It felt like a unclean trick was being performed on them. Natalia Robledo-Contreras nonetheless can’t consider what occurred the day she and her youthful sister first utilized for a Dutch residence allow. An immigration official refused to simply accept the women’ functions till their mother and father got here into the workplace, claiming that their custody paperwork weren’t ample. Natalia, then 17 years previous, and her lawyer had been suspicious. What if this was a ruse to detain her mother and father, who just like the sisters had been undocumented? This was why the women had gone alone.
However with the official refusing level clean to take their varieties, Natalia’s mom determined to come back to the workplace. She was detained instantly upon arrival. “I cried continuous, even after my Mum was launched later that day,” Natalia says. “She was ordered to depart the nation instantly.”
That day in 2012 marked the start of Natalia’s lengthy quest for authorized standing within the Netherlands, a rustic the place she had already lived for 9 years. At each stage she would attempt to do the appropriate factor and in every occasion these efforts could be used in opposition to her case. The method would finally value Natalia her household.
Natalia’s father left behind poverty and unemployment in Chile in 2001 after a relative helped him discover a job within the Netherlands. However the job was off the books so when a 12 months later when he introduced his spouse and two youngsters to hitch him they had been additionally with out paperwork. As an eight 12 months previous, Natalia was initially reluctant to depart her dwelling in Santiago. However she was lady, a trier who took accountability. She excelled in school within the Netherlands.
The household had tried to get authorized residency within the Netherlands by way of a number of totally different routes, however didn’t qualify. A lawyer suggested Natalia’s household to attend no less than 4 years for the youngsters to develop roots within the nation, via college and Dutch language courses, earlier than making use of for the sisters’ residence permits. “Getting good grades could be good for my case, we thought, as a household,” Natalia says. “I usually went from college, to dwelling, to high school once more.”
Natalia, now a 25-year-old regulation pupil, walks via the prepare station in Amsterdam. A wa…
Discussion about this post