After months of delay, B.C. scholar gets Canadian travel document needed for U.S. job

After spending nearly half a year trying to secure it, Vancouver-based Chinese scholar Guldana Salimjan has received the Canadian travel document that will allow her to pursue her research in the United States and reunite with her husband.

It comestwo weeks after CBCreported delays in the processing of her application by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

Salimjan, a postdoctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University (SFU), isone of more than two million Canadiansleft in limbo due toimmigration status and travel document delays.

The chance at a new careeras a visiting scholarin the U.S., where she will be able to reunite with her husband,a professorat Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., had been on hold since February.

But on Tuesday, Salimjan received a letter saying she could pick up hercertificate of identity a Canadian travel document that is an alternative to a passportfor refugees, stateless peopleand permanent residents who cannot obtain one from their country of origin.

"I felt really relieved. I'm very thankful."

Salimjan directs the University of British Columbia's Xinjiang Documentation Project, a federally-funded program documenting the internment of ethnic minorities in China's Xinjiang region. The project has been referenced during debates in Parliament.

An ethnic Kazakh from Xinjiang and a Canadian permanent resident, she specified in her application that visiting the local Chinese consulate to renew her expired passport meantshe would have to disclose her personal information to the Chinese authorities, who she feared mightuse those details to harass her and her parents who are living in China.

Application expedited after CBCstory

Salimjan says she expected the IRCC to deliver the certificate of identity within 20 days of submitting her application, but she still had not received it aftermore than 20 inquiries to the agency.

However, after CBC publicizedher case, Salimjan received a letter from the federal agency instructingher to submit a notarized statement describing the precariousness of her situation.

According to the IRCCletter,Chinese citizenswouldn't normally qualify for a Canadian certificate of identity, unless accompanied bypaperwork from Chinese authoritiesproving their ineligibility fora Chinese passport.

But Salimjansays it's too much to ask of people who are in exile from China andfear repercussions for drawing attention to themselves ortheir families in China.

Her husband, Sam Bass, says the four-month delay took a tremendous financial toll on him and his wife and risked jeopardizing their careers if it had continued.

"It would have been really devastating to leave that job just because of paperwork," he said. "It's a waste of everybody's time, a waste of money, sort of throwing time and money into the trashcan."

'Amazing combination' of activism and expertise

Indiana University Central Eurasian studies professor Marianne Kamp, who invitedSalimjan toBloomington to pursue her research, says she is an "amazing combination" of human rights activism and deep academic expertise and graduate students studying Xinjiang can benefit immensely from participating in herproject.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for us to foster the career of a young scholar in ways that benefit our department [and] our students," she said.

Salimjan says she is reallyexcited about the vibrant academic environment at the university which will help her project flourish.

"There are a lot of language programs that teach Central Asian languages like Uyghur and Kazakh, so it's going to be great."