On Everything That I Haven't Written About Over The Last Six Months

Jalyss and I have now been married a little over ten months. That means we've passed the marker of when we could have had our first baby, which is important to note when you're a young Christian couple in America. Forget cleanliness because fecundity, here at least, is next to Godliness.

In fact, when people meet you and find out you're newly married, they immediately start looking for the baby. "How many babies you had?" is their way of measuring the time you've been married. So now we measure all units of time in terms of how many children we could have had, with actual calendar anniversaries being of significantly lesser importance.

This is all just a long winded way of saying that we're not pregnant yet. Definitively. Jalyss took a pregnancy test on Father's Day, just so I could see whether I needed people to make a fuss of me.

This kind of fertility update is exactly what I imagine most people are interested in about our life, but just in case you were actually hoping for more than a gestational confirmation that we're still without any additions to the family, here's what else has been happening.

Jalyss and I continue to compete to see who can work the most jobs. For a long time she was winning, as I couldn't work legally in the US. I got around that by doing some babysitting and writing reviews of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; a show with too much punctuation in its title, and too little characterisation or plot in its episodes. Neither of these roles made me the primary breadwinner, as I only earned $2 a article.

Fortunately I am now able to work and the jobs arms-race has really taken off, as we now have three jobs each. I work part-time at a local independent coffee shop, the delightful Mocha Monkey, where my main role seems to be confusing customers who think that I'm Australian. I've just started working two days a week at The Blessing House, which is hard to actually describe other than to say it's someone who has opened her home so that anyone can come in and relax there at any time of the day, and they need volunteers which I'm helping them find.

Finally, I work overnights at a crisis centre for disabled young-adults with behavioral problems. My first day there involved me being locked in the office by other staff to prevent a client from attacking me, so it's got the sort of whimsy that means you can't predict what will happen day-to-day, and frequently don't want to try. Usually, however, it's not that exciting; I'm there solely to support the main members of staff should there be a behavioural or medical emergency, so I go downstairs and sleep in the games room, which is a fair-sized space whose homeliness is undermined by the persistent stench of urine (a consequence of working in a place where people combine their responses to stress, displays of anger, and favorite activity into one ongoing attempt to find exciting new places to piss).

We've started to build some great new friendships with a few local couples which has served us well as through them we've got hold of an air-conditioning unit. This is essential, as I am already starting to wilt from Minnesota's summer. As fierce as their winter is, their less talked about summer is proving more of a burden for someone who is unused to temperatures in the double digits. Actually, it turns out that A/C has an exciting history in Minnesota, as the worlds first in-home unit was installed in Minneapolis in 1914. Of course, there's also the horrible correlation between the rise of air-conditioning and Southern Republican presidencies which is startlingly direct.

The VISA process continues, as glacial as ever. Entire civilisations have risen, fallen and risen again (although, it should be noted, not here in America) in the time it's taken for my four month VISA approval to happen, but I've finally been accepted as a 'Conditional Permanent Resident', an oxymoronic statement which says I'm able to live here indefinitely unless they decide I can't.

This is great news though because it means we are hopefully going to be able to come back and visit the UK this December. I couldn't leave until my VISA was at this point (or rather, I could leave, but I couldn't reenter). I'm looking forward to a real English Christmas; i.e. one without any snow.

On a Nation of Immigrants

Tonight, as President Obama takes the politically incendiary step of executive action to reform immigration, it seems like a good time to write about something that I've experienced first hand over the past year. America's immigration system is broken.

Let's start off by setting some stuff out. I'm utterly uninterested in how exactly reform happens. Whether by bipartisan dialogue, Senate and House bills, or Presidential decree, the method doesn't really matter. Whether articulated by Republican, Democrat or Independent voices, from politicians, activists or ordinary people, the person speaking doesn't matter. I'm not concerned at all with how reform is delivered. I'm pretty unconcerned about whether the President has the necessary authority to do this alone (because, he does). I don't write in defense of President Obama, with whom I agree with very little, or in defiance of the new Republican majority, with whom I agree on even less.

What matters is that we recognize that those we are talking about are not simply 'immigrants', 'illegals' or 'aliens', but families and individuals. Our shared humanity is more important than nationality, country of origin or label. Whether they look to escape day to day lives defined by conflict, flee economic systems that deny them fair wages and equal treatment, or simply desire a better future, a fresh start and a new home in the US, they seek those most American pursuits of life, liberty and happiness.

Not every immigrant has fled hardship. Not every immigrant has suffered. Not every immigrant is in need of our charity or concern. But every immigrant is a person, and every immigrant deserves the right to be recognized.

It's true that not every immigrant is here legally. Not every immigrant contributes to society, not every immigrant works, not every immigrant obeys the law.

But, those are not every immigrant. Those are individuals. And their misdemeanors are no more real, and no more weighty, than the lives of the average immigrants who quietly maintain themselves and their families, without reliance upon the Government. We have a system already in place to deal with immigrants who break the law, and it's the same system that is necessary for those Americans who do the same.

I am an immigrant. To get here, I spent nearly a year applying for a Fiancee VISA. I followed the process. I did things the right way. I entered the US legally. And I did it that way because I am incredibly fortunate to have the capacity and tenacity to overcome the unnecessarily obtuse barriers of immigration. Along with my now wife I completed the initial forms, and the follow up forms, and the forms that came after that. I attended interviews, submitted to medical exams, and paid thousands of dollars to get here and get through the process.

I am University educated. English is my first language. I had the assistance of others. I had enough time to devote to completing everything. I had enough money saved to pay the fees. I had every advantage available, in other words, and yet I found the process to be confusing, repetitive and stressful. I repeatedly had to clarify or resend forms that had been incorrectly completed. An initial K1 Visa is expected to take four to six months to complete, for us it took ten. Due to the sheer amount of time it takes to get a VISA, and, yes, some administrative delays, I arrived in America just five days before my wedding. 

Usually, when I explain the process and what I had to do to get to my wedding in America, people recognize that it's unreasonable. I've written before about how the expectation is that I should have been able to get in easily, that as an educated, British male, with savings and a decent job, I should be someone who finds it easy to get a VISA and enter the US. There's the thing. It was. My experience was slow, irritating and almost disastrous, but eventually my perseverance paid off and I got my VISA.

The flip side of my experience is not an easy entry into the country; it's exactly the same trials as I've faced, but worse.

Imagine what that process would be like if you were trying to do it with a lower level of education, in a second language, without any help. Imagine that you're trying to escape from desperate poverty or violence, that you have a limited amount of time, that you're worried about your family's safety. Imagine that you don't have the money to pay the fees. And then imagine that every time you submit a form it gets returned to you, or worse, ignored altogether, because you missed a question, or accidentally ticked the wrong box. Imagine waiting months for the system to work for you, without any idea of whether it will.

I have seen first hand what happens when immigration is politicized. It raises barriers and obstacles for all. With the aim of keeping out a few criminals it refuses access to any and all. My VISA application was made more difficult because of an over zealous attempt to keep people who would abuse the benefits of society out. Instead it simply prevents those in most need from accessing the vital opportunity to make a new start.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that people try and dodge this system, not because they are hardened criminals, or are intent on undermining the country, but because the process for legally entering the US is intended to make it as difficult as possible to do so. Every step is made intentionally difficult, and then we act confused when people try to avoid that perniciously constructed difficulty. We punish the people who have got here illegitimately, but attempt to deny them the chance to do so within the law.

The system, as it is, is broken.

President Obama's executive action today is a good start to fixing it, but it is just a start. There are 11 million undocumented people in America. There is no benefit in keeping those who are here already from being able to legally work. There is tremendous harm in maintaining the status quo as it currently is - Jim Wallis at Sojourners has some great stuff to say here. This is not a full amnesty, but a chance for some immigrants to gain some recognition. It's a half-measure couched in qualification.

Eventually it boils down to this; we in America sit on unparalleled wealth, privilege and comfort. Too much of our immigration policy is about denying access to this to others. How often do we hear the language of economic impact used to describe immigration? We worry about loss of jobs, about benefits going to the undeserving, and ignore the plight of those in need because we're concerned about the economic consequences.

One of my favorite political speeches is from Lincoln's First Inaugural Address. In it, he delivers an impassioned plea for the avoidance of secession by the South, and for calm and reconciliation between the two sides. It ends with one of the most famous pieces of Presidential oratory, and a lasting appeal for brotherhood and grace.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.

Tonight, President Obama is echoing the sentiments of Lincoln's address, calling not for fellowship between opposing states, but an attempt at recognition, openness and acceptance from Americans towards those who seek entry in. Decriminalization allows already productive workers to become part of society, but it requires society to welcome them in. 

The immigration reform he proposes is imperfect, certainly. There is much for both sides to discuss, But its core principle is an attempt to alter the terms of the conversation we're currently having, to recognize that this is not just an academic debate but one about peoples lives and futures.

This is the most fundamental reality of immigration reform; all immigrants are just people, and they matter.

On USCIS

It's 7:58am, and for one of the first times since I've arrived here there's a steady rain falling on me, and on the other few dozen people patiently stood waiting for the door to open. Even on an unusually grey day, this early in the morning, Minnesota hasn't yet got so cold that I bothered to pick up a jacket on my way out the door, so instead I balance a box of documents on my head until a Good Samaritanesque Rihanna invites me under their umbrella.

We are waiting for a USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) processing centre, where I've been summoned to go for my biometrics. In preparation for me staying in the US the Government wants to harvest and catalogue all of the most intimate aspects of myself; my fingerprints, DNA, and probably my soul. Ostensibly it's so that they have this on file should there ever be a problem, for instance, if I abscond with all the benefit money I'm not receiving from them.

It's the kind of post-9/11 state overreach that should make natural conservatives screech about the boundaries and limitations of what Government has a right to take; about privacy, about safeguarding, about presumption of innocence. But it's only being taken from immigrants, so the total amount of a damn that they actually give is somewhat less than none.

In a display of Governmental irony the USCIS centre is based in a solitary wing of the ground floor of a Chinese restaraunt. If ever one building was the picture of American policy, this is it; zealously guarding the frontiers of a nation that Capitalism has already sold out and overrun. It's a truly ugly building, but very clean. Kellie is singularly impressed by this. I'm not; if anyone has access to the vast pools of cheap labour from abroad that they can exploit to keep it tidy, these guys do.

As the rain starts to slacken into the misty drizzle, and the horde forms itself into a natural, orderly line, I find myself feeling quietly content.

Honestly. Rain and queues. It feels like I'm home.

At exactly eight, the doors are opened and the crowd moves through - there's enough space in the reception for everyone to comfortably fit in, and so we move up to allow the end of the line to get out of the wet. It's an unhomogenous collection, a real American melting pot of ethnicities. The lady in front of me tells me she's from an East Asian country whose 'real', non-English, name is unintelligible, so I nod politely. She's with her sister-in-law, who's there to enforce the weight of American citizen approval. This, I've learnt, seem to be very important. Having an American with you lends an air of authenticity; you are not simply some over-the-fence, fresh from the dock illegal. You have contacts, American contacts, and so, by association, the presumption of legitimacy to be here.

Kellie is with me for today, and once the queue has made its way in out of the rain she joins me. I wave her over.

"Is that your wife" asks the American.

"Err, no. That's my Mother in Law". I reply. I am starting to wonder just quite what age a woman needs to be for people not to assume she's my wife. It's a really awkward question to ask unless you're pretty sure of an affirmative answer, but apparently Americans don't feel shame in the same way as normal people.

The biometrics itself is disturbingly simple. No tissue, blood or saliva samples, no invasive procedure. I didn't even need to pee in a cup, which is unfortunate because I had already bought one from home.

Instead, I simply had to give fingerprints, a short written record of my height, weight and eye colour, and have a photo taken. I had been worried about this at first, as I seem to have a hereditary disorder, passed down from my Mother, that makes fingerprinting me difficult.

Whilst on our honeymoon in Flordia we went to Universal Studios, which in part offers lockers and ticketing based on a scan of your finger. I eventually gave up using this service, and simply put Jalyss' hand to the screen each time, as whilst I could open the lockers to put everything in, they never seemed to recognise the same fingerprint by the time I returned minutes later.

Apparently though, the Government has better equipment and systems than a big business, because my fingerprints read correctly every time. Turns out that I do have them, after all. Who knew.

On IT Reform

This post was written before my Wedding, which went ahead a week ago. Sorry to lower the tension.

Following the VISA interview, I had seven to ten days to wait for my VISA and Passport for be returned to me by courier. Unfortunately, two days before my interview, it turns out that the US State Department decided to upgrade all of their VISA systems, a task that I like to imagine involved them haphazardly nailing floppy discs to a sparking central server with one hand whilst focusing the majority of their attention on a breeze-blown leaf, or an especially interesting formation of cloud.

IT projects seem to be some form of generic governmental Achilles heel, and so it should come as no surprise that this particular endeavour took the embassy's computers from a system capable of processing 450,000 applications every ten days, and upgraded them to shiny black paperweights.

Of course, because this is a far reaching problem that directly impacts me, I found out about it by accident. I had stayed in all day every day since the VISA interview to avoid missing the courier, and just happened to go back onto a corollary of the London embassy main page, and found a tiny caveat that delays were possible on all VISAs to be issued between the 20th and 29th, but that nearly half had been processed.

That still leaves 200,000 that haven't been, in case that makes it sound like they've been in some way successfully engaged in their jobs. There are very few occasions where being able to do roughly half of what is expected of you is sufficient.

It has been, I think it's fair to say, a bit of a cock up. Unless their IT process is run by Dennis Nedry, and this is the first step in an attempt to smuggle DNA samples inside a can of shaving foam, in which case everything is going to plan except that he's about to be eaten by a really scientifically-inaccurate Dilophosaurus.

So that seven to ten days elongated into a full seventeen, which was rather inconvenient as I was meant to fly after fourteen, and thus lost my flight. The expectation of an imminent courier also left me confined to my house, and lead me to realise the limits of never venturing outside. There's something truly intangible about existing in one place for too long. It's easy to see how people can go mad in isolation; even with all of the resources and diversions of the internet at hand.

Getting the email that the courier had the VISA was a relief not just because it meant I could travel and wouldn't miss my own wedding, but also because it meant I could throw away the bloodstained volleyball that had served as my constant companion and return to civilisation, and people, and sunlight that wasn't filtered through a window.

The courier having received the VISA on Friday morning, I managed to convince a sympathetic member of their customer relations team that I could pick it up from their central processing hub rather than wait for it to be delivered to me on Monday. Confirmed to be there on Saturday, and with assurances that picking it up would be simple, we drove over.

At the courier, we met the person left in charge; a bubble-faced man apparently only just out of childhood who wore an air of confusion, as though he had only just woken from an especially interesting dream, and who happily admitted that he was just a driver and didn't know what he was doing. We gave him the details and he gumped away, only to return empty handed. This didn't bode well, and so it proved as he had spectacularly succeeded in not locating my VISA.

"Do you want to go away and I'll find it later?" he asked, hopefully. "I'll deliver it your house personally."

"Not really", I replied. He looked unsure of what to do next. "I really don't want to leave without it in my hands, to be honest."

By this point, emboldened by the courier's (seemingly misplaced) confidence I had rebooked my flights for 9am the next day. Not having a VISA or passport was probably going to be a bit of a problem.

The gump shuffled back off to search for the package, and we waited. As time passed and he returned again and again to update us on his continued lack of success we began to despair.

We began to try and help out. Had he checked to see if it had been put to one side? He had. Was it likely to be a different size to most other VISAs as it contained all my documentation? It wouldn't. Did he have a parent nearby who may be able to help? Apparently not.

The lack of boats and aircraft suggested we weren't in the Bermuda Triangle, but the couriers office seemed to have a similarly disorientating effect; "Would you like a cup of tea?" the gump asked, at one point, two hours in. We assented and he left. Our cups of tea never appeared. Like the package, the kitchen was seemingly lost.

Fortunately a rescue party had obviously been sent out after the gump, who presumably shouldn't have been allowed out of the company creche in the first place, and they proved more capable. Suggesting checking the safe, and the delivery stacks, they returned with a package ten minutes later. It looked exactly like the one the gump hadn't been looking for, being the wrong size and shape and in a different place entirely.

The smiles, the laughs, the 'not your faults' that greeted this discovery can be brushed over.

IT system be damned. Courier be damned. I have my Passport in hand, and my VISA in bag. I am as ready as I can be, and I am going to America.

K1 Visa Interview

This morning was my VISA interview at the embassy in London, an endeavour that I've been preparing for off-and-on for months. Preparation, for me at least, mainly involves rechecking the same three forms again and again, just in case their contents have noticeably shifted since I last looked, or they were suddenly, startlingly nonexistent, like a papery dinosaur-analogy. Short of interning my documents in amber, which is time consuming, or just letting it go - unwise outside of Arrendelle - it's hard to see what more I could do to keep them safe, and yet every night for the last few weeks I've convinced myself that I've probably forgotten to include my passport, or haven't actually got enough copies of each bit of paperwork, and rechecked them.

It's hard to overstate how paranoid I've become about this. I got to the point last night where at two in the morning I went through every bit of paper again and then slept on the containing folder. JUST IN CASE.

With an appointment scheduled for the embassy's opening time of 8, I naturally leave nothing to chance and get up three hours early to catch my bus, for the half hour journey to Marble Arch. By the time I arrived (well before 7) there was a queue of about 40 people. I curse myself for my own tardiness and join the end of the line. Clearly some of them had been here a while, despite the very clear instructions for people not to turn up too early. Idiots.

Probably in a fit of pique at the uncomprehending English, the security guards commits a grievous breach of social etiquette and moves the head, and direction, of the queue. Like Jesus with a badge, his officiousness causes the first to be last, and the last first. The early first fail to pay enough attention, and the crowd reforms around them. The curiously English feeling of unfairness begins to tell; one woman is very obviously realising that she has lost her rightful position, and tries, unsuccessfully, to negotiate:

"This woman was in front of you" she says to the people who have moved to the front, pointing at the woman behind her. Clearly this is preamble. What she really means is "I was in front of you" but that level of directness would be impolite. Better to masquerade her dissatisfaction as altruism. The people in front ignore her, unmoved in any way by the increasingly frantic protests. The security guard who caused all the fuss turns and goes back inside. 

Stretching across the front of the vast Embassy, watched over by a grotesque monument to Reagan, the queue resettles and grows as more people join it. Fronted by one of those frequent green spaces that London seems to be full of, the building is, by comparison to it's surroundings at least, squat and ugly. A giant gilded bird rests over the front awning. Presumably it's intended to be an eagle. It looks more like an especially ugly crane. A pigeon lands on its head, defecates and flies on.

This is probably not the way immigrants are supposed to remember the process of assimilation into the US. But too few of those entering America have described watching errant birds pooping on the symbols of freedom, independence and liberty. The shit spangled banner. 

The doors open, a staff member rolls out two enormous cupboards. The queue is divided, then divided again. I am in the initial group, about 12th in line. I show my first set of documents. My photocopies are in black and white. Nobody else's are. I start to sweat straight through my shirt. Documents are taken, checked, handed back.

I begin to worry that my iPad won't get through the security sweep. Laptops aren't allowed in, but no mention was made of tablets. I have convinced myself that I am about to be sent away for bringing contraband items, and start working out where I can drop off my bag to get back for my interview without it. My name is called. I remove my belt, watch, shoes. The guard asks to look in my bag, and pulls out my iPad case.

My iPad gets through. I talk too much to the man next to me in the queue. He tries to look interested in his own paperwork. I take the hint.

The VISA interview process is two steps; the first inspects all my paperwork, the second involves an interview about my relationship with Jalyss, I have been assiduously prepping for the second. I learnt her Birthday. I know her middle name. I have the story of how we met down to a fine art.

The first part comes quickly. I'm second to be called, it's 8:05. I give fingerprints and hand over my file.

"So, you're engaged" the clerk says. It's an in! I start my pre-planned speech about how we met. "Congratulations" he interrupts, "passport?"

He takes the papers I've been conserving for the last few weeks. My paranoia has paid off, and everything is mercifully, thankfully, wonderfully present. He accepts it and sends me away to wait again. This was the bit I was worrying about and it's already over.

The seating area, sparsely peopled when I left, is now full. The heat has risen considerably, and two industrial fans have been set up. I position myself on a near empty row. A man immediately comes and sits next to me. It's a breach of that other unspoken English rule about personal space, that nobody should ever sit beside you if there's another space available.

The day before I got profoundly uncomfortable when, on an otherwise empty train, a man came and sat across the aisle from me, which, in fairness to me, is a pretty odd thing to do, and shouldn't really be allowed, Today I don't begrudge anyone their seat, even if it isn't typical. "Look at me" I think. "Personal space doesn't bother me and I keep trying to start conversations with people. The process is working. I am becoming an American!"

The numbers that were previously being announced are now simply flashed on a screen. It makes it harder to read when you have to look up regularly to check you haven't been called for. The book I'm reading, a collection of Charlie Brooker's columns called 'I Can Make You Hate' seems an inopportune choice in the context, and I avoid showing the cover or spine to anyone who may be registering my choice of reading material and making judgement calls about my suitability to get a VISA, especially once I start silently laughing to myself. The conjoined seats shudder, and my new friend get up and goes to sit elsewhere.

I 902 flashes up, and I hastily stuff the book in my bag and struggle to get all the evidence of my relationship out whilst I scurry to the window. I had expected a private room, a guy in a slightly too large suit to offer me a coffee, and a smoke. My cop film expectations are not met. A woman asks me to repeat the process of scanning fingerprints, to prove my identity. In front of her she has 4 forms with my photo on. If I'm not me, I'm a pretty good match.

She leafs through the file in front of her, looks at me, and back to the file. She asks me to talk about Jalyss. This is the only question in the interview, I try to say as much as possible without coming across as desperately lonely. I keep an eye out for signs she's trying to get out of the conversation. She doesn't seem to be listening, so I stop,

"I'm going to approve your application" she says. I haven't yet got the evidence I prepared out. Photos, call record, receipts, letters and print outs I'd spent the last few days collating and obsessively filing. A curator's egg of my relationship with Jalyss sits in a folder my bag at my feet. "You can go now"

"Errr. Is that it?" I ask. I think she may have made a mistake. Where's my interview? "Jalyss' middle name is Jarynn. They're made up" I tell her. I sound like an irritatingly precocious 6 year old announcing she's completed her flute recital. I want to punch myself in the kidneys. I learnt this stuff, and I'm going to get it out there, "Jalyss is a conductor; but not a musical conductor - or an electrical one!" When I practiced that line in my head I paused for effect, and to allow time for them to laugh,

"Yep. You can go now" she says, "go celebrate."

My 'interview' has lasted just over a minute and spanned the length of one question. I am strangely disappointed at how anti-climatic it was, my preparation seems unnecessary. It's hard not to feel cheated. I'm not sure why. I close my half opened bag and leave the way I came in. Nobody stops me.

The queue outside is still growing, like a bureaucratic game of Snake. The pigeon has returned to rest on the eagle.

I have up to 10 days to wait for my VISA and passport to be returned to me. 12 days until I'm hoping to fly, and 24 until the wedding.

I'm not nervous about going yet, although I'm sure I will be soon. But for now I'm just grateful I don't have to worry about those bloody documents any more.