Annie Road is a patriotic wannabe American and illegal immigrant, who knows that bad advice is worse than no advice at all.
If you’ve been following along with my immigration woes, you’ll know that I ran into a whole mess of problems, and each problem compounds the previous problems so now I’m dealing with a blizzard of paperwork and an avalanche of uncertainty.
Now that the long form documents are in and I have found a guarantor who has known me for more than two years, I can finally renew my passport, which is the basis for all further steps. There’s just no point in getting all necessary visas in a passport that expires in a few months’ time.
I’m also in the process of figuring out what I need to do next. There is a ton of conflicting information out there, so it might take a little while, but I think I can get a handle on it. The one thing that’s been suggested over and over again in this is calling the local political officials and asking for help, or at least hiring a lawyer.
I would rather be poked in the eye repeatedly with a pointy stick than do that. It’s just not going to happen.
Years ago, when I was a young, wrinkle-free, newly married lass, Husband was a soldier. We had filed the appropriate forms, and were waiting on the green light for us to be united as a family. Under the conditions of the visa that I had applied for, I was not to enter the US until the visa was approved. It wasn’t a huge deal, as the waiting time was estimated at 30 days.
Months later, the visa still hadn’t been approved. Due to changes in the immigration process and to a “sudden backlog”, whatever that means, the new estimate given was well over a year. Had we known that they were going to change things so drastically, we wouldn’t have gone that route, but hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it? Anyway, we saw each other whenever he could get a pass or a long weekend, which worked out to about once every six weeks or so. It wasn’t ideal, but we tried to make the best of our first year of marriage being long distance and rather unconventional.
On one visit, Husband was acting unusually distant, sad and secretive. I pressed him about what was wrong, and he said he was deploying. He had heard rumors about it for quite some time, but it had become official, and he wanted to tell me in person rather than over the phone, or worse, on instant messenger. I could see his point. It’s not really news that I wanted to hear, and no emoticon in the world would make the news any more palatable.
Time passed, and we both accepted the deployment as just another obstacle in a marriage that had nothing but obstacles. As the date grew nearer, he had much less time to visit, and I couldn’t head down to see him because of the pending visa. I did want to say goodbye before he left though. That much was certain, and I started looking for ways to be able to be legally allowed to break the conditions of my visa for 2 or 3 days. The last thing I wanted to do was appear to be just ignoring the conditions of the visa, as that could get me into a whole lot of trouble.
After much fruitless searching, I called both his congressman and his senator’s offices and asked for advice. I got two very different answers.
The congressman’s immigration specialist recommended that I speak to the officials in my area, offer to leave my infant daughter with my parents as proof that I would come back, and they would write a letter that I could show to the powers that be, in case it came up. The lady helping me took this very seriously, and I had a letter from them and my own elected officials in less than a week.
The senator’s aide recommended– get this!– that I just don’t say anything at the border crossing about my visa application, because “they won’t know if you don’t tell them. It should be fine”. Yes, folks, they said it “should be” okay to break federal law, as long as I don’t get caught.
As it turned out, Husband’s deployment was cancelled shortly after that. Crisis averted. Still, I can’t help but think about what would have happened if it hadn’t been. What would have happened if I had taken the word of the senator’s office as truth? They are supposed to know what they are talking about, and I had no reason not to trust them except for the fact that I had done a lot of research and their answer sounded fishy. Would it have been truly fine, had I gotten caught?
I’m inclined to think it wouldn’t have been fine at all. Not even a tiny bit “fine”. While I doubt that any immigration judge in his right mind would impose the harshest possible measures against a sniffling, sobbing military wife who got bad advice about how to say goodbye to her husband, I’m pretty sure I would have had to face some consequences at least.
The more I look into other people’s experiences with immigration, the more I find that this is far from a unique situation. There are pages upon pages of stories of how immigration lawyers or other specialists forgot to file papers, did things incorrectly, or gave terrible advice. For the people affected by that level of incompetence, there’s little sympathy– they are often told “You should have known better” or “You should have picked a better lawyer”. When one calls an expert for help– whether it’s free help as in the case of the senator’s office, or help that’s collecting $250 an hour– one should expect a certain level of competence. The reason people ask experts about this is because they don’t know what to do themselves. They don’t know better and it is not their fault for not knowing. Yet, in this case, it’s more common to blame the victim of incompetence than it is to blame the incompetent: “Sorry that happened to you, but…”
The victims of the incompetence deal with the often harsh consequences, while the incompetent who put them in that position maybe gets written up, scolded, or maybe even fired if it’s a repeat thing. However, despite all of their bad advice or incompetence, they still get to get in their car at the end of the day and go home to their families. I’ve often wondered if these people know what they’ve done, or if getting a slap on the wrist for destroying someone else’s future just doesn’t register. Are they even aware of the fact that when they hug their kids or kiss their spouse, that they just ruined another person’s ability to do so?
This should not be allowed to stand. We should not accept that an estimated waiting period of 30 days can stretch out into 18 months. We should not accept that people asking for help to do things lawfully get terrible–no, illegal– advice from the offices of elected officials. We should not accept that there are immigrant families that are in a terrible situation because of a bumbling lawyer. We should not accept that these are simply “regrettable mistakes” and “unforeseen circumstances”. We should not accept that our friends, neighbors, classmates and co-workers can have their lives turned upside down like this, with no apology or attempt to fix the situation.
Because of the possible consequences, those having immigration problems are quiet. The ones messing up, changing laws, losing papers, giving awful advice– well, no one challenges them. The risks are too high. I’d love to say that I hold my head up high and speak on my own behalf, but as I write under a pseudonym, it would be incredibly hypocritical of me. I am committed to immigration rights, but more committed to my family. I look so forward to the day that I am secure in my status, and I can thank each and every one of you who has been supportive. You might be surprised– a lot of you know me already, you just don’t know that you know. Really, Im just the girl next door. I’m not Other, I am one of you.
I ask of all of you, each and every one of my American friends, to please get involved in this fight. Demand accountability, responsibility, and fairness. Demand a way forward for those of us who are stuck. Demand what you would want if you were in my shoes. Demand what’s right… for all of us.
