We're Hally (also known as Xilrayne), and we've been an artist in online communities for well over a decade!

Last year, Hally changed homes and moved from Colorado alllll the way to Nova Scotia in Canada. Hally has lived there for a little over a year! But while trying to follow the all the rules, Hally hit a roadblock with the immigration paperwork and now needs help to afford an Immigration Lawyer.

Without professional help, the legalese is too much, and after being barred from home, Hally kind of shut down for awhile. We've put every bit of effort we could to try and make it work, but risking it alone now could mean never being allowed home again, let alone getting Permanent Residency to be able to live there forever.

Hally's only goal is to return home! We followed a lot of instructions on our immigration, and working to be together with our found family - people who have been with Hally through thick and thin. In the darkest and brightest alike, they're the dearest family Hally's been so lucky to know. They are the people who invited Hally to a new home, a safer place for a trans woman in uncertain and scary times.

For now, Hally luckily has a place to crash, friends who are kind enough to offer their home while things are in turmoil. Being turned away at the border was a surprise, Hally was so certain that Hally would have the way home. We drove 775 miles, from Buffalo to the border crossing in Maine, much of it through heavy snow storms. By the time we hit the border, it was 2am on Christmas Eve. We waited for hours as they went through our car, our stuff, all we had with us. Just a small thing of clothes, medicine, road snacks, and our work PC.

In the end, they sent us back. Hotels were closed and we stayed in our car to sleep in the middle of the winter storm until sun rose proper on the Eve. Then we... just drove and drove, until we got confirmation of a friends place we could stay at in Massachusetts, 350 miles from the Maine border. Which, we're there now! But Hally really wants to go home.

Hally realized Hally needed help for this. Hally is not a woman who likes asking for help, or admitting vulnerability in any way. But Hally can't reasonably make this work alone this time. Hally needs an Immigration Lawyer, and Hally has one picked out! She's already succeeded in getting a friend immigrated, and she comes from their first-hand recommendation. Hally has already had a consultation, in fact!

The total goal is to cover the costs of the Immigration Lawyer, the paperwork for Immigration itself, and a small buffer to assure we can afford medicine in the states and general month to month bills.

We really can't thank you enough for just taking the time to read this, it means the world that you would give just that time to be here. Even if you can't put forth anything, Hally understands so much! Take care of yourselves, your loved ones! Treasure the times you get together, and if you can share it with others, please do!

Thank you again. So, so much.