Her fiancee visa was in fact quickly approved, pending an interview at the US consulate in Buenos Aires. We waited and waited, called, had our lawyers call, and the response was always "when the consulate is ready to make an appointment, they will call you." They never called, leaving us in limbo for over a year and saddled with thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Eventually we grew tired of the uncertainty. I moved to Argentina, we got married, and we've lived here ever since.
Argentina is not perfect. But the legal status of foreign residents here is much clearer than in the USA. As the husband of a citizen, permanent residency was automatic provided I didn't have a criminal record in my home country (I don't). I am allowed to vote in municipal elections. And, now as the father of an Argentine citizen, citizenship is also automatic if I want it.
You might think that Argentina can afford to be generous with immigrants because it has nowhere near the load of foreign residents that the USA does, and to an extent that's certainly true. But on the other hand, Argentina has fairly large immigrant communities (from Peru, Paraguay, Bolivia and China), more social welfare services (basic healthcare is free here), and a lot less financial resources than the USA.
Having now lived somewhere else and been on the "other side" of the immigration issue, I feel indignant and outraged when I read about how my country treats non-citizen residents.
Luckily since our initial terrible experience, we've had nothing but good ones with the US Consulate in Buenos Aires. So I'm hopeful that if we ever decide to move back to the USA, being married for 5 years and having a child will count in our favor and make the process much easier like it was for you.
As it is though, I've grown pretty comfortable here and don't know if we'll ever move back. All's well that ends well, I suppose. :)
I know a handful of couples like that. It was pretty painless --so long as they married prior to coming to the US. So they were legally married overseas, then applied at overseas consulate and green card was granted --citizenship can be applied for a year after arrival, and (I'm under the impression) most have been granted citizenship within one to two years. No fuss, that I've heard of.
Now, (you) working overseas (not in the US) as a non citizen can get tricky for US citizens --you have to be sponsored, of course, but in some countries, like Argentina, you (or employer most likely) would have to prove there was no local available to fulfill the job requirement. That can be a tough hurdle.
The end result? Instead of allowing legitimized, orderly immigration from Mexico and Central America, we pretend that that it isn't happening, and then spend billions on needless social services and draconian law enforcement.
Both sets of my grandparents were immigrants to the United States from Ireland. On my mother's side, my grandfather had a 7th grade education (common in rural Ireland) and my grandmother was pregnant when they immigrated here after WW2. All they needed to do was scrape together a few buck and fill out some forms, and they arrived in New York as legitimate resident aliens, able to get jobs and function fully in society.
Today, my grandparents would be accused of moving here to give birth to an "anchor baby" and would probably be here illegally, unless they won one of the elusive green card lottery slots.
ICE was set up during the later years of the Bush administration, and now they've hit their stride after ramping up. The Obama Administration could expend political capital to do something about the issue, but that's probably not a winning political stance.
Also the worse the situation, the more radical the actions to turn it around will be - no matter if those actions actually help or make it worse.
- Even when we finally got an interview the visa was rejected at first because I was living there, with her, instead of back in the USA, alone. They said I had not maintained 'domicile' in the USA and therefore did not intend to return home.
- When we finally received the visa it listed my father as the sponsor instead of me. We had to get a new one.
- Somewhere on the USCIS website it actually stated that applicants were 'guilty until proven innocent'
- In the waiting room, waiting for the final, correct visa there were a group of Americans waiting to adopt. They were given a nice instruction session on what to do, how to fill out the forms, how to deal with the Chinese adoption policies. I, however, felt I had been actively refused help at every turn in a deliberately opaque bureaucracy.
You see, it can be very difficult to fire high level bureaucrats. If you don't have faith in them it can be more dangerous to leave them in place.
Transferring them to South America is a popular solution. It's nice enough that they won't fight the transfer, and safe enough that they can't mess things up too badly.
Try talking to a consulate in a different city.
Honestly, as long as your brother-in-law got his permanent residency in a timely fashion and could work in the United States and live with his family, I don't think there's anything to complain about here. I went through the same process - apart from the naturalization at the end, which I've got no desire to do.
During the last decade though, the USA have done a fantastic job of eradicating every bit of what was left of this dream. Nowerdays all you hear from them is how Hollywood is destroying little guys' lifes for downloading a bunch of songs, exporting those policies with force to other countries, insane financial schemes and starting several wars.
Right now I am planning a trip to Japan. A country, which was hit by a nuclear meltdown crisis, floods, earthquakes and more. I'd still choose it over going to the USA any day. Maybe that's something to think about.
The USA are going down fast and it doesn't look like there are changes in sight in regards to their handling of immigrants, the wars or the rampand self-made economic problems.
And that is a shame.
A few years ago I visited the USA for the first time -and have a been there a few times since- and didn't like what I saw. I like Americans, and I like a lot of things about the US, but wouldn't live there at all.
I think the problem was what Hollywood movies made me believe the US was, and what it really is.
EDIT: Not sure why, but this is being downvoted. If you find it offensive or inaccurate, please let me know why. I don't care about the votes, I just would like to know why.
America has her faults but you really shouldn't discount her beauty based on the news and it's mismatch to movies.
"Hollywood is destroying little guys' lifes for downloading a bunch of songs" - technically they've only sued a few people... and really, people shouldn't be stealing music anymore with songs available for 99cents now.
"insane financial schemes" - ya, there are a few really ethically challenged people who are smart enough to take advantage of others in America. But really, there are a lot of really fantastic people here as well. My business partner is someone I would be comfortable giving a blank check. I've accidentally forgotten my iPhone at Starbucks a couple times and it was returned both times. The area I live in is very safe (knock on wood.) Our garage door has accidentally been left open twice in the last ten years and we had left for the weekend. The first time nothing happened. The second time, our neighbor stayed up all night to keep watch. True story.
There are a lot of good people and yes, there are some bad people. America is a diverse collection of people. That is her strength.
Even that is fine but funny thing is that same person is allowed visa for the same purpose when he applied next time :)
American under Obama have started some kind of cheap protectionism.
I have never, ever seen a phrase so absolutely and totally full of hyperbole on this site.
That's his feeling, it is whatever he writes.
Whether it is full of hyperbole or not is not knowable, he'd have to admit to that himself or you'd have to scan his brain.
Say someone from Africa or South America. They can't simply save enough money, get on a plane, land at JFK and then after 10 years or whatever time become citizens. They would have to be persecuted in a terrible way before being granted asylum, have to marry a US citizen, find a company that would hire them.
I think that is very interesting given that this country was founded on immigrants just hoping on the boat and coming here, either to build a better life or because things got terribly bad where they were.
I personally went through the whole process and it is a fucking mess. I knew how to deal with it, because I dealt with bureaucracy in the old country. I can sense an annoyed low level clerk's power trip coming on before they notice it. Such individual need special treatment. You never want to fall into anyone's cross-hairs, it seems like they would destroy you just because they can.
Also know someone who works for immigration. It is quite a dysfunctional entity. Very inefficient. Lots of internal mistakes, unpaid interns do the job searching through databases and picking people out for violations & deportation. Next time you know someone was picked out -- chances are some kid thought their last name sounded funny and it caught their attention.
It's the EB-5 visa.
Are there countries where this is possible? This is a real question, I'm not snarking---is there some country X where I could just up and say, "I want to move to X" and just go there and make it my permanent residence? (I know that there are some countries that in practice don't enforce their requirements, but I thought all countries had them.)
For instance, if you wanted to become a permanent resident or a citizen to the Dominican Republic, all you would have to do is get there (via sea or air), go through the motions, submit the paperwork and pay the taxes.
You would start by buying a US$10 tourist card, as a permit to enter the country, which will be approved unless you are obviously wanted by Interpol.
This will give you 60 days, during which you can apply for your provisional resident visa. For the resident visa you will need to provide, aside from the usual forms and tax payments, proof of solvency, defined as about 13k dollars in assets (cash and property) at the current exchange rate, and a letter of sponsorship from any good-faith Dominican citizen with in-country legal residence.
Within the first two months after this visa you can apply for a provisional residency card. About four months after the application, you receive your provisional residency card, which lasts a year. At about the year mark, it does not matter much if it happens before or after, you can apply for your permanent residency card. That last one lasts 3 years and is indefinitely renewable (as long as you do not commit a horrible crime).
After two years of uninterrupted legal residency in the country (i.e. at least six months and one day per year) you can apply for naturalization.
All the while, you are free to engage in productive business from day one. You would be taxed differently, on account of not being a citizen, but you would be allowed to work for a profit. If you happen to aquire assets in-country, there is leeway to have the sponsorship requirements waived.
Legal translations, medical examinations and notary public fees carry the burden of the cost of the process. Taxes will run you up less than $100 in total. The entire process is fairly inexpensive and could probably be done with less than $1000 dollars.
As I understand it, its much easier in many countries to be part of their "skilled worker" areas than the US. It usually takes working for a large corporation to get a H-1B visa.
As an American citizen I feel like I can move to any country in the world. I mean any country should want me to move to theirs right? /snark
The straight facts may be different, but that was the general idea of what I understood.
They want you to apply from the outside.
In Canada for instance that can get really funny, where applying from within Canada for a European is only possible by applying in the United States (Buffalo, for instance).
Within Canada there is no office that can deal with your application.
You'd have to fit into one of the categories -- gifted, company wants to hire you, married a citizen, have lots of money & investing in US, ...
I am pretty sure this is exactly the same for every country. Not anyone can move to any other country, it has not been that way for a long time.
Depends on what you exactly mean by home country, but there is an investor's visa - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-2_visa
And even E-2 is not just anyone -- it is for rich people. Even the minimum amount quoted $50,000 is considered enormous by most of almost 7 billion people living in the world.
However, prior to getting the visa, you can't do business in the USA : So it's pretty tough to get all this done and stay strictly within the law (a B-2 visa should be for a business outside the States, for instance).
What's more, when it comes to renew the E-2, you are forced to have an interview (after submitting a whole lot of documentation) in the Embassy in your home nation : And the Embassies won't give any firm guidelines about the visa turn-around period, so that you're left in limbo (away from the US) until the magic envelope with your visa'd Passport inside drops through the letterbox.
FWIW, once at the Embassy, the official there was pretty understanding of the hustle required of an entrepreneur, and was pretty friendly once they saw that the reality matched the intent of the visa. The documentation exists mainly for rejection purposes, IMHO.
To do this to someone that has been there for a lifetime and then some is ridiculous.
Too many lives have already been wrecked to satisfy little minds and to get stamps on pieces of paper.
Immigrants like these are the ones a country should hope to receive, not to turn away at some arbitrary future date for bureaucratic reasons only.
Disgusting.
The person is obviously a great entrepreneur, he probably should have just left on his own accord instead of fighting it to the point where he's thrown in jail.
The ridiculous thing is that he's in the US, paying his taxes, creating income, etc.... why throw him out? I suppose it's because he applied for asylum that was denied, and they are throwing him out to prove a point, but the entire thing is just counterproductive to what we want in this country.
1) Apply to INS, wait in line, enter the lottery and follow the law.
2) Hop on a plane and hope they don't catch you.
He chose route 2, and is now paying the consequences. Just because he's an entrepreneur doesn't give him any more right to be here then any other would be immigrant, and it certainly doesn't give him the right to jump the line
That being said, in the 20 years since he's been here, presumably legally since he was legally allowed to stay while fighting his case, he's made a good life for himself and his family, and they appear to be productive members of society.
If it were me, I probably would have denied the asylum application, but given his entrepreneurial skills, I would have allowed him to apply on an investor's visa and let him stay during the process. The problem is that it took 20 years for the case to go through, which allowed them to create a good argument to stay in the US by being productive members of society. If they sped up the process, this wouldn't have even been an issue.
In the end, aren't these people what we want from immigrants? It's ridiculous how politicians don't try to do very much about illegal immigration because it's so pervasive, but when they find a productive member of society who is trying to immigrate, they throw him in jail because he has revealed himself.
Can we please avoid making headlines unnecessarily hysterical?
"By coincidence, Frontline this week is broadcasting a feature, ‘Lost in Detention’, outlining the increasingly aggressive measures to deport immigrants. The key clip begins at the 17-minute mark outlining the arbitrary goal of 400,000 deportations, including “Non-criminal removals”. "
From http://mapbrief.com/2011/10/19/political-hypocrisy-economic-...
It seems clear to me that at this point he is an economic migrant, rather than a refugee; and as that was the basis of his initial plea to stay (i.e. he was seeking asylum from persecution), the generally brutal machinery of bureaucracy is ejecting him from the country. (Apparently, credible death threats don't constitute sufficient grounds for asylum. But I don't think he is credibly at risk, even of that.)
It's very harsh on him and his wife, uprooting them from their community, etc., but on the other hand he ought to have little difficulty finding work and living anywhere he chooses in the EU.
Frankly, I don't think the US deserves him.
I can understand that he feel's the US is his home and he shouldn't have to leave, but he's basically been trying to play the system for 20 years. He was told what he had to do to get a visa legally, but he wasn't willing to do so.
So they applied for asylum on political grounds in 1993, because the Communist party was dethroned 4 years earlier. Well...
From the case file, however, it seems like they entered with a J-1 visa and before their authorization to stay expired, they applied for asylum.
What do you do though, the immigration system doesn't seem to be set up to handle exceptions. Once you make one, you have to grant exceptions to others. It's a tough dilemna, Atanas has been seemingly a constructive member of society, hopefully paying taxes along the way. It would be a shame in this sense to punish such a person.
I'm not sure about auto qualification if you want to start a business. I think you need something like $1M in the bank to prove that you have the resources to start...
It's unfortunate that this man will have to relocate but I feel more sympathy for his son than him.
USA, like many countries, has a strict immigration system in which you must play by the rules and follow the process to become 'legal'. Just living in the country is not enough, you must apply for residency by qualifying in some way.
Unfortunately, it's quite tough to qualify to stay in the US for most people. Skilled immigrant visas are notoriously difficult to attain (there's no simple points system like Australia for example) and so you must look to marriage to a citizen, asylum or the green card lottery. If you think marriage is the easy choice you'd be wrong too.
As someone who is going through the process right now, it can be difficult, expensive, depressing, demeaning (having to prove your relationship is 'real') and downright frustrating but right now that's the way the system works so you must work with the system. This guy obviously didn't and now he's paying the price.
1) US and EU economies nearly equal each other in size. [1]
2) You only need one language in the US to reach the entire market.
3) I don't believe for a second there isn't prejudice against outsiders in each individual European country. Wikipedia hosts an article written just about tensions regarding Polish people entering the UK! [2]
1 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Polish_sentiment_in_the_Un...
2) Well, i18n is nothing hard these days, at least from a technical perspective, also you could reach certain market types using only English quite well in Europe.
3) Yes, this is true, however these problems are visible only in small parts of certain tiers of society. Shortly, the chances of meeting people who openly display negative sentiments against foreigners are smaller if you run a company consulting about GIS, than if you are a plumber/gas station clerk or whatever.
Also, by "'you dirty outsider' attitude" I meant that attitude being displayed by the government, which is very typical in the US.
For example I am a software developer, who comes from one of the 'new' countries and currently lives in another 'new' one, but I have spent significant time in an Western European country and so far I haven't had a single problem with bureaucracy (and with drugged-out undereducated unemployed youths with too fragile minds as well) at any of these places, which compared to Entchev's case of 'they got my entire family under arrest and ruined the life I have been building for the past 20 years' is a whole world of difference.
I wonder what this is referring to and how it reconciles with
> ... living legally in the United States for over 20 years
Something tells me there's more to the story than what's in the linked post.
I think it might be an unpopular opinion, but in reading the legal doc, he doesn't have much of a case to stay. He should have been deported 14 years ago. The real tragedy is that it took so long.
There seems to be some confusion related to his legal status.He entered US legally and applied asylum for him and his family.During this period, they are in legal status. After they apply for asylum, they have no control or information over that process.If the immigration process was fast enough, none of this would have happened.When the immigration rejected their application after a long time, they filed an appeal which was rejected again.Now they have run out of attempts via the asylum option and are being kicked out. I hope they can try some other category.
<rant> The immigration process, with so many different categories and quotas, is a huge bureaucratic mess. The are still using papers and just recently started using online documents for some processing. It is the second highest profitable government agency minting money out of immigrants. The process can be streamlined and made faster even with the current policies. But who cares about legal immigration anyway? Let those "aliens" stand in line and wait forever. I personally know many friends and families living with constant fear and uncertainty for almost a decade or more.
The policies and rules are just too confusing and inconsistent.Two identical immigrant families can go through completely different process, duration and rules depending on whether a knowledgeable or ignorant immigration agent processing their files. </rant>
In 2004 I arrived in Spain as an American and found a programming job at the international division of a sizable U.S. company. But everything was under the table, and that company did not want to sponsor a visa for me. But even when I was illegal in Spain I still had access to better free health care than the uninsured do in the U.S.
Fast forward to 2008, I was still living in Spain and had done some great work for a unrelated startup that was purchased by a much larger U.S. company. I was still in Spain illegally, but this major U.S. company on finding out my status was willing to help me out in any way to become legal here.
Spain has something called "Social Normalization for Exceptional Circumstances" which means if you have been in the country for three years illegally and have a company sponsor you, they will give you a work visa. You also have to be integrated in the community and speak the local languages well. So in 2008, this major U.S. company paid a lawyer and helped me through that process, something that I am exceptionally grateful for. During the time I worked for this company, my work helped bring in millions of Euros of contracts to the international division of this company in Spain.
Now in 2011 I still live in Spain, have the freedom to change jobs or work for myself, and after 7 more years I could become a citizen here, on the condition that I am always working and living in Spain during those years. That means 15 years from illegal to full citizen. I doubt I will stay that long, and don't actually plan on becoming a Spanish citizen, but knowing that if I had a family here and have that option is amazing. Now I am happily working for a Spanish university research group, fully legal.
And I have to say, I think it is disgusting to take a man, and especially his son who has lived in the U.S. since the age of two and treat them like criminals when the father has been actively contributing to the U.S. economy in one of the areas that the U.S. excels at. To criminalize this contribution is to spit in the face of all those immigrants who became American and made America what it is today.
And it is also denying the basic human rights of this individual.This clearly violates Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 15.
* (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
* (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Edit: As noted in the comments below, actually this does not violate Article 15 at all. I still stick with my conclusion though.
No it doesn't, no-one in this story is being deprived of their nationality. In any case, the prohibition is on arbitrary deprivation, and a 15 year long court battle is not arbitrary.
I got this impression from an article I read ages ago, but 5 minutes with Google Scholar did not give me any sources to back this impression up.
I had free healthcare, even though I only used it for one or two checkups.
I was enjoying making art and the art scene in Barcelona, at least for the first few years I was here.
The first job was potentially better than what I could get in the U.S. It was my first programming job and I am not a cs major, I have a liberal arts degree which doesn't get you many jobs in the U.S. So it was a professional opportunity for me. I just wanted to live in Spain, and never had issues any serious issues being illegal that really impacted my life. I was very fortunate in that I had a well paid part time job. The biggest inconvenience I suffered was not being able to sign contracts for mobile phones or apartments. Trivial compared to what most illegal immigrants go through.
Now, as I get a bit older (I am 34), and have substantial programming experience, the jobs and opportunities available in the U.S. are looking very attractive. At the moment I stay in Barcelona for personal reasons and a desire to finish the current contract I have with the research group. I do have my eye on moving back to the U.S. next year.
If you are an international student and not on OPT, you cannot legally work full time/part time/do an internship with the startup your friend just launched (or any other company, on this note). You may want to risk spending your months, or doing some other jazz, and then try to figure things out, but as we can see from the case at hand these maneuvers do not work out well for everybody.
As for sponsorship, from the employer's perspective, the whole visa sponsorship application process costs about $10k, which is not little money for a small company.
Isn't this all part of the 9/11 hysteria ? I am not sure but I was told that before 2001 you could work part time for any employer you wanted if you came here on a F1.
We're all Africans.
The whole immigration issue boils down to "we got here first! nah nah ne nah nah!"
The "National Origins Formula" was only abolished in 1965. Before 1965, US immigrants were 90+% white.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Origins_Formula [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act...
This is fact, not opinion.
I'm not arguing a certain side here, but want to point out that those who say "the US has been built on immigrants" might be nostalgic to a past that never existed.