"This is my wife, and I miss her. Why ? Because she is living in the US, but she is Jamaican. Since I am french, I only have 3 months maximum allowed in US. I can come back in France then go back in US, but if I do that too often they might refuse my entry. And right now, I am in France..."
The Story
She, as Jamaican, arrived in the country with her mom when she was 10. Her mom tried to get her a green card thanks to the grand parents, but the application failed. Instead of sending the kid back to Jamaica, she kept her in US, and my wife became illegal. Becoming illegal in US is worst than entering without any papers. Despite this, being an excellent student, my wife got a worth $200k school grant to go study in a prestigious Californian university and finished major of her promotion. (Yes that sounds crazy that they never gave her a greencard or citizenship after that right ? It's like "we give you 200k because you are so good, but we keep you illegal as a criminal because you enter the country at the age of 10 with your mom and stayed...")
Obama
She stayed illegal until Obama became president. He released a new statut for children in this situation called DACA. This statut gives my wife a temporary resident card and a social number. She has to renew it every 2 years and pay a fee for that. (must be a good business...)
This DACA does not allow her to travel outside the county though. To travel, she has to apply for a document called "parole advance", given by the US immigration under certain conditions. That document allows her to re-enter US when her trip is done. To apply for that "parole advance", she has to pay $500, and have a valid reason to travel. This reason can only be "a school program abroad", or "a company hiring her in another country", that's it.
Trump
A few days ago the Trump administration decided (under the pressure of the republicans that were against the DACA program), to ask the congress to find a replacement for DACA within the 6 next months. If the senators don't find anything to replace DACA, Trump will cancel this statut and my wife will become illegal again like the few millions of other under the same statut.
Our Life
As a fashion designer she needed to go source fabric for her next collection in Thailand. She had found a company ready to write her a letter that could work for her to apply for a Parole advance to travel in Asia. But with the recent decision, all the DACA statuts are frozen and no one is able to apply for parole advance during the 6 next months. This is bad because that could harm her brand new business which is just taking off.
We love each other, and we decided to marry in NYC on june 28th 2017. Also in a few years she will become french so we don't have any problem anymore. But even to come with me in France with me, she need a long term visa to enter the Schengen zone, and guess what the French consulate asks to deliver such a visa ? : A PAROLE ADVANCE !
Means that now, even having our wedding certificate valid in France, we have currently NO solution to bring her back with me even if she decided to completely forget about her life in the US..."*
Conclusion
This shows on how lucky you are depending on where you were born on the planet and which passport you have. As french I never realized this, but if you are born in Jamaica, Bangladesh, Philippines and many other countries, you are just almost like a prisoner with tons of paper to do and luck to have to be able to travel.
I HATE the fact that the establishment one day decided who could or could not walk on planet Earth. This is our Home and everyone should be authorized to travel anywhere without restrictions.
But we don't care, we love each other so much we will find a way, I am trying to build an O1 visa case (artist) that would potentially give me 3 years of travelling to US without any restrictions. But this visa is hard enough to get.
Location :
Governor Island / NYC
Specs :
- Sony A7RII
- Nikon 35mm f2,8
- 1/500s ISO 100
If you liked this you can read my general introduction here :
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@eyegasm/hi-steemit-i-am-eyegasm
