I had gone through a similar experience as Dr Jeffrey Chiang in trying to obtain a PR (permanent resident) for my wife. Both my wife and I were professionals contributing our expertise to the nation. When my wife first came to Malaysia, she was told to wait for five years before submitting an application for PR. We waited.

After five years, we went to the immigration office in the city where we worked. We were told that application could only be submitted in my home town which was 500km away. We took leave and found the time to go to my hometown and filed an application there using my parents' address.

Three months later, a card was sent to us, requesting us our presence. Thinking that there was progress in the application, we did not mind traveling another 500km. But when we turned up at the immigration office, the officer handling the application told us he had overlooked photostating one of the visa pages of my wife's passport when the application was last submitted! I could not help feeling that he was playing game with us, as he knew that we were working somewhere else.

After that, we had not heard anything for a long time. We decided that our application had probably gone into some black hole.

Eventually, I decided to move to a neighbouring country to take up a new job. After about six months, we both decided to apply for PR there. The application went smoothly. Within a month or two, we were informed that our application was granted. What a contrast to the previous experience!