I feel that in order to explain how I learned to step out on faith that I must share the story of getting my husband's expired visa situation corrected. I also need to express how maddening it is to hear the phrase "Why can't they just go get a Green Card?" Well, because it is a long drawn out expensive and time consuming process and if you have never experienced it first hand, then you will never understand.
My husband came to the United States in 2006 under the pretense that he would do some training for this company he worked for in Mexico. They wanted him to train in Iowa and then go back. He agreed to do this, but then called his Uncle who lives in Nashville. So they worked it out that he would fly into the United States and he would go to Nashville to work instead. This way he could send enough money to Mexico to buy his parents a house. Little did he know at that time how drastically different things would go.
To hire the lawyer that day we had to hand over $1,500. We were able to do this because I had set money aside to cover my maternity leave. I did it with no hesitation. I just knew that this man sitting beside of me had to be there for me for all time.
The lawyer had already explained that if things didn't work out and he didn't get a Green Card that he could have to go back to Mexico for a minimum of 10 years. I was terrified of this happening, but I was more terrified of not trying to get him a Green Card.
As previously explained in my last post, I met him at a Mexican Restaurant where he worked and we began dating, got pregnant, and got married. The lawyer we hired sent us to get a marriage license the day we hired him. We had only two weeks to be married and have all utilities and my I.D. with my married name. Now don't get me wrong, I was really excited about marrying him and starting a new life with him. He makes my heart sing, even then, he made my heart sing.
So we got married in a small church in our hometown. My former Mother-In-Law, who was a pastor agreed to marry us. She did the counseling with us. She went over how we each felt about our religious preference. He is Catholic, I am Baptist. And she deemed us serious enough and in love enough to go through with it.
Since this was my second marriage, and my father was not in agreement with it at this time, we had to pay for it. Lucky for us so many things fell into place. The cake was made by a co worker of mine, I bought the little cake topper and the materials to make flowers at a local craft store. My sister's in laws also agreed to help us out. Cousin D made my skirt since I was very pregnant and couldn't do a nice dress. I bought my shirt at a local department store. My oldest son was giving me away. Because we were getting married on a Wednesday at 4pm not a lot of people could be there. No regrets here. I feel as if everyone that mattered was there. It was really nice because my Aunt and Uncle from Michigan were passing through town that day so they were there.
My day began with work at 7, I was off by 9 and my sister met me at my house and we headed over to a friends house to get our hair done. Things didn't go as fast there as I had originally anticipated because my sister and I had a lot of hair at that time. My husband came to pick me up so we could go to our doctor's appointment, we heard our baby's heart beat. Then he rode with my dad and my sisters fiancé to the church. I waited on my sister to get there and then we went to the church.
Fast forward to the day we met with the lawyer again and turned in all our paperwork. Then we had to go over every place he had ever lived in Mexico and the United States, He had to be precise with why he came to the United States. He had to swear to tell the truth because not telling the truth could hurt his case. Then we had to get at least ten letters stating that we were married, and that he wasn't marrying me just for papers. These letters also had to be notarized. Now I knew this wasn't the case because he had changed his mind so many times about getting papers because he was afraid of that being said about him.
They also needed a picture album. We would have to take it with us to Memphis to show how my husband was an integral part of our lives. So we took baby shower pictures, wedding pictures, birthday picture, you name it we took it. Because we needed it to be good, I began calling them propaganda pictures. This was because we took pictures every where and of everything. But we made a nice little album. And it worked too.
All of our lawyer appointments were in Nashville and on Wednesdays. That was his day off, and I would work until noon and then take the rest of the day off. It was easy in the beginning because I only went to the doctor once a month so we tried to keep lawyer appointments on this same day.
The first appointment we had to do was for finger prints. This was a very stressful day. We drove to this part of Nashville that I am sure I have never been to in my life. Because it is a government building you must leave your phone in the car. So we go inside and they take my husband's visa and his Mexican I.Ds and they ask him questions about who his Mom and Dad are where they live where they were born. Then the guy takes those with him and they are passed around the office. Here I am pregnant and thinking oh my gosh if they arrest him I am going to have to drive home from here. What will I do? What if they don't let him give me the car keys? But in the end he answered all the questions correctly and he was fingerprinted and we were off on our way.
We have to turn in all of our proof of income, my tax returns and his for the last three years, my divorce decree from my first marriage, my custody and child support status. A letter from my place of employment stating how long I had worked there and what I made an hour. Then he had to see an immigration doctor to get a complete physical and a TB shot. Bad part of that was the doctor being over an hour away. I had to go with him to this appointment because he didn't have a car that would make that trip safely and he had no driver's license and it was my car that we took. The first day we went it was pouring down rain and there was so much traffic. It was $100 for this appointment. Then the following week we had to go back so they could look at the TB shot injection site and make sure it was okay. We survived that.
The next appointment we had to make was for me to be examined by a psychiatrist that handled immigration cases. This was a horrible day for me. I worked the first half of the day, missed lunch because we didn't want to be late, and we thought that appointment would be fast, it was not. I was in that tiny room with this crazy looking guy who truthfully gave me the creeps for probably five hours. Anyway I had to take all these questionnaires about how I feel about everything under the moon. He interviewed both of us and asked us how we felt about each other the upcoming birth of our baby, and what if he couldn't be a citizen. Then he started asking questions about my past. The lawyer and my good friend the hair stylist both said give it to him straight the crazier the better. It was a horrible day. And yes we had to pay at least $100 for this.
Now all during this time we really don't have a lot of money. My husband is a waiter, I'm making $7 an hour when I am there, which between my pregnancy and immigration stuff isn't a whole lot. We were both under a lot of pressure. I have a son that is trying to adjust to his mom getting married and having a new baby, and he has ADHD. Some days my husband makes a lot of tips and some days he doesn't. You must also keep in mind I came with a lot of debt, and yes he still married me.
So we do everything that we are supposed to do and the lawyer sends in the paperwork. By this time my husband has gotten a permit and license and a work visa. So things are rolling along. But the license and visa will both expire in one year. Then the baby comes early and this is disturbing both because he is born with health issues and because it could upset our income. See another thing that people don't realize is that if you are applying for a Green Card you must have a sponsor. That sponsor has to make a certain amount of money each year. This also goes for adoptions from other countries. We had just barely made it with just me as a sponsor and the reason that worked out was due to the child support I received.
You also cannot receive any government assistance like food stamps or housing during the process and for up to five years after. Because WIC was in a grey area, we decided once we were married not to get it anymore. We were buying groceries on an as needed basis. Unless there was a Nashville trip for the lawyer, my car and his truck got the minimum amount of gasoline. We were covered up in debt. The hospital bills for our son were astronomical. It didn't take long for them to start calling after he was discharged from the hospital. It was like everyday was a rainy day. And we had it easy. Most immigrants that file for a Green Card in the United States are sent back to Mexico to wait out the process there. This means that if they are the provider for their family they have to go back to Mexico and leave the family here and pray to God that they get the Green Card and get to come back.
In June we had to go to Memphis for the big immigration hearing. Lucky for us I was on maternity leave. We looked at it as an adventure, but we paid for our hotel with a credit card. The hotels that were the closest to the Immigration offices were pretty pricey. Since our appointment was at 8am we figured it was much wiser to go down the night before. It was a three hour drive. We tried to make the most of that night. The baby was up all night, we took turns napping. The next day we had to get there early to hire an interpreter for $150. The irony being the guy that did our interview didn't even let him translate for my husband.
I knew we were in big trouble when we walked into the office and that guy was on the phone asking "he never showed up?" Immediately he started grilling my husband. I'm just praying over and over "Thine own will Lord" So he asks my husband about that job in Iowa and did he go and Thank our lucky stars he told the truth and said no I never went. He made my husband stand on one leg and turn in a circle to establish that he could speak and understand English. He asked me hard questions. And then when it was all over he held up a piece of paper and said "this was going to be your Green Card, but because you didn't go to Iowa at all and you stayed in the United States past your Visa expiration date I'm not going to give it to you, but you will have to file for a waiver. He said he was only doing this because my husband had been honest with him. I nearly fainted. I was so relieved that we were thrown this little life raft.
Now the amazing thing was our baby fell asleep just before our appointment that morning and he didn't wake up until we were just about back to our hometown. The guy told us that we will need at least 25 letters stating why we need my husband to be here. We will need medical records. We got into the car and hit the interstate and I pushed the worry aside. I picked up my phone and began calling everyone I could think of, my family, my friends, my church family. I began asking for people to write us these letters. By the time we hit our hometown we had made a lawyer appointment in Nashville. It was a grim story. To hire him would be another $3,000. That was if I agreed to round up whatever information they needed to build our case. That also meant that I had to do as much as possible in the remaining three weeks before I returned to work.
By this point I had given up on nursing our son. I was in a huge funk, I had gained a lot of weight, we were fighting all of the time. I hated it being this way, but it is really hard to live with someone and not know if these are going to be the last days before he is sent far away and you remain to raise the kids. Everything that could possibly go wrong during this time did. The lawn mower we borrowed from my Dad died, we had minor car issues. We were flat broke. My Dad loaned us money during this time. He helped us make the lawyer fees. We had to pay that lawyer $500 a month, which was nearly one of my pay checks.
My Dad was coming around to my husband by this time. He told me that he didn't want my husband to be deported because that wouldn't be good for any of us. My Dad helped with my older son. He was my rock. God made all of this come together. Because when he didn't get the Green Card the first time, it meant that we had to rely on God to make it all work out. I remember the day I received my copy of the Physiatrists report. I remember I crumpled onto the floor crying. I was screaming "how could this be God's Will? How? This whole things says I'm Crazy and that my husband and I were uneducated" I was crying to my closest friend at that time and she had already gone through the process. There were so many dark moments during this time. To top it off my husband and I had only been married three months when we went to Memphis.
My husband was a really awesome waiter. He made a lot of good friends. People that came to respect him as a hard working individual who put the needs of his family before his own. He worked the entire time our son was in the NICU, he dealt with my crazy post partum outburst, he dealt with my older son acting out, with our dog, and still he went to work with a smile on his face.
It all comes together and I hand over the last of the paper work in September. It is now out of my hands. I had done everything that I could possibly do. I had gone to every doctor's office and gotten medical records for my oldest son, who had ADHD, for our youngest son, for myself. I had gotten dental records. Just our youngest son's medical records had cost $250, we used a credit card to pay for them. So at the very end I was talking to the Paralegal at least once a day. I'm struggling at work because it is a high demand job and like a call center. The receptionist was trying to cover for me, but it was showing my work ethic was at an all time low. So was my self esteem. But I was praying all of the time.
I had a little Gideon's Bible that I kept on my desk and I read it every chance I got. Some of my co workers didn't like me because I missed a lot of work, because I was married to a Mexican who was now trying to get papers. It was non stop drama some days.
The days of waiting turn into weeks, now we are into October, oh my gosh the paralegal is calling me again! I am so weary today, I just cannot take anymore. As I answer the phone, I am telling her all this and I'm not really hearing her, but then something she said made me pause.... Did she really just say what I think she said? Please repeat what you said "I'm calling to tell you that your husband got the Green Card, it is only for two years, but he got it! I could hear bells going off in my head, it took everything I had not to jump up and down and scream "Glory Be To God" I called my husband and told him, but he wouldn't believe it until we got the letter in the mail.
The moral of the story here is that I had to learn to let go and let God, I had to find my inner strength to go the distance and then let go and let God. Never give up. God has a plan for each of us, it may not be the expected outcome, but it is the outcome he knows is best for you.
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