Professional Profile
Eddy Ramírez is a Venezuelan lawyer and entrepreneur based in Canada, recognized for her work in immigration guidance and for her leadership at Immiland, a firm that has accompanied thousands of people in their process of settling in the country. With training in international law and a deeply human vision, Eddy has built a community that combines reliable information, professional support and emotional accompaniment for those starting a new life in Canada.
After arriving in Montreal in 2013 and self-managing her own immigration process, she became a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant and launched her own practice when employers turned her away for lack of “Canadian experience.” From there, Immiland grew into a reference point for the Latin American diaspora, expanding services from individual files to content, workshops and community spaces that demystify immigration rules.
Beyond the legal field, she promotes education, ethics and empathy as pillars of immigration success. Her presence in media and social networks has made her a trusted voice for newcomers who are navigating uncertainty and complex procedures. Her story reflects the power of knowledge and determination as tools to transform individual lives and strengthen the collective fabric of a community.
It had been barely half a year since her law graduation when Eddy Ramírez boarded the plane. The destination was Montreal. The plan was modest and clear: a six month English course, then French classes. The script did not include the collapse of Venezuela’s economy or the sudden end of her family’s financial support. It certainly did not include discovering an immigration system that is hard to navigate with limited English and no money for legal advice.
The breaking point came in a single sentence, spoken by someone who shifted her axis. “In Canada, lawyer, you are lawyer,” she remembers being told. Until then, survival had pushed her to set her professional identity aside. That phrase forced a question: “What am I doing?” It did not immediately hand her a job, but it did return a name she had parked in order to get by.
Her first years in Canada were, as she puts it, “quite difficult.” She had traveled directly from Venezuela to Montreal with a return ticket and the intention to study. Within months, the crisis back home detonated: financial, social, political. Five months after finishing law school, without having practiced, she found herself in a new country and with the financial floor gone. The priority stopped being her résumé and became rent.
The clash was not only economic. “I realized how difficult the entire migration path was, the labyrinth that immigration in Canada represented,” she recalls of 2013. The internet did not offer the avalanche of tutorials that exists today. Most information was behind paywalls and appointments with lawyers “who only spoke English,” charging hourly rates that were simply out of reach. In that landscape, she says, she felt “lost in a world I did not understand.”
The phrase “In Canada, lawyer, you are lawyer” landed as a jolt. “I had forgotten who I was,” she admits. “At that moment I said: it is true, I am a lawyer.” From there, her method changed. “I started to understand, to read, to research and research again,” she says. With no way to pay for advice, she decided to self-manage her own immigration process. The discipline that followed hours of reading regulations, filling out forms and cross checking information awakened “a different passion” in her. Eventually, she qualified and obtained her license as a regulated immigration consultant in Canada. The Venezuelan degree had formed her; the Canadian license gave her a field to play on.
Licensure, however, did not open a ready made door. She sent dozens of résumés and did not receive an offer. She is careful not to speculate about motives. “I do not know,” she says. “I want to believe it was because I had no prior experience.” Faced with silence from employers, she chose another route: “I became an entrepreneur out of necessity.” She founded her own company and learned the rest at an urgent pace: processes, clients, cash flow, the unspoken rules of a market she had entered from the outside.
She does not wield grievance as a banner, but she does register fine differences in reception. In meetings with banks, she notes, “I feel there is a bit more welcome when my husband, with his French accent, speaks. It is like a quicker ‘yes’.” In her case, she chose to “make a statement and show that I am not disconnected from the world so that they listen.” The response was not immediate, but persistence slowly turned suspicion into respect.
Latin identity appears in her voice as a work ethic and as a commitment to education. “Education is the engine that lifts you out of poverty,” she repeats, crediting a lineage of strong women, from her grandmother to her mother. For her, studying was never an ornament or a way to postpone life. It was the bridge to recover her professional voice and to make informed decisions in a new system. It was also a defense against inertia. “The worst thing is procrastinating and staying there, in limbo,” she warns. “Those are hours you will miss later.”
The sense of belonging did not arrive with a passport or a permanent resident card. “It was not the document,” she explains. It emerged gradually as she adapted to the way Canada works: punctuality, civility, the style of debate, the rhythm of daily life. Moments like buying a house, getting married and having children with a Canadian partner made that belonging tangible. There was also a basic need. “I was left without a country,” she says of the Venezuelan collapse. “They stole my house and my roots.” That loss forced a choice: “You need to attach yourself to something.” She chose to attach herself to Canada.
The balance between business and motherhood came with a simple rule: do not try to do everything at once. “If I tried to do it all at the same time, I was going to do something wrong,” she concluded. With her first child, she made a decision that drew questions from those around her: she put her baby in daycare at five months old. She decided after testing a few months at home. “I was not giving my 100 percent as a mom or my 100 percent as a businesswoman,” she says. The solution was pragmatic: from eight to four, the company; afterwards, motherhood. “In that eight to four, I did what I used to do from eight to eight,” she explains. “I was producing more, just faster and in less time.” She repeated the scheme with her second daughter and still follows it: mornings for consultations, then time with the team; after three in the afternoon, she switches roles and tries to dedicate herself fully to her children.
Her advice to newcomers, especially young Latina women, starts with an internal adjustment. “Pause what we were,” she suggests, “and focus on what we are and what we can do.” It is not a call to erase one’s past, but to prevent nostalgia from blocking the present. “In that first year, accept that you are no longer that person and that you have to build your life with a clear plan.” She does not offer magic solutions. She calls for strategy and discipline: set goals, do the paperwork, and “do not procrastinate.”
Her view of the community combines gratitude and demand. “I have grown thanks to the Latino community because they have accepted me as their immigration lawyer,” she acknowledges, using the term her clients often use for her. That trust is the foundation of her company. At the same time, she argues that something needs to change. “We need to support each other,” she says. She is concerned about a pattern of suspicion. “There is no real support nucleus; we need to be a community.” Her proposal is the opposite: to celebrate others’ success and, when someone is struggling, to show up and support rather than sink them.
She also challenges a narrative of automatic failure or luck. “If someone has a bad outcome, it does not mean we are all doomed. And if someone did well, it was not just luck.” For her, the invitation is concrete. Organize. Prepare better. Stop working in isolation and look for group benefit. The experiences that today circulate as anecdotes could become shared manuals if they are told with rigor.
There is no epic flourish in her closing, only method. Going back to study when there is no spare time or money. Reading the fine print of a system not designed to explain every step. Accepting the cost of entrepreneurship when the first opportunity does not arrive. Setting boundaries in order not to drown in a false sense of doing it all. Adjusting when the plan does not work. In the phrase that once shook her, “In Canada, lawyer, you are lawyer,” she found a way to recover her name and profession. The rest, as she tells it, has been work.
