My wife and I were returning to the U.S. today after an extended stay in Mexico with her family. It was a pretty good trip, and we thought that things would go easily for her getting into the country since she's been a permanent resident for years and is going to be eligable to apply for U.S. citizenship next year. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
View this as a personal story that should be shown to all the idiots that whine about illegal immigrants, and believe that the U.S. really does have a working immigration policy.
First, let's give a little background. My wife is a Mexican citizen who moved to the U.S. when we got married. The immigration process is very invasive and takes a long time. Yes, this even applies to people immigrating for marriage or to be reuinited with family members. The difficulties and expenses of following the legal immigration process would deserve their own diary, so just take my word on it for now.
As part of the immigration process, my wife had a conditional green card, which pretty much meant that if we were to divorce, she would no longer be here legally (unless it was because I hit her or something, then there is a process for that) A few months ago, she got a letter telling her that she was now eligeable for the real green card. This process was easy for us, but requires knowledge of computers, so I really doubt most immigrants would find this easy. Anyway, we went, she got a stamp on her passport to function as a temporary permission to stay in the country, then a few weeks later she got a letter in the mail along with a shiny new green card (which isn't really green by the way). We were happy and thought that everything was done until time to apply for citizenship next year.
A few weeks ago, we went to Mexico to visit her family, my wife having her new permanent green card in hand as well as the stamp in her passport. Today, upon arriving at the Houston George Bush airport, we got in line to go through immigration and noticed that they were taking a much longer time than normal. We also noticed a lot of people being pulled into the waiting room for the interrogations. We thought everything would be fine though, since we had all of our paperwork in order.
Wrong-o.
First, before scanning our documents in the computer the DHS agent made some smartass comment about our marriage. Then, he scanned my passport with no problem, but then had difficulties with my wife's green card. He told my wife it may be too new and that it's not in their system yet (three months is too new?) Then he got impatient and called someone else over who was collecting the paperwork of people who they suspected of whatever or had problems with and told us to step out of line.
The new guy told me to wait standing in the hallway while my wife went into the waiting room for the interrogation rooms. However, another person who was nicer told me that I could also go into the waiting room with her.
The next thing that happened was that an armed DHS officer called my wife into one of their interrogation rooms, out of my sight. I was obviously not allowed in, so the rest is based on what my wife told me.
It started out with the officer looking up someone else's name on the computer. My wife made a mistake and pointed out that the DHS agent had grabbed someone else's work permit and that it was not her. Apparently he got pissed off that it was pointed out he made a mistake. After that, he was able to look her information up but wanted to verify that she was who she said she was. He asked for her social security number, which she has not yet memorized, and didn't have the card on her (I had the number stored on my PDA but it didn't help her as it was with me), but pulled out the business card of the lawyer we hired to help us through the immigration process. The DHS agent got even more pissed off, and repeatedly yelled at her asking if she hired a lawyer because she was looking for trouble. I believe she said he did it three or four times. Eventually, they were able to settle on her giving her parents' names as proof that she was the person that the green card was given to (the green card is a photo and thumbprint ID, so it's pretty easy to validate), and eventually the guy let her go.
When she came out of the interrogation, she was nearly crying and asked me to hug her. I did, and she wouldn't tell me what happened but I could tell that she was upset. So, as we walked out the door I faced the bench full of DHS agents and said, "You're a bunch of fucking assholes." to which one of the agents made a comment to the effect of, "We try." (Note that what I said could not be taken as a threat, so legally they had nothing to stand on, although I really doubt the law gets in the way of the racist thugs in charge of our immigration system.)
So the bottom line is that yes, my wife was allowed to enter the U.S., even though I spent thousands of dollars in the past, spent a lot of time, allowed the government to intrude into my personal life, and generally put up with a bad system. However, today really pissed me off, and my wife was threatened to be deported. Why? All because of a screwed up immigration system that doesn't even work for people who can afford to do it the legal way. If they had arrested or deported my wife, I have no idea what I would have done. I shouldn't even have to think about it. The next time someone goes on ranting about how undocumented immigrants should come here legally as if immigration is a remotely realistic possibility, tell them that legal immigration is broken. Until that is fixed, there's no reason to even begin to look at undocumented immigrants.
If I wanted to give another example that breaks stereotypes, I know a guy from Canada who got married to an American months ago, hired a lawyer, and still doesn't even have his work permit yet. The work permit is almost an automatic thing you get after applying to immigrate. So, he can't get a job here in the U.S. right now and is limbo until he gets it. There are many immigration stories out there, and I've never heard a good one. Our immigration system is broken, and getting worse.