Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder, Right?

So I'm back. Maybe you hadn't noticed I've been gone, but I was. Work and Ramadan had me unavailable to blog for awhile, and THEN! I jetted off for a European adventure!

One of the benefits of being married to a research scientist is that he sometimes goes to these scientific conferences, where all these people write scholarly articles, and some of them are accepted into a journal or conference for publication. Then some of those are further selected for oral presentations or poster presentations or things like that. M's company tries to stay on top of developing research in their field, so they have their researchers write papers and sometimes send someone out to attend these conferences.

This time M was among those that wrote a paper, and the only one available to attend the conference. What does that mean for me? Subsidized travel! Since his company is already paying for his air ticket to Europe, and for the hotel during his conference, I can tag along and we can have a lovely European travel adventure for only half the price if would have cost us otherwise. And during the days when he's stuck working at his conference, I can wander around some beautiful city on my own.

We've done this before. My first ever travel out of the United States was for the same kind of setup to a conference in Toronto. That time we just explored Toronto and then drove down through Niagara Falls on our way back to the Buffalo airport. Then, a year or so later, his company sent him to Como, Italy for a conference. We took the opportunity to spend two extra days in Italy after the end of his conference and also saw Venice, drove through Florence and take a picture at the leaning tower of Pisa. We've used other non-conference related work trips to also vacation in San Diego and Florida.

This time, his conference was in Belgium, and we decided to go three days early and see Paris. I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to this. I started taking French lessons when I was in first grade. I loved the idea of Paris so much I thought I'd live there as an adult. My aunt told me if I became fluent in French she'd take me there someday, so I also took French for three years in high school. Sadly, all that french is just about gone from the recesses of my brain. The only remnants of my French obsession are the decorations in my downstairs family room. They're all the things I had in my first apartment, an Eiffel Tower lamp, and framed picture of the Eiffel Tower architectural sketch, a tablecloth with some french phrases. I'd never been there but I'd bought all the stuff in advance!

The trip was lovely, just perfect. We left our son at home with Chachoo and Dulhan, my husband's brother and his wife who live with us. Staying in America with his aunt and uncle was the best thing for our boy - a whirlwind trip through France and Belgium would have been too much for him - but it was fairly traumatic for us. Dulhan tells us he was fine, but whenever we called of Skyped he'd cry terribly when we had to hang up. We missed him so much and debated the entire trip back and forth about how we should have brought him and then return to how it would have been extremely difficult and expensive to travel with him. Then we had an earthquake and our boy was terrified of it and crying and my heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces. Then a hurricane was headed for us and I hoped and prayed it'd just wait an extra day or two so we could get home easily without interruption, which it did thank God.

We returned home over the weekend, I slept and slept and slept, and now Monday morning I'm somehow expected to return to my normal life. I had to go to WORK this morning! It's so hard to go to work after a vacation. But thankfully I only have to work for one day before I take my next vacation - Tuesday is EID! Today is the last day of Ramadan and the festival day to mark the end of the month of fasting will be on Tuesday, God willing. We're planning a backyard barbecue bash, which I will tell you all about after I tell you about our trip to France and Belgium. Just let me cut M's head out of a couple of pictures and I'll get right on that.

Eid Mubarak in advance to those celebrating!

It All Happened So Fast

We went to the US Citizenship & Immigration Office Tuesday morning for Mian's interview. In the last moments the night before, gathering documents, we realized there was a problem. His interview notice called for all passports, all green cards, all former documents. We couldn't find a few of the advanced parole travel documents he'd been issued, but more importantly he didn't even have his current passport, it was at the Belgium embassy here in Washington, DC, awaiting decision on a travel visa. We assumed that would mean needing to make another appointment, but since the interview notice says to keep the appointment and show up even if you aren't fully prepared, we went anyway, disappointed that it probably wouldn't be that fruitful of a trip. I even spoke with my mother on the phone in the morning, telling her the problem and that we didn't know what would happen. 

Instead, he was called into his interview and emerged not even ten minuted earlier, triumphant. Across the room he nodded at me, smiling and glistening-eyed. He'd passed his six question test of American history and cultural knowledge, he'd spoken and written a sentence of English, he'd even told his interviewer about his passport problem. Should be fine, she'd said, and given him a slip of paper to bring back at 2 o'clock that afternoon, for his oath ceremony. 

After such a long journey, it was finally going to end that very day. He took his oath of citizenship and it was a really wonderful event for our little family. I was lucky enough to remember Faiqa of Native Born and Hey That's My Hummus's old post about her husband's naturalization and I made sure to tell him thank you. Thank you for doing this for our family. For making our future more secure, more firmly rooted in this country of my choosing, my home - now our home.

Did I mention that this all happened 9 years to the day after Mian and I met? How poetic, August 2nd has always been a special day for us. A day when our lives change forever.

Coming to this stupid building for the last time. (Except for all the future times to bring M's family here.) Well, last time for M's case at least!

His welcome to America packet, including a letter from President Obama that starts "My Fellow American..."

M filing into his designated seat to take his oath.

Everyone's capturing the event.

Celebratory iftar/dinner at the American-est place we could think of. Chili's. The place we ate when he met my parents.

My Mian, my husband, was born and raised in Pakistan. He came to America for grad school and stayed because he met and married me. He was always planning on staying a little while, at least long enough to get some foreign work experience and make some money in American dollars - apparently they save up faster than Pakistani rupees. While he could have very easily stayed in America because of his job (his employer sponsors all their international Ph.Ds in their research group on H1-B visas) the company lawyer said it would be quicker and cheaper for M to apply for adjustment of immigration status, and employment authorization that allowed him to work in the United States, on the basis of our marriage. That's not actually what happened though, as his case took longer than all of his coworkers. 


Today is a special day for us, though. Today is M's naturalization interview. The one where they ask him questions about American history and government, and test his English skills. The one where they decide if he can become an American citizen or not. Because of this special day, I thought I should bring you all up to date as to our immigration journey until now:


September 2003 – M (my husband) changes from his student visa statusto OPT (optional practical training) status after graduation and moved several states away for his new job. This allows him to work in the US for about one year after he finishes school. We weren't even engaged at the time, he was still planning on having his employer sponsor him on an H1-B visa, leading to a green card 5 years later.

December 2003 – We're married. We spend the next six months living separately because I had to finish up college and we wait to file any immigration paperwork because we fear that having two different addresses will raise some flags.

August 2004 – We finally live together like a normal married couple and finally file all of our paperwork; M applies for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) and an Advance Parole (a document which allows him to travel while he's in limbo between immigration statuses) on the “Seeking Adjustment of Status” basis while waiting for our stuff to go through. ($) It would end up being a long wait.

(In the year interim, we go to our local USCIS office every 4-6 weeks to check on things)

Fall 2004 – M has to renew his EAD and Advance Parole. ($$)

September 2005 – We're finally called for our green card interview, about one year after our application. Our interview was even easier than most people's because we weren't asked ANY questions about our relationship. Our interviewer silently flipped through M's file, asked only for our tax returns from the previous 2 years, and declined when I asked if she wanted to see the pictures I'd brought with me. Then she said she would approve his application the same day but wouldn't be able to stamp his passport that day because his “name check was still pending.” We were sent home expecting his green card to show up in a few weeks.

Fall 2005 – Renew EAD and Advance Parole ($$$)

(For the next TWO years we go to the USCIS office every 6 weeks to check the status of his name check. No answers. At one point we got a semi-lucid USCIS officer who suggested there was some problem with M's alien registration number, which is kind of like the social security number of the immigration world. There were two different ones and he was going to petition to merge them. Every other time we came after that the officers said there was NO problem with his A numbers – even when we got the same guy again! We were always told that the hangup was that M's FBI name-check was still pending, that there was nothing we could do to speed it up, no one we could talk to at USCIS or the FBI to inquire into it and that we had no recourse.

Fall 2006 – Renew EAD and Advance Parole ($$$$) Spend 2 weeks freaking out when the EAD takes longer than expected and he is sent home because he's no longer able to work in the US legally. (He was instructed to apply 3 months prior to its expiration, and that year it was changed to 6 months. It's only good for 1 year and he had to apply 6 months before its expiration?!?)

October 2006 – Our son is born. A US citizen.

Fall 2007 – Renew EAD and Advance Parole ($$$$$).  M misses out on a great business opportunity where his company wanted to send him to do their stuff in Saudi Arabia during Hajj season because his advance parole has lapsed and it takes months to get a new one.

November 2007 – I contact my Congressman, Frank Wolf. His constituent services office gets back to me via form letters within a few weeks, and every month or two thereafter to say they're still looking into his case.

February 2008 – We make our usual appointment to check out the local USCIS office and are treated more rudely than ever before. Apparently once you've contacted your congressman or -woman, you get thrown into a different line and they don't expect or want you to show up and check on your case individually anymore. It's all supposed to go through your congressional representative's office thereafter. We waited more than an hour for the Congressional division rep to come down, only to hear him tell the officer we were dealing with to do whatever she had to do to get rid of us. When he finally shows up he is so rude he makes me cry. Which I never do in public.

March or April 2008 – I get a letter from Congressman Wolf's office that the problem has been found and it's (gasp!) that he had two different A numbers! It was to be sorted out shortly.

May 2008 – M's green card arrives in the mail!

(The lowdown on the problem: When M came to the US he was given an A number that started with 135 or something, and that's what we put on the application for his green card when there was a box for A-number. Perhaps we were supposed to leave that blank, because for the green card application, he was issued a new A number that started with 9, I think. Whenever we asked if that was the problem - that there might be two a-numbers floating around with different parts of the process in them unsynchronized - we were told that the 135 number was a “machine generated number” and couldn't be his real A-number, so there couldn't be a problem (What the heck ever…) But if he wasn't supposed to have an A number, or put it on the form, then why was there a box that said A-number on that form to be filled out? And if the 135 number was so obviously a “machine generated number” why was half his application under that anyway?)


Anyway, for people who marry an American citizen, after 3 years of being a green card holder, you can apply for citizenship. You can apply 90 days in advance of your 3 year anniversary, so a little while ago M got all his application materials together and mailed them in and we waited. Then we got a notice that his naturalization interview would be August 2nd, and M started studying up for his "Civics Test" questions - all of which are available online at the official US immigration website. I send him random text messages throughout the day like "Who wrote the Federalist papers?!?!" and "Who was President during World War II?!?" 


I'm helpful like that :-)