So hey. Hi.

I feel like it’s been a while.

It has been a while.

Probably an idea to restate some things, and to get re-acquainted. Maybe I’ll write more comprehensive stories about these things in time, but, y’know, since we last met, here’s the skinny on what’s been happening:

• We moved to the US in April 2017
• I still work for Microsoft
• We bought a house
• We got a dog (Elmo)
• We had a baby (Stanley Bear)
• We have permanent residence (Green Card) status now

That last one is actually particularly important. As working Visa holders, as we were previously, we were essentially guests of the United States, and our presence here was temporary and conditional on my employment. Let’s talk a little bit about this.

I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status:

58. (a) Have you EVER ordered, incited, called for, committed, assisted, helped with, or otherwise participated in any of the following: Acts involving torture or genocide? Yes No

Now, the employment part wasn’t so much of an issue (at least as far as I was aware!), but the temporal nature of our status here means that getting a Green Card¹ is a priority for most new immigrants to the US. Particularly given that the current administration² are hell-bent on making the path to residence and citizenship as difficult, obfuscated and as expensive as possible. Part of that process is now starting to involve screening of applicant’s social media and online presences. Score poorly, and you can expect a denial. With denial comes the looming deadline of your Visa, and the ramifications of working out what you need to do once it eventually expires.

However, once you have that shiny Green Card you can only be removed from the country if you commit a felony³. We have those shiny cards. Having opinions is not, as yet, a felonious offence.

Was that a reason for my blogging hiatus? Maybe. It’d be pretty annoying to write something critical of the “current shitehook administration” and have some automaton at the USCIS⁴ trip upon it and cause unnecessary headaches. I mean, I did have that ‘Fuck Trump’ bit in a blog post and it got through, but, ehhhhh. Anyway, we got that all squared out.

I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status:

49. Have you EVER received any type of military, paramilitary, or weapons training? Yes No

It took - if we consider the process to have started when we first decided to move here in September 2016⁵ - just over three years to gain resident status. Folks we’d talked to before we moved, who’d undertaken the same UK->US move a year or so earlier suggested that it’d take a year - eighteen months, maybe - as long as we dutifully filled in all the forms correctly, and answered all the asinine questions, of which there are many. So, we did, and expediently! - and it still took 3 years. Which seems like a long time, until you realise that it’s, really, not.

Important disclaimer to insert here: Our experience is only of navigating the murky world of transferring Employment-based Visas to residency.

Three years is probably about average for a white, European, English-speaking, average⁶ person. The further you deviate from those attributes the more complex the process gets. The US Government has limits on the numbers of people it will grant residence to every year, and the classification of those people (have a PhD? won an Oscar? Published a thesis? You go to the top of the queue!), and it has further limits on which countries those applicants can originate from. If you’re Indian or Chinese, and haven’t got an Oscar for Best Sound Direction, for example, this is going to mean a long wait.

I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status:

74. Do you plan to practice polygamy in the United States? Yes No

If I had’ve been born in Mumbai, all other things being equal with the level of my education, my previous work experience and my industry knowledge, I would not have been granted residency in three years. Not yet anyway.

In fact, as things stand right now, in February of 2020, the USCIS is only processing Indian residency applications in the category my application was filed in that were made prior to 1st July 2009. Two thousand and nine⁷. Nearly eleven years ago. What were you doing eleven years ago? Do you think you could plan 11 years into the future back then? If you do happen to be Indian and an Oscar winner, or an international sportsperson, then you only have to wait 5 years, and have your application submitted prior to 1st January 2015, so that’s at least a thing.

As it stands, if you’re a citizen of China, India, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Phillipines or Vietnam, then you are going to face negative discrimination in trying to obtain residency in the United States, purely and solely on the basis of your place of birth. Even on an employment-based Visa, presumably sponsored by an organisation confident enough in you and your skills in the first place to take you into the country. You might well be a tax-paying, economy-boosting member of society, but you’re some kind of shade of brown that America doesn’t like, and therefore not equal to white folk. Sorry, ‘dems the breaks.

If, however, you happen to possess a passport on Trump’s recently expanded “Travel Ban” list (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, North Korea, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania), then you’re dead in the water from the get-go, and if you’re mid-application you’re, as I understand it (which is to say - not at all) left in limbo. No one knows what happens to folks from these countries who’re facing their working Visas expiring with no path to residency. It seems wholly absurd, but, hey, what is new? There are approximately 250 million people in Nigeria and Tanzania alone, and there are around 250,000 Nigerians living in America today.

That’s not to mention the other logistical challenges. Obtaining residency involves submitting a whole lot of your personal information, including your birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce certificates, University transcripts, job histories, payslips, tax histories⁸ and any other number of things that the USCIS might request in order to solidify your application. If these documents aren’t in English, then you need to have them professionally transcribed and notarised, at your own expense. Even if they are in English, you’ll sometimes still need to do some back and forth with immigration lawyers who don’t understand the vagaries of British legal customs, like what the difference is between a Decree Nisi and a Decree Absolute - ask me how I know.

It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that the more un-American your paperwork is, the more hassle it’ll be to jump through all the administrative hoops that’ll be placed in front of you.

Once you become a resident, after 5 more years, you can apply to become a citizen. An actual US citizen. Flags and eagles and hotdogs and everything! You can vote! The five year thing is the same no matter where you’re from, as far as I know. So, happy days - you might’ve waited 11 years, what’s another 5 to, y’know, get some rights and shit up in here?

It’s possible to apply for US residency to your immediate family members once you’re a Citizen. So, for example, if you’re a US citizen of Mexican origin, here legally, trying to bring your children to the US, the USCIS are currently processing family-based immigration applications filed before 22nd August 1997⁹.

1997

1997

This is the legal immigration path. The only remotely viable immigration path. Is it any wonder people choose to swim across the Rio Grande?

It seems as clear as crystal to me that building walls isn’t very much of an answer here.

Anyway. This is all a very long-winded way of saying Hello, again. My name is James, and I will write drivel every so often.

• rants
• immigration
• usa