Is there anyone who is an expert in our immigration process? I can tell you that it is not our immigration attorneys, and it is not our congressmen. You can not get a direct answer from any of our government agencies and what is even more frustrating is that no one is available when you call the National Visa Center in New Hampshire at (603) 334 0700 other than a clerk, who states you do not have an appointment set at your border embassy to which you are to process through.

No one will give you any information other than say for you to call back next month. When pushed, the NVC, will give you a supervisor; however the supervisor will tell you to write your congressmen. What a great solution to solve our problems with immigration, ITS AN ACT OF CONGRESS.

I married a Mexican citizen and I can not believe what a long drawn out process we have encountered. My spouse has been in Mexico since November 2006, trying to legally gain entry into the US. We have spent thousands of dollars to pay for attorneys, processing fees, travel, and of course the wonderful Mexican officials to have our hopes dashed.

Many of the people I have spoken with in our community cannot believe that when a US citizen marries a person from another country that they have to wait years before they can be re-united permanently and attain a visa with permanent resident status. I would like everyone who believed that a US citizen that marries a person from another country, that have prepared and file the proper petition for a visa, pay the fee to have their spouse to immigrate into the country, be able to enter the US legally, please write to at least one of our congressmen. I, and many of my fellow citizens across the USA, are appalled that families are separated by the inability of our government to process visas for US citizens and their spouses.

According to the supervisor at the National Visa Center in New Hampshire there is no recourse, check or balance to this organization, and certainly no compassion. It literally is an act of Congress for this process to change. This is the same congressmen who focus on the punitive side of those that enter illegally, not on the positive side of actually processing those applicants that are trying to enter legally.

After all of this time, money, emotion, and indifference, even from our Hispanic Salazar bothers, my spouse is still in Mexico and I have no idea why, how or when that situation will change. I cannot tell you how unhappy I am especially with our Rep. S. King, who spoke so eloquently about how we must obey the laws with regard to immigration, while on our local news lately. I am sure Mr. King would feel much differently had he not been with his son?s and daughter?s graduation, birthdays, and holidays with his family.

Maybe that would be the solution, send our congressmen to our borders to process the visas and do not let them return until we have an adequate system in place to process those that are trying to enter legally. The cost of our family has been substantial. Emotionally, I cannot tell you what it is like for your spouse to miss birthdays, graduations, and holidays. Can you imagine not spending Christmas with your loved ones and not have the financial ability for all to travel to the country of your spouse because you are saving the monies to go when the appointments are set? Then when you do travel to the appointment, nothing is done. You have no idea why the visa is not processed, and are told you will have another appointment set in 8 months to a year.

Writing this has taken several attempts and has an emotional cost to it as well. I have thought for months and months that I should write and let a true story be told, but have not wanted to risk the emotional cost. Each time I tell my story and ask myself what else I can do, it takes a toll. The story is one of no hope; lost love and time, when I had barely began to believe that I could or should love again; and yes, even depression. This letter is emotionally exhausting to me, putting my love and feelings all into words that cannot be diminished by time or other distractions; and that lays my sole so bare and emotional raw tend to leaves me devastated for days.

If this has prompted any emotional response in any of your readers, please write to your congressmen, any or all and let them know how you feel. I wish there was a website that we could write to that would be read and that information could be exchanged. I wish there was something, anything, that could be said or done that would make a difference.

A true story of immigration,
DEBORAH PRUETT-MORALES
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.