USCIS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The good ol' United States Customs and Immigration Services (a branch of the Department of Homeland Security) now charges for these tempest-tossed huddled masses who are yearning to breathe free to come through the golden door.

My husband and I are currently in the process of knocking at this door, and Lady Liberty's lamp is not yet lifted to him. We have had a fairly smooth go of it, but there is SO much paperwork, forms, and cashier's checks involved that I think I would be better off to send him to Mexico and vote for McCain.

Two years ago when he was about to graduate from the University of Utah, we began the petition for alien relatives. The criteria we used, obviously, was marriage. At the time, we had to file three separate forms, one for him to work, one for me to promise to pay for him if he became a bum, and one for him to stay in the States. I forget exactly how much we paid for each form, but they average $500 a piece. In addition, we had to pay $150 for him to get a physical, and what they call a biometrics fee. This is about $100, and includes fingerprints and a background check. All of this was back in 2005. The only real setback we had was that I did not include Dapo's birth certificate in our first round of applications. They sent us a request for it, and we sent it right in. I did read the required documents portion about five or six times over, and don't remember seeing that. Then again, the forms are terribly cumbersome, even for someone whose FIRST language is English.

Around August '05 we received a notice for interview. This is when you take all your copies of
the documents you sent in and you take pictures, love notes, wedding invitations, and anything else that you feel substantiates your actual marriage out of love and not out of "circumventing the immigration laws of the United States of America". During the interview, the gentleman asked for any additional items we might want to show him (see above) and there were a couple of items that got left at home. I told Dapo to get them and I'd get something else, and he thought I said it the other way around, and we had this conversation in front of the man and the guy said, "well, I'm going to go ahead and approve your petition, it's obvious you are married". He must have felt sorry for Dapo. Don't we all.

Before we left the interview, the guy said that what Dapo was getting was a "temporary permanent resident" card. This was because we had not been married for two years before making application. But, we did not have two years to wait, so we had to go this route. The gentleman told us that the temporary card was good for two years, and that we would have 90 days before expiration of the two years to apply to have the conditional status of his permanent residency removed.

Two or so weeks ago we were talking and I realized it was July and I said, "it's almost September", referring to the two year mark, which prompted Dapo to remember this conversation with the INS worker. So, we go to file the form to remove the conditional status, which is another $525, plus another biometrics fee and of course, another interview to make sure we're still married. We had to send in our joint tax returns, joint checking account statements, mortgage that we're both listed on, insurance policies listing me as the beneficiary, two affidavits from people swearing under oath and penalty of perjury that they know of our relationship and are willing to attest to the validity of it (thanks Mom and Heather), copies of birth certificates of any children from the marriage, copies of utility bills and other revolving credit with both of us on the account, and anything else we felt would establish our relationship and man and wife, not wife and immigration circumventor.

Last week we received a letter which wasn't exactly what we were looking for. They extended his temporary permanent residency out a year, while stating that we will receive an appointment to capture fingerprints, photo, and signature from Dapo. Yes, they do already have this, but some things just don't make sense but you do it because you'd like your husband to stay in the country. They also said they would like us to send a copy of our property deed, as well as car and medical insurance policies (we only sent the life). So no biggie I will copy those and send them out.

I will be very glad when this is over, because after this, he would like to become a naturalized citizen. He can't do that until he's been a permanent resident for five years, but it will happen one day. Land of the free (give or take $2k) and home of the brave.