Can't Understand the Fuss Over Trump's Ban? Read My Immigration Story
My grandfather Joe was 14 when he left Fulda and my grandmother Ruth was 11 when she left Leipzig as part of the 10,000 members of the Kindertransport that left Germany for the U.K. They arrived with nothing. I was thinking of them this week in the furor of President Trump’s executive orders and as I came to the end of my own immigration story. On Tuesday, January 31, 2017, I, Joel Braunold, became a U.S. citizen.
Having lived in the States for the past five years on a student visa, then a Green Card, the anxiety that the new administration has created for foreign nationals in the U.S. has been extreme. It is not simply, as Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, an inconvenience or a delay to Green Card holders at the airports. Reports of people being coerced to give up their residency rights, orders that indicate that if a removable alien is charged with a crime (not convicted) that they will be deported, spread anxiety and terror amongst a community that has already been extremely vetted.
To understand the cruelty of what started this weekend, I wanted to share my own immigration story so that those who have not been through the process can understand the seriousness of what currently is taking place.
I have lived as a Green Carder in the United States for the past four years. Before that I was a student on an F1 visa for nine months and before that I came and went on the visa waiver program as I was dating my future wife, Jorie, over a two year period (staying for a few days or a week every two to three months). While we were dating, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were suspicious that I was trying to live in the U.S. (I was not) and a note was placed on my file. I was subject to secondary processing a few times when I came to the States, often for hours. I was told that despite the fact that it was clear I had never overstayed my visa (or even got close to doing it), the note was in my file and would be there forever. When I applied for my student visa during my interview in London in 2011, this note almost led to the rejection of my application. The officer went through every one of my stays and saw that I was telling the truth and issued my F1.
As an F1 I attended graduate school, having to go to Israel for my grandfather’s funeral, and went back to the U.K. once or twice. I got married as an F1 and started the process of applying for my Green Card. Getting the card took three months, lawyers, around 200 pages of evidence and applying for parole to leave and work (which were granted) that allowed me to leave the country and work while I waited. I received my temporary Green Card (for two years) and would receive my full Green Card conditional that Jorie and I stayed married, paid taxes, informed the government of where I was living and did not get into any legal trouble.......
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.769315
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