You have to hand it to the media, lawyers, the Internet experts and their ilk. They had me worried. I expected terrible things when I married an American citizen in the fall of 2006. What those terrible things were, I can't remember, but I do remember knowing that applying for U.S. residency would be torture. And indeed, the process is lengthy and somewhat expensive: perhaps more lengthy and expensive than most Americans know. However, there were no burning fences, no barking German Shepherds, no small rooms with bright lights and metal benches. There was no drawn out waiting period while I sat, jobless and penniless, waiting for the government to rule on my pitiful case. The Crisis News Network had not prepared me at all well for a tidy, efficient and fair process that took me from an F-1 student non-immigrant to a Permanent Resident.
The initial load you're faced with when you want to apply for residency is daunting. It is my opinion that it is deliberately complicated and confusing: if you're not committed to the cause, you'll give up and go home. "Honey, you can come live with me in my country so much more easily than this. Let's go." The more people who give up, the less the load on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) and the less people are admitted into the country as residents. The first thing I did was consult with a lawyer about my case, but I soon realized that she would end up costing us thousands (with an emphasis on the "s") that we really didn't have. Could I do this by myself? Or was that immigration suicide?
What is daunting is the paperwork. Documents after legal documents. Many, many documents. Documents that don't have names like "Medical Form", but rather "I-693." Not only are there numerous forms to fill out and appointments to make (your medical exam probably won't be covered by your insurance; just a heads up), but you'll need tax records and earnings statements from the past three years. This is problematic if you're 23 and have only been employed for six months. Find a way to get them what they want. The form whereby you actually apply for residency provides options as to why you qualify for a Green Card. The option that is most common, that you married an American, is so strangely worded and confusing that it doesn't even contain the word "marriage."
Three copies of some forms. Two copies of others. Four photographs attached to the three copies and one photograph attached to the two. You should not be smiling in the photograph, but a touch of a grin is fine. Retain all copies of everything you send to the USCIS because they apparently have a reputation of losing forms, although they lost none of mine. Do not open your sealed medical report, as it will render the report void. A woman at the USCIS helpline told me to include all my application fees into one check for $935. Others on various immigration forums have since told me that "that's wrong!" and that all checks have to be separate. You know what? It doesn't matter a damn to them how many checks you send, as long as you pay the correct amount. The things people argue about on immigration forums are astonishingly ludicrous.
My hands got sticky and my face got hot every time I thought about those documents and packets. While I waited for current copies of my birth certificate to arrive from New Zealand and for my husband's company to provide him with letters confirming his employment, I couldn't stand to look at the growing pile of paperwork. I was sure it was all filled out incorrectly. I was sure that using white-out on one of the forms was... well... blasphemous. I'd been a good student and never once gotten into trouble during college, but I was sure I must have done something wrong in the four years I'd lived in the United States.
On the verge of panic, I went to the USCIS's website about a week before I was to file my application. Poking around, I came across a system called INFOPASS that lets you make an appointment to speak with an immigration official about your case. It turned out that I could get an appointment the next day and that the offices were only about 10 miles away.
My initial $250 consultation with the lawyer had been wasted, as the official at Seattle's USCIS office was more helpful and appeared to be more knowledgeable than one of Seattle's more expensive attorneys. From the other side of a counter, he looked through my papers and exclaimed, "Looks like you're ready to file! You just need three pictures of your husband, attached here!" If your case is at all straight-forward (you speak English, you've never been arrested, your marriage isn't likely to be considered fraudulent), then I'd recommend not using a lawyer. If all USICS workers are as good as they are at Seattle, you don't need some overpaid attorney charging you out the nose for what you can do for free.
So I had this enormous packet of papers, photos, earnings statements from myself and my husband (I was permitted to work due to a student training program offered to foreigners who graduate from American schools), tax records, birth certificates, copies of passports, marriage certificates and a form showing how I'd changed my last name in 1998. I took it to the post office and sent it to Chicago. You have no idea how scary that is - dropping every record that justifies that you are you into a postal worker's hands and walking out.
And that's where the process stopped being tough. As soon as they received my packet (they received my packet! Partay!) the Chicago office sent me large, watermarked receipts for each document. They included case numbers and instructions. They were in plain English. With these case numbers, I was able to set up an online account on the USCIS website whereby I could monitor actions taken on the four sections of my case (my husband's petition for me, my residency application, my employment authorization application and my travel permit). I also signed up for email notification, where important actions, such as approvals and card production orders, would be sent straight to my Gmail account. Email! From the government! Are you fucking kidding me? This is so awesome!
The next notice was for my Biometrics appointment, which is a fancy way of saying "fingerprints and more photographs." I drove back to Seattle's USCIS offices and had another easy experience with its staff. Very soon thereafter, the fun stuff started happening. I received my work authorization card (which was cool, even though my old one hadn't run out), my travel permits (applicants can't leave the U.S. without permission while their cases are pending) and then my notice requesting that I appear for an interview.
The interview. The cold steel benches and mirrored windows. A drooling Malinois parked at the officer's side as he asks you, "what colour is your husband's toothbrush?" Or, as it turned out, the second floor of the Seattle office and a lady in a pink cardigan who, aside from having my husband and I take an oath of honesty, reminded me of my mum. Mum just assumes I'll be telling the truth. We talked about the cost of weddings, how lovely New Zealand is and why Seattle's summer has been so lame. She wanted to see pictures of my Malinois. In front of her, the original application packet I'd sent to Chicago (which had then gone to Missouri) lay face up, showing off my immaculately written notes. She gave us back a section of my initial application because it was unnecessary - I'd overqualified myself. She said, "Well I'm going to go ahead and approve you today... your card will only take about seven days, because we do a lot of this online now."
And then you get up and leave. You go back to your car and drive home, a U.S. Permanent Resident. The email notification system sends you a message, telling you that your card production is underway. Another two emails are hot on its heels to say that a Welcome letter has been sent to you and that your immigrant petition has been approved. The emails were in my inbox before I got home from the interview.
I don't know what I, or anyone else, expected goes on when you try and immigrate to the U.S. Certainly, there can be obsticles, such as poor health, financial instability or a patchy history. I hate the assumption that I went through the immigration process because my country sucks in comparison. Not everyone applies to live between American borders because their homes are atrocious.
I don't have much sympathy for illegal immigrants because the selfish part of me says "I worked and paid for this privilege; why not you too?" I'd also like to make it clear that Mexicans are not the sole form that illegal immigrants take. If I'd graduated from college here, optained my working / training permit that only lasts a year, not gotten married and thus not applied to become a resident, I'd now be an illegal alien as well. I'd also probably not have been found out, as little white girls with blonde hair and college degrees aren't on the nation's radar as immigrants to watch. I guarantee that illegal immigrants are everywhere: it's very easy to become illegal here. It's like watching for Muslims at the airport and then being hijacked by a white boy from New York with a Scottish last name - the South African girl who works at the gym or the guy from Canada who's serving booze at your favorite bar have as much chance of being here illegally than does any Mexican. Many employers won't bother checking the employment credentials of their foreign workers because it just doesn't occur to them how easy it is to come into the United States legally and then "run out of status."
As far as I'm concerned, it's nice to finally be in a country in which I'm a resident again. It's been a while. I have no particular point to make with this piece aside from to tell you what happened to me. It only took three months and twenty-seven days from my filing the packet to being approved. Welcome to America.
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