and she thought, okay, this guy’s on a farm now. My mother grew up in the city. But she, they did have some chickens and some a cow it was a town, so she knew a little bit about [00:07:00] farming, so she figured how hard can it be, okay. So she wrote to him, he wrote back, and before he knew it, he had sponsored her to come to Canada. This is the immigrant experience in miniature. She arrived in Edmonton, he came out from Park Court, picked her up and drove her to park court. And there they ended up together surprised that there are all these children and wow.
Andy: It’s in the middle of nowhere. From my mother’s point of view, from my father’s point of view, I got someone who could help me ’cause he didn’t even know how to cook. The, he was in a real bad state. This is in 19 38,Yeah. 38 is when he came to Parkard. 48 was when she came.
Andy: So they lasted together a year. Now the problem was it’s snow. Snow, six feet high cold. They have one stove. [00:08:00] Wood, a burning stove, cooking, milking the cow looking after the children. The children were going to school, which were, was a mile away. In the winter, what do you do? You sit in that thing, you listen to the radio, but my mother didn’t hear.
Andy: So she would be sitting there with these children and her husband? My father,
Gissele: yeah.
Andy: After a year. She said, look, I can’t do this. I’m gonna leave. He said I’m not gonna leave ’cause I’ve got this farm I’m gonna farm. And she said, I’m going to Edmonton. He said you have to go.
Andy: If you’re gonna go, I’m not gonna go with you. So she got up and left. There was some trouble there between them. A little bit of roughness there. So she decided, okay, this is it. That’s the end of the line. And she talked to one of the kids too take with horse and buggy to take her to Evansburg, where there was a bus that went to Edmonton [00:09:00] and she left.
Andy: But there was a problem. The problem was she was deaf, penniless, could not speak English and pregnant. That was me. I was coming. So she arrived in Edmonton in 1948, not knowing a soul, but she knew the name of the lawyer who did the paperwork to get her to come to Canada. So she went to that law office. He wasn’t there.
Andy: He was out for lunch or something. So they said, she said, they told her, sit, you can wait. So she was there in the reception area. Next to her is a woman. And there’s this saying it takes one to know one, misery knows company or whatever. So this woman is asking my mother, Hey who are you?
Andy: What, why are you here? What’s your situation? [00:10:00] And it just happens that this woman spoke Ukrainian. So my mother, the, so my mother’s thinking, who’s this woman? What does she want from me? Maybe she wants my money or whatever. I don’t have any money, but, so she’s reluctant to talk to her.
Andy: But the woman, persistence in trying to get a conversation going. Eventually my mother decides, okay, this lawyer’s not coming back from lunch or wherever he is. I’m gonna get outta here. She walks out of the office and this woman follows her,
Andy: Out onto the street and she says hey, slow down.
Andy: Where are you going? Where are you gonna go? She says I don’t really know. I don’t have a place to go. The woman says listen, you can come to my place. I got a place to go. I have a house. She took her to her house in North Edmonton. Now her story was, she was married. She had, I think she had at least one, one son, if not more.
Andy: But her father or her husband was an alcoholic and [00:11:00] he used to beat her to the point where he’d come home and she’d have to hide under the bed to escape his beatings. But as life had it, one day he was coming home drunk, walking down the street, and he walked out in front of a truck that killed him.
Andy: And so she ended up also a widow. She was a widow. No, no husband with a child, but at least she had a house.
Andy: And so she said you can stay with me. My mother’s name was Solomia. So she said, Solomia, stay with me. You can stay with me. So that’s how she started out. My mother, over time
Andy: it, she figured out I can’t stay here forever. I gotta do something. And when she talked to any officials or whatever, they say, you gotta go see a doctor. You’re gonna bere, you’re gonna be giving birth and so on. So she ended [00:12:00] up at a place called the Wine Loss Clinic, which is in Edmonton, and there’s a guy, wine loss, who a doctor who saw her and says, what’s going on?
Andy: And she told him she’s expecting, and he says okay, we gotta find a place for you. And she ended up. Being referred to some Catholic, Roman Catholic nuns near the General hospital in Edmonton. Now, for those of you who are listeners who are from Edmonton, you’ll know all these these names that I’m about to come out with, but, and you’ll know the scene a little better, but for those that don’t know, it’s a downtown hospital.
Andy: And next door to this general hospital was a. Nunnery, I don’t know, a place where they looked after people who needed help and that’s where she ended up. And as time for my birth was coming along, they found her a better place to stay, A place called yellow Home in Northern [00:13:00] Edmonton for unwed mothers.
Andy: So that’s where we ended up. My mother ended up, and when the time came. The doctor drove her to the hospital. She gave birth to me and that’s where I ended up with her after the birth. But you couldn’t stay there. That was a place, for expectant mothers. So she had to find a place to live.
Andy: And now again, doesn’t speak English. is deaf, no money. She’s in this home and. She eventually found some people, Ukrainian people who spoke Ukrainian so she could speak. One was an Alder woman later became an Alder woman Julia Ksky in Edmonton. This woman ran for alderman like seven times, lost seven times, and eventually got elected.
Andy: And from that day on, she stayed in municipal government until she died. She was very popular, but back then she [00:14:00] was a, a prominent individual and she helped my mother find a place to stay with a kid. Like not everybody wanted to. Take on or take in a woman with a small child.
Andy: And she got work first washing dishes in a restaurant. Then she was a seamstress. She sewed costumes for opera singers back home. And so she was really good at sewing and she ended up working for one of them. Department stores doing sewing and trying to find someplace where we could be together to, to live.
Andy: Yeah. I’m con, I’m conscious of the time that I’m eating up here, but I’ll just share a little bit more. Essentially what happened was one day a guy was. Another guy who was older and used to work on the [00:15:00] railroad for many years, retired put an ad in the paper saying woman needed to look after my place and, help me out with my my dishes and everything address and, contact me.
Andy: And she, my mother saw that ad and decided I’ll go see what he’s got. And they met. And he was much older than her, probably about at least 20 years older than her. But he had a house, he was a retired realman had made some money during the depression. Because he was working on the railroad when everybody else wasn’t.
Andy: And he said why don’t you come live with me? And that’s how we ended up living with him. He ended up being my adopted father. That’s why my name is his name. And I know you talk about love in your speeches, presentations, and so on. [00:16:00] And perhaps people who are listening are thinking, what does this immigration lawyer, what’s he doing, talking about, love.
Andy: But I feel through those circumstances that I’ve shared, and they’re more, in the book that you mentioned, it’s called A promise, kept a tribute to a mother’s love. My father, basil, William Chu lived for nine years of my life before he died. He died of cancer and my mother looked after him.
Andy: Now, there was a strange relationship there. Relationship was, he was married to a woman that he had left in Ukraine. Wow. And came to Canada Oh wow. To farm thinking he’ll go back, make some money, go back and have a good life farming in Ukraine. But the war broke out. He came before World War I, [00:17:00] so he couldn’t go back.
Andy: He was regarded as an enemy alien because he was from Austria, which was on the wrong side of the war for Canada. Wow. But because he worked on the railroad he had the privilege of not having to go into an internment camp, which is what was going on in Canada back then.
Gissele: So people that were, so people that were considered on the opposite side of the war were sent to encampments.
Andy: People from Austria were regarded as enemy aliens, like the Japanese in the United States during World War ii. Wow. They were interned and my father just slipped away from that because of, because he was working on a priority industry, which was building the railroad across the country. So he he was able to get through that, but he had this wife back home, but it’s, he never was able to return back to her.
Andy: So he would send her packages scarves [00:18:00] and food and whatever money all his life. He made my mother promise that she would continue sending those packages. And she did. I remember until, I don’t know, maybe I was about 15 or so when she finally died. So my mother was sending packages to his wife.
Andy: But he left his whatever he had to my mother and to me. And so who I am today and who’s talking to you today is someone who is a beneficiary of great love.
Gissele: Yeah, absolutely. Think about your mom’s extraordinary courage to come from the Ukraine to a place where she wasn’t told about the six children, and to then to leave.
Gissele: Even though it was like you mentioned difficult without having a plan, she was pregnant to not know where she wanted to [00:19:00] go and not knowing how you were gonna be raised or how you were gonna be supported and through a series of synchronicities and meeting some people that were willing to help.
Gissele: And, I was asking myself as you were sharing your story, like how many people would now. Enable someone to go into their homes just because or how many people would, wouldn’t have a newspaper looking for someone for support. And the beautiful part about how this man, even though he needed help, he opened up his house to you and your mother, and then eventually became apparent to you, which is.
Gissele: Which, he was able to offer you that time together. So it is absolutely about love. Yeah. I’m curious as to what led you to become interested in immigration in particular?
Andy: A big part of, I guess that’s the question you first asked me and I never answered it.
Gissele: That’s okay.
Andy: A big part of it is this experience that the immigrant experience that they had and learning about it and the.[00:20:00]
Andy: The tremendous impact it had on my life. my mother washed floors. I remember as I was growing up, she put me through law school, washing floors in a rooming house that she had, where she rented out apartments to people. And she made a living from that, from my father’s estate.
Andy: So I, I just, the incredible stories, both my natural father and what he ended up moving to Vancouver and living with the children who I later actually met. In my fifties. In my fifties. Wow. Yeah. So his story was, had a big impact on me as I learned it from my mother. And my adopted father’s story, my mother’s story. So when someone comes to talk to me about, wanting to immigrate I’ve got a, I got a sense of what that means, the hardships of it all. [00:21:00] Not every immigrant experience experiences that hard. Maybe it’s a little light and some are much harder.
Andy: Much harder, if you can imagine someone in Gaza today, or even Ukrainians today, immigrating or from Sudan, people starving to death. Millions tremendous hardship, and somehow they survive. And immigration. Like my motto in my law practice is helping clients improve their lives through immigration.
Andy: So that’s what I try to do is help them in their lives. But if you’re looking for a place where you will see great human kindness and compassion.
Andy: You can find it in the immigrant experience of many people. And for the longest time, I never shared this story with [00:22:00] anybody like a, like I’m. Senior, i’ve been around a few times around the block already, but I figured, and even in preparing for this discussion with you, I’m thinking, why am I sharing all these intimate details, like really it’s, sacred ground.
Andy: Why am I doing this? Why would you share such sacred information? And the answer is. What am I gonna do? Take it to my grave, and it’s a tribute to the people before me and to all these all these people who are being beaten up on the streets in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Who are struggling to try and make a go of it in Canada, with 55 year waiting periods for permanent residents or who are in those camps like Gaza, [00:23:00] trying to make a go of it, of their lives or in the war, freezing to death in cave because they don’t have electricity and the water.
Andy: Or in Sudan where climate change and the rival gangs are fighting and destroying each other. And still, somehow they all survive. There are stories of great courage that need to be told. Been shared.
Gissele: I was just thinking, this episode’s a bit of a love story to my parents as well.
Gissele: Their immigration experience. So we immigrated from Canada when I was 10 in the 1980s I think it was. And we had tried before. And my parents experienced a lot of hardship. They had to have a certain amount of money in their bank account
Gissele: They had to have a specific skillset. There was like, like medical stuff we had to pay for. And even just getting to the country, my dad, because I’m probably the [00:24:00] lightest one of my family, my dad faced a lot of racism and discrimination and so did my mom. And so they worked odd jobs. They worked three jobs at nighttime.
Andy: Where were they from? Where are you from?
Gissele: So we’re from Peru.
Andy: Peru. Wow.
Gissele: Yeah. And then so when they came, like my dad had up to three jobs. My mom used to, she was a professional in Peru, came here, worked at a factory before she could get into the bank.
Andy: Yeah.
Gissele: And these stories of courage, of displacement, right?
Gissele: To go to a new country is a, an extraordinary, courageous thing to do. And especially if you don’t have a plan. The one thing I will say that I’m curious to ask you about is, ’cause you mentioned the things that are going on right now in terms of ice and in terms of the situation in the states is one of the things I noticed in terms of the, IM the different immigrants perspectives was.
Gissele: That, my parents came a specific way. They came the quote unquote legal way. So they did all the paperwork. My dad was lucky enough to be able to get sponsored by my [00:25:00] aunt. Yeah. And so he had that opportunity. Not everyone has that. And when we came to Canada, I know my parents struggled financially because they were trying to figure out, they had spent all their money on just even getting here.
Gissele: In that they would see people that were. Refugees and from their perspective, they were getting everything from free. And so there seemed to be this division between the people that came the right way, Because sometimes people, refugees didn’t have the ability to be sponsored or didn’t have the $20,000 that my parents had so diligently saved and I see that playing out in the states, and I see that how people are like there’s the right way, and because you didn’t come the right way, you don’t deserve. So I’m curious as to your thoughts about that and how we can inject more humanity into the immigration process that might be happening in the us.
Andy: Yeah. We can say this nobody has a right to come to Canada or the United States. You are an immigrant. Now, in my, the history I related, they all came [00:26:00] legally as well. I might mention that.
Andy: But in the world today, just as we’re talking right now, there’s over 120 million displaced people looking for a place to live.
Andy: 120 million people. That’s if you get your head around that’s wow. Impossible. Let’s say the United States said, oh, we’re gonna look after, we’re gonna be humanitarian, we’re gonna look after everybody. It’s impossible for the United States to solve that problem. It’s too big a problem for the United States, even with President Trump, for those who believe in President Trump and how well he’s doing.
Andy: It’s a worldwide problem. So as humanity, we’re not doing so well in terms of looking after each other. It’s unfortunately we’re doing very poorly. But I start with this premise. A country has the right to decide who should come and who shouldn’t come. That decision has to be made by Congress in the United [00:27:00] States or Parliament in Canada.
Andy: And not everybody will be able to come, even in the most generous perfect society. Not everybody will be able to come. So it’s a question of deciding who should be able to come and making as generous and as a humanitarian attempt. To help these people who are trying to come, and also to help those who live in this society and wanna bring in people to like family members, parents, uncles, aunts, and so on.
Andy: So now. If you talk to any immigration expert in the United States or Canada, usually they’ll say the immigration system is broken. It’s always been broken. It’s never been fixed. It’s always been temporary. There’s no perfect system.
Andy: But what it can do is it can open the door.
Andy: Like in my case, I related how two of my family members came to Canada. [00:28:00] As sponsorees, they were sponsored or helped at least maybe I didn’t mention that my father had a brother who, my natural father had a brother who sponsored them to park court.
Andy: So I’m a big believer in sponsorships. Now it can be family sponsorships, it can be professionals, a lawyer to lawyer, for example, or historian to historian.
Andy: Or it can be religious, Catholic to Catholic, or it can be ethnic, Chinese to Chinese. Whatever the sponsorship. If someone here is prepared to say, okay, I’m gonna be responsible for this immigrant. I’m gonna help them get up on their feet here in the United States or Canada or whatever.
Andy: I’m a great believer that’s subject to police clearance and health issues that we should try and facilitate that. And there’s an act called the Displaced Persons Act in the United States that opened up immigration to the United States, and many people came in that, on that basis. [00:29:00] Unfortunately, however the act discriminated against Jews, so Jews were not allowed in.
Andy: It was a racist act. Wow. But that can be fixed. The act doesn’t have to be racist. You can have an act that isn’t racist.
Andy: And if you have such an act, then that’s, I think that’s about the best you can do on the immigration front, in terms of opening the doors to the degree possible.
Gissele: So help me understand what’s going on in the states in terms of so if people were granted refugee status in the past, let’s say they were refugees that were there for 20 years, are those people then being deported because they don’t have full status in the US or, ’cause I seem to be a little bit confused as to who ICE is deporting, and who’s not deporting.
Gissele: What’s your perspective?
Andy: So just a little helpful sort of framework. In the us there are US citizens. You’re either born there or you [00:30:00] become one because you deserve it. There are permanent residents. That’s one step below. You become a permanent resident by immigrating legally to the United States and meeting the qualifications for permanent residence.
Andy: Or you’re a non-immigrant and you’re in the United States, either on a work permit. Or a study permit or a visitors visa or whatever it is. So those are three categories. And then there are illegals who came across the Rio Grande at night. And are now living in the us. So most of them over 50%, something like 60% of them have been in the US for over 10 years.
Andy: Wow. Made up life there that Yeah. And now they’re being rounded up and on the side. We have refugees. Refugees are now refugees, is a very narrow ground of small group of people who are fleeing their country of citizenship.
Andy: And have a well-founded [00:31:00] fear of persecution if they are returned to that country based on specific grounds.
Andy: Race, religion, political opinion, gender identity, and a few of those grounds are social group. So you come to the border and you say, I’m a refugee in the United States, it’s called, I’m claiming asylum. And they say, oh, you are. Okay, let’s have a hearing. Let’s find out. Are you a refugee or not?
Andy: And they hear, okay, where are you from and what are you afraid of? And why won’t you go back? And if they define themselves in that way, there’s, the government won’t protect me. They’re trying to persecute me. I’m a dissident and they’re gonna throw me in jail. Okay you qualify, you can stay.
Andy: I came because I’m poor and I didn’t have enough money. No, you don’t qualify. You’re not a refugee. You’re not afraid of going back and being persecuted, you’re just poor. We don’t accept that. [00:32:00] And so that’s the way they use that as a measure of who can come in that way. But once they get refugee status, they’re not thrown out.
Andy: ICE is making a mistake and throwing everybody out. Not everybody, but. They’re arresting US citizens and deporting US citizens arresting permanent residents with green cards. And deporting them. In some cases. In some cases,
Gissele: yeah. Yeah.
Andy: But what they’re after is people who do not have legal status, that they don’t have a work permit, they don’t have a study permit, they don’t have a green card.
Andy: They’re not citizens.
Gissele: Yeah, I understand that. I so what legal recourse do people who are citizens or who are on a work visa have been, if they’re deported ’cause they were originally accepted. So you can’t change the rules of the game, right?
Andy: First of all, they shouldn’t be deported.
Andy: A key thing is if you’re gonna be deported, you gotta call. Say I want [00:33:00] a lawyer. I want a lawyer. Now in theory they, they have to. Allow you a lawyer, if they’re gonna be detained, if anybody’s gonna be detained on the streets. Just a little rule here, it might even happen to you or me if we’re in the United States and suddenly ICE rounding up people.
Andy: I got a call yesterday from someone in San Antonio who has a work visa and concerned that she might get picked up on the street. What do I do? So here’s the answer on the street. If someone stops you and says, Hey, what do you want? We, yeah. You ask, am I being detained? Yes or no, or am I free to go?
Andy: And if I’m being detained, then I want a lawyer, and I’m not saying anything. If I’m not being detained, then I’m walking away and goodbye and I’m not saying anything. That’s the way you deal with that. Now I also told this particular person, take a photocopy of your passport and your work [00:34:00] permit. Not the passport and the work permit, but just a copy of it and carry it around with you.
Andy: So if you are stopped and detained, you can pull this out and say, listen, I’m rightfully here. Here’s a copy of my papers. Now you don’t wanna have the originals ’cause they couldn’t be taken away. And then they say you don’t have any papers. Out on the next airplane out. But the whole exercise here is if you’re in trouble, you gotta call a lawyer.
Andy: Hopefully someone in the area where you live probably would be best like San Antonio in the case of this woman. Now, if you’re at home, the door, someone comes to the door, knocks on your door and says, Hey, I want in here. You say no have you got a warrant? A warrant to search my premises. Yes, I do slip it through the door.
Andy: I want to see it. Is it really a warrant? Does it name you? Is there a wet signature of a judge on that warrant? [00:35:00] Is it a search warrant to search through the house? Read it, don’t let him in the house. No. No. Until you read it. Now, if it says yes, anti semi chuck house my address, we got the right to search the house, then you have to let ’em in.
Andy: But again, you say, am I being detained? If I am, I want my lawyer. If I’m not, I’m leaving. That’s the way you have to deal with it.
Gissele: What sort of safety or protections would a Canadian, for example, have if they were in the us? ’cause I’m sure like. Travel visas, like for just recreation I’m sure are not an, I would assume an are a non-issue.
Gissele: It’d probably be more if you were working.
Andy: I think Canadians are pretty safe because they first of all, they’d have a Canadian passport. It’s one of the most respected passports. So if you can show a photocopy of that helps. Also, the kind of visas that they’re granted are [00:36:00] usually without. Two strict review of who they are and what, because they are a neighbor neighboring country.
Andy: So as a visitor, you can travel to the US and on a passport, you can get into the US on the passport alone without going through the consulate and getting a visitor’s visa. And many of them are on TN visas, which are work visas under the, what used to be called the NAFTA free Trade Agreement, but is now called the U-S-M-C-A.
Andy: Free trade agreement. They’re about to renegotiate that for Canada. We got two big issues coming. One is this summer, the U-S-M-C-A Kuzma ISS called in the, in Canada, US, Mexico Free Trade Agreement.
Gissele: Yeah,
Andy: they’re gonna renegotiate. Renegotiated. They have to renegotiate ’cause it’s expiring.
Andy: And, i’m watching what’s happening in Greenland because the next, they’re on the [00:37:00] menu
Andy: what’s the motivating force in all this?
Andy: I think the Arctic is a major concern because of, the the minerals and everything up there, but also the passageway in the Arctic.
Andy: And rare minerals for cell phones and batteries and everything else, whatever is required for those can be found in Canada and also in Greenland and so on. Yeah. But I think at the moment it appears they’re, they’ve divided up their hemispheres.
Andy: Trump wants North America. Pute is going to get Europe, and China’s gonna have Asia to, to some extent there’s a division like that now that takes us a long way away from immigration and love. But it’s our world right now.
Gissele: I was thinking about what can we as citizens do in terms of supporting.
Gissele: Greenland and supporting ourselves and in terms of these [00:38:00] difficult times that, that feel more difficult. And I don’t believe that we’re ever helpless. So people have power if they’re willing to unite and come together. So to what extent are people willing to come together?
Gissele: I
Andy: think we’re, I’m not for forlorn Cause I, I think we for example, Canadians are pretty strongly, speaking their minds about what Trump is trying to do and trying, and there’s all these boycotts of American products and not traveling to the US is having an effect.
Andy: The car industry is really suffering because of what Trump is doing. People, most people aren’t aware that a major. Market for American cars is Canada, and if can Canadians aren’t buying American cars, it doesn’t matter how good the American cars are, it’s a real serious problem for them.
Gissele: Yeah.
Andy: Everybody has to do their little part, and you are doing your part by [00:39:00] sharing the stories you share. Opening up humanity, opening up the hearts of people. I think that’s really critical. People have to be compassionate. This world has enough hardships even without wars and so on to deal with and people need to look after each other, be kind. Thoughtful for the lives of not only themselves, but others.
Gissele: This is why I go back to the beauty of your story, Your dad, your mom, like they were immigrants. If they had faced some of the prejudice that their people face now in the states, they wouldn’t have been able to survive if people hadn’t opened their homes and been able to connect them to other people and seen their humanity.
Gissele: Yeah. As somebody who was worth living, surviving, having a job.
Andy: One example that reminds me every year as I, at Christmas time, I [00:40:00] go shopping, there’s a Salvation Army guy there with the bells and collecting money.
Andy: I’m reminded that Salvation Army helped me in my mother in the darkest hours.
Andy: In the darkest hours.
Gissele: Can you share a little bit or would that be too
Andy: intimate? My mother had no money. She had me no place to live. She’s trying to make a go of it. The Salvation Army has this thing, I think that the priorities are food shelter, and then religion in that order. So they, first they give you food and they give you a roof over your head, and then they give you salvation is the third one.
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah.
Andy: And so my mother had no place to go, so we had food and shelter and salvation. It’s not like we’re not believers or whatever, but maybe we didn’t end up in the Salvation Army form of salvation. But yes, we believe in God and all that stuff. So for, I [00:41:00] hope that their work would, they would regard their work as well done.
Andy: In my case, in our case. We certainly do, and I try to pay the favor forward. I reach in and give them whatever I’ve got. The largest one I’ve got, is it a 20 or 50? Whatever it is, toss it in the hat.
Gissele: Because then that helps other families and other people.
Andy: Yeah. Yeah.
Gissele: Yeah.
Andy: I think a really key, forgive me, a really key thing is if you’re gonna donate to, like some guys, they’re, standing there trying to get money or woman or whatever, and you give them a dollar or $2, I think it’s really important to look them in the eye and say, hello, how are you to acknowledge their humanity, that you’re one of them.
Gissele: Yeah,
Andy: I think that’s a big deal.
Gissele: Yeah. And it’s an absolute beautiful way. to end so my last couple of last questions. So the I’m asking [00:42:00] everyone this season, what’s their definition of self-love?
Andy: I’ll just put it this way. Find your God-given unique ability and put it in the service of others.
Andy: And if you do that, you’ll not only help others, but you’ll help yourself in the process and you’ll be happy. This is not, this is not just me. I picked this up from other people much smarter than me, but I really believe it.
Gissele: Where can people work with you? Where can they find you?
Gissele: Where can they find your book? Please share anything you wanna tell the audience.
Andy: Yeah, so I have a website. It’s a personal website called http://www.myworkvisa.com. You can find stuff about me and the books there. I work for Pace Law Firm in Toronto in immigration, PACE law firm.com. Ask for Andy.
Andy: And I could help.
Gissele: Beautiful. And one more time. The name of the book,
Andy: A Promise Kept a Tribute to A [00:43:00] Mother’s Love.
Andy: it’s also on Amazon.
Gissele: Beautiful. Beautiful. And we’ll add the link and I’ll add the link to your website as well on our transcript for the show.
Gissele: I just wanna say thank you for sharing your family stories and thank you for sharing your perspective. This was a wonderful conversation. And to be honest, I felt like it’s a little bit of a love story to my parents who I know. Fought really hard to get here and for all of the things that we’ve been able to do.
Gissele: And so to share your story is just another example of how much courage it takes to be an immigrant. So thank you. Thank you to those who tuned in to for another episode of Love Compassion Podcast, with Gissele, see you soon.