Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Deans (Studies),

I am appealing to drop the following courses past the academic deadline:
ECON 222 (Fall 2017) - Macroeconomic Theory I
POLS 262 (Winter 2018) - International Political Economy

On the 29th of May 2017, I was detained at the Vancouver-Seattle border for possession of fewer than 5 grams of marijuana; I was told that I am permanently banned from the US until I can get a waiver. My parents did not know of this incident, and they remain oblivious to the fact that I am permanently banned from the US to this very day. The day after the incident, I hired a lawyer from a firm called Pardons Canada who took control of my case and promised on the phone that I would get my waiver to re-enter the US by the end of August 2017. My lawyer instructed me to get fingerprinted by an agency called STING. My fingerprint would be sent to the RCMP to be processed. This process would help me attain a letter from the RCMP stating that I have no criminal convictions in Canada, which would strongly help with the outcome of my US border case. Unfortunately, I was in Indonesia in August, and I e-mailed my lawyer and his team asking them to only contact me via e-mail instead of calling because there was no way that I could pick up their phone call; I received no e-mail in August. September came and still no update. I received my first phone call from my lawyer on the 30th of October, and as I recall, his team made no further progress to my case other than the fact that they sent my fingerprint to the RCMP. I felt uneasy by this because they promised that I would have my waiver by the end of August and yet it has been this long. On November 18th, I received another phone call; my lawyer instructed me to fill out application forms i-192, G-325 and gather two reference letters to bring back to the Vancouver-Seattle border where I was detained to submit these files. I booked a flight to Vancouver on the 21st and went to the border on the 23rd; I was rejected and sent back to Vancouver without given any reason. I made it very clear to my lawyer that this trip had cost me a lot of my own money and time away from school. Further down the road, he kept promising that he or his secretary would call to update me, but they never did.

I finally received the letter from RCMP on the 7th of February 2018, stating that I have no criminal convictions in Canada. I was very confident that with this letter, I can finally get my waiver processed and I can eventually re-enter the US. I contacted my lawyer the day-of, and they instructed me to go back to Vancouver again to submit the application package, this time with the letter from RCMP. I booked a ticket to Vancouver for reading week; I was rejected once more without explanation. I contacted my lawyer on the way back to Vancouver, and again, he instructed me to book an appointment at the US embassy located in downtown Vancouver. I went to the embassy the next morning, and they did not allow me into the premise because I have filed the wrong application. I was left confused and useless at this point. It turns out that the form i-192 is for applicants who are a citizen of Canada. I am a permanent resident of Canada which meant that my lawyer had been filing the wrong form all this time.

My lawyer knew that I was a permanent resident of Canada because I sent him a picture of my permanent residence card alongside my driver's license and other IDs and I recall saying several times on the phone that I have a PR card. I called him angrily asking for my money back and that I no longer needed their service. He convinced me not to worry and provided me with an excuse that his team members can get pretty excited when they receive a new case. Though as stupid as that sounds, he managed to convince me that this rejection makes the process easier because I need only fill out two more forms, i-601 and i-212. Upon completing the two forms, my lawyer called again and instructed me to go to Toronto on March for another fingerprint process. He contacted me again in March telling me to go to Montreal and book an appointment with the US embassy located there. I scheduled a train to Montreal as well as an interview at the US embassy, went to the appointment the next day and was rejected again. The person who refused me was very informative and gave me a letter stating that I was indeed rejected from getting a US visa for the reason that I do not have a completed waiver and that I have been following the wrong procedures. I was not supposed to submit the forms directly to the US embassy; I was supposed to mail them over to the US Homeland Security Department for them to process in their Nebraska centre. It was at this point that I felt completely lost and had given hope. I told my lawyer that I was going to sue them for giving me false information and that I wanted my money back.

I managed to get a partial refund from the lawyer, and I am now back to square one. I sent a package to USCIS that included the forms i-601 and i-212, two reference letters, G-325, my birth certificate and an official English translation, and a cheque of 930 USD. The i-601 was accepted and sent to the Nebraska centre for processing, but I received a rejection letter for the i-212 due to insufficient fund. It turns out that I have to pay another filing fee of 930 USD to process the i-212 which I did not have at the time. The rejection also meant that I am unable to file the i-212 application for another two weeks. I went to Toronto on the 18th of May to work so that I can get enough money to pay the filing fee. I filed the i-212 on the 2nd of June 2018 and am still waiting for it to be processed in the Nebraska centre.

This incident has affected my personal life. I did not have anyone to talk to about this because I was so ashamed. The only ones that know about this incident are my close friends who helped me with the reference letters. Hiding it from my parents was the hardest thing to do because they visit Seattle once every month and have asked me several times to come when I was with them in Vancouver. During the school year, I find it very hard to concentrate on my studies because I find myself sleeping very late at night and had consecutive days where I try to function without any sleep. I was prescribed a sleeping medication by the campus doctor which did not help me get back on track. I have also missed a lot of my classes and was unable to get notes for most of them as I am ineligible to obtain a notetaker. I wrote an e-mail to my professor for CLST 201 regarding getting her powerpoint slides and received no response. I tried e-mailing my professor for ECON 222 for notes as well and received no response. The same thing happened for POLS 262. No professor got back to me, and I had no other option but to try my luck and ask other students. I barely knew anyone in my class because I rarely attend lectures and tutorials. I managed to get notes for CLST 201, but not for POLS 262 or ECON 222.

I was taking a lot of politics classes in my second semester, and most of them require me to catch up on weekly readings and attend these tutorials for group discussion. I was away for so long, and when I was in town, I had terrible anxiety that kept me up all night. At some point, it was tough for me to catch up on the readings and I find myself having to re-read the same sentence over and over again to comprehend it. Economics was impossible for me to do while away from campus because I had to submit a physical copy of the assigned work in Dunning every two weeks or so. The professor barely used the textbook, so reading it is practically useless. I also missed a lot of the study groups that were held before exam dates, though I managed to get notes once. The only way I studied for my ECON 222 class was through past exams and YouTube videos.

I have submitted the two forms, i-601 and i-212, to be processed by the US Department of Homeland Security and all I can do now is wait. I will have to do one more visit to Montreal once the waiver is accepted and approved to renew my US visa. Throughout this incident, I learned that my actions could cause severe harm or good. I learned to manage my time wisely; I am on a tight schedule at the moment though I am still seeking help from my doctor and my counsellor regarding fixing my sleep schedule because I still find myself sleeping at 4 a.m. on a daily basis. I am currently working and taking an online course in Kingston and have no travel plans as of yet. I plan to keep working throughout my third year in Queens to maintain a busy schedule and be more productive.

I am also planning on telling my parents about my situation with the US Department of Homeland Security. My counsellor and I have been working on improving my mental health for over 3 months and she believes that telling my parents will help reduce the amount of stress that I already have to deal with. Certainly, if something goes wrong with the two applications I filed in the near future, my parents would be more than willing to help out.

If the documentation provided with this letter is not sufficient enough to appeal the two courses I have listed, please do not hesitate to contact me personally.

Thank you for your time,

Kresna Soeyanto