Aint Getting No Love (From the INS)

A common misperception I have encoutered is that all one need do to become a US citizen is to marry a US citizen. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Marrying a US citizen doesn't even entitle you to remain in the country. You need a visa to enter the USA (such as the K1-fiancee visa among others), then as soon as you enter the country you must immediately file for a change of status to obtain a "green card" which makes you a so-called "permanent resident." I say 'so-called' as I always thought permanent meant forever whereas you must apply to renew the status every 10 years. Once you have your permanent status you can wait a while longer to apply for citizenship if you so desire. None of your applications are guaranteed to be accepted and, of course, there are expensive fees to pay for each one. As an example, the CURRENT fee to apply for permanent residency comes to a total of $1,070.

Now, if you got the feeling that there was a painful wait for the work permit, it was nothing to that for the green card interview. We thought we were patient, but as we ran towards 2 years and began to be afraid that I was going to be deported those few months began to feel like a New York second.

As it turned out, it was a very good thing my wife was politically connected. We were sent a letter giving us a date and time or my permanency hearing. Unfortunately, it was for a day/date combination that didn't exist. Confused, but not entirely surprised, we called the INS and were buffeted around from one agent to another like a balloon in a hurricane, receiving misinformation after misinformation until we were completely befuddled. As I say, thank the Goddess for political connections. My wife contacted the local congresswoman, Sue Kelly, who pursued the matter for us. A couple of days later we received a somewhat frantic call from the congresswoman's office stating that we better get ourselves down to New York city because the interview was scheduled for the next day. There was no way to change this, despite how late we had discovered the fact, and if we missed the interview I would be deported.

Once we had recovered from the initial panic we realized we were fortunate. We had found out in time and my beloved, being the consummate organizer she is, had already pulled together a complete dossier about our relationship. When I say dossier, I am not overstating the case. We had kept emails from before we met, wedding photos, cards from our families for our wedding, birthdays and Christmas celebrations, tickets from a small holiday trip we had taken together, as well as legal documents such as birth certificates, pay slips etc. Basically, anything that could show we had a strong relationship and I had ties to the USA was included, and filed under appropriate section headings with an easy-to-reference index. If you ever find yourself or a friend in a similar position just ask yourself the following question: How do you prove you and your partner love one another to a cynical stranger?

Still shaken from the late discovery that I had been on the verge of deportation we made our way to New York City and waited in the INS waiting room for our chance to be found worthy of being allowed to remain together. Eventually we were ushered into an office where a sour-faced agent was waiting for us. She pointed to the seats we were to sit in for the ordeal and we followed her direction.

I could see my wife was afraid, perhaps even more so than I was. I took a moment to ease her fears by taking her hand in mine and squeezing it comfortingly. That was a mistake.

"Stop that!" Snapped the agent, looking daggers at us. "I'm not impressed by public displays of affection!"

I had to bite my tongue to avoid responding: "I'm not doing it for YOU you rude bitch!" It's a bad  habit I have always had of biting the heads of anyone I have perceived as being rude to my beloved. Somehow, I thought that wouldn't help us in this situation. So I let go and waited for the inquisition to begin.

It went smoothly. Mostly this was due to the surprise the agent evidently felt about how well organized we were. When we were done she spoke to us more as friendly acquaintances than as a government agent. She also apologized for her initial hostility and made gave us a couple of astounding facts. First, despite this being the agency that deals with people who immigrate to marry they very seldom actually see people in love. Second, they had had once couple come through who had seemed to be in love but, when they had gone to leave, the immigrant woman had thrown her arms passionately around another man - her actual lover, and not the man who had agreed to marry her so she could enter the country. I guess this is another case of being able to understand why some bureaucrats are so suspicious of people.

All that remained then was to get the green card. Or so we thought. That wasn't forthcoming, however and we were told it would be mailed to us later. The reason? The green card could be sold for several thousand on the black market, leaving people open to being mugged on the way out of the INS building if they had the green card with them at the time.

Now, I will never claim that the USA is a perfect country. I'm not blind and it, as any other nation, has many faults. However, I put forward the things we learned about what people will do to immigrate here as proof that what you have is one damn fine nation that should be proud of itself and hold its head high on the international stage.

Permission Granted - Sort Of...

The next important step in immigration, after marrying my wife of course, was to join the workforce. As it takes approximately 2 years after filing for a change of status from a fiance visa to receive a green card, I needed a work permit. We dutifully filled out the required papers, but there was one entry that related to your current status as an immigrant that we needed help with. Basically, if you immigrated on a fiance visa you had to fill in one code and if you had applied for a change of status it was another. As both applied to us, we called the Immigration and Naturalization Services helpline for more information. We were told the code we had to fill in and, with a pleasant farewell, hung up.

With our answer now in hand, we completed the form, wrote the check for the amount required, and the completed form to the INS. It was a joyous, if expensive, day when we sent that form off. Soon I would be able to become a valued part of the workforce, contributing my skills to the USA as any citizen would. So, patiently, we waited...

...and waited...

...and waited...

...and, ok, somewhat less patiently now, still waited. The speed of government is truly something to behold.

A few months later we received an envelope from the INS. In it was my new work permit. Imagine our joy when we looked at this precious card that would soon allow me to earn my way in this new world. Now imagine that joy fading into puzzlement as we saw the card had expired one month before we received it.

Surely there had been some mistake. All we would need to do, we thought, was call the INS, explain the situation, and everything would be corrected. How naive we were. We made the call and were informed that the work permit was correct according to the information we had sent. Inquiring further we learned the culprit was the status code we had struggled with so long ago. Well, mistakes will occur in any process we realized and explained the situation to the agent on the phone, even giving the name of the original agent who had advised us as to what to enter.

"Well, I'm sorry, you shouldn't have been told that," said the agent speaking with us and that gave us hope.

"OK, so what do we do now?"

"You'll need to reapply..."

That didn't please us, given how long it took for them to process the application in the first place. What pleased us less, however, was learning that despite this being an error in the information we were given, we would have to pay again for the new application to be processed. We tried to make the agent see reason, but were left without any recourse save to reapply and pay once more. All of which leads me to one conclusion:

The government never makes mistakes, it merely generates extra income through unusual methods.

Welcoming Committee

My beloved and I arrived in the USA on December 22nd 1997, flying into a bustling Newark airport. We carried with us a sealed envelope that we guardeed with our lives. In this were the documents from the American Embassy in London that gave me permission to immigrate to the states. We had been warned, if this package arrived opened then I would be sent back to England and not allowed into the country.

We were ushered through security into the Customs Office, the first stop on what would eventually prove to be a long, trying journey into bureaucracy. Glancing around at the welcoming committee of officials that were sitting behind the barrier-protected desks before us I wondered if I was being examined as a potential immigrant or a cockroach. Every one of them managed to give those sidelong stares while talking to their colleagues that gave the message: We know you're coming here to take good American jobs and social security; you don't belong. In retrospect, I expect that this has become far worse since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 and understandably so.

Someone indicated a row of seats for us to sit on and we did. That's when we learned about the other occupant in the room, an Indian woman with no shoes and very little grasp of the English language. We wondered why she was shoeless and why she seemed afraid. But through careful overhearing of the conversation of the customs officials as they tried to communicate with her (this primarily involved talking loudly and slowly at her rather than getting an interpreter) we learned that she had been there several hours waiting for the relation who was meant to be picking her up to get to the airport. As nobody had been able to reach this person her shoes had been taken to make sure she stayed put.

Eventually, we were called forward to the counter and one of the officials took our packet, gave us a withering stare, and examined its contents. The assessment of my right to breathe good old American air went faster than I expected: A few questions, some stamping of papers, and I was allowed to go. The Indian woman remained as we left and I said a silent prayer that she would be ok.

Breathing a sigh of relief, we walked through Newark airport towards where my beloved's son was waiting to drive us home. I was surprised to see that half the airport seemed to be in disrepair until I was told that Newark was going through a period of upgrading. Still, that gave me something to look at as we walked.

Then I received my major welcome. An advertising poster from Sun Microsystems graced the wall right before me and its message simply read: GO HOME ALREADY!

Now I'm not sure which genius decided that a major international airport was the best place for a slogan like that, but having just been through the joy of customs and entered what was to be my new country, the words seemed to say that Customs had changed their mind and I should leave. Thankfully, I could see the irony and simply burst into laughter. But for any advertising execs out there - please be careful which slogan you place where. Meaning depends on context.

The Philosophical Soccer Hooligan

I'll never forget the first time my wife got angry with me. We weren't even engaged at the time. We were thousands of miles apart - she living in the USA and I in England. In truth, if you discount the internet and the telephone we hadn't even met yet, although we spoke more on the telephone than many couples do face to face as our thousand dollar a month phone bills testified. We were at once deeply committed lovers and strangers divided by an ocean. This is a strange mix that only those who have experienced long distance relationships can truly understand...

I remember it was a sunny day and I was calling her on my coffee break from work. I mentioned in passing that I was reading a book and when she inquired further I told her it was a book of philosophy. That was when she yelled at me.

"Philosophy? You led me to believe you were a dumb soccer hooligan and you're reading philosophy?"

It's astounding how loud a voice over the phone can sound when it's pressed to your ear.

Anyway, after taking a breath to recover from my surprise I discovered she  had made her assumption because I had told her about my weekly attendance to the games of Cheltenham Town Football Club (that's soccer to Americans). She'd learned something of the obnoxious and extremely rude chants we used and had heard me barely able to talk having screamed my way through watching the matches. I suppose, on reflection, her assumption was understandable, but here's the irony: Not long before she had told me how a co-worker of hers had come into her office and expressed surprise that she - a dedicated worker and political appointee - was also a quilter. Yet there she was, categorizing me into as tight a box as her co-worker had her. What it showed me was that even the very best of us are guilty of falling into that particular trap. Still, no harm no foul, right?

Not so fast. My wife graduated from the Vassar College English Literature program with very high grades. For those of you who don't know, Vassar is a top-notch college, about on a par with Cambridge and Oxford in England. She had assumed that with me being little more than a yob she had fallen in love with she was going to have to dumb herself down for me. This is a shame as I came to value her mind to ever greater extents as I learned more about just how smart she is. And boy is she smart!

So, there you have an explanation for the title of this blog. We all make assumptions about others and ourselves that can affect how we all interact. I want to use this blog to show some of the assumptions I've encountered in my journey as an English immigrant to the USA, as well as to explore the several loves of my life. I hope you find the voyage interesting.