Our United States Green Card Story

Ryan’s immigration story is a huge part of our life and our travels today. It was also a tedious, expensive and heart wrenching process when dealing with immigration which often left us extremely frustrated and at one point left Ryan unable to work for three months. Which is why we wanted to share our story for those who are currently or may someday be working through the immigration process or maybe those who just want to know more about what it is like. Additionally, we are still very grateful for the opportunity that we have had for Ryan to be here that many will not have. Here is our story.

The first five summers working at camp Ryan was on the J1 Student Visa which allowed him to work temporarily in the U.S. for several months before having to return home.  They were all processed through the Camp Leaders agency Ryan used  to get matched to summer camps in America and were relatively easy to obtain as a British citizen. Not to get political on everyone but the J1 visa is allegedly being considered for the chopping block  by the current administration which would be a real loss to summer camps  in filling positions that might otherwise be difficult to fill with good candidates who are interested to live on-site for pretty limited wages considering the hours you work at a camp ( which are totally worth it but that’s a story for another day).

Things got more complicated  when Ryan was offered an internship on an H1B Visa  at our last summer at camp with an Agency in Chicago. This was amazing news for us as it meant the long distance relationship with visits in-between camp was over, at least for another year. It still meant that Ryan had to leave the country for three long months whilst waiting for paper work to be processed, which felt like an eternity when your away from your loved one. Happily, it did eventually get approved and went through without issue at the end of those three months.

After a year, Ryan’s hard work had paid off and our employer had seen value in his work ethic and wanted to extend his contract, meaning a different visa, an attorney and another fee. Having worked with immigration for several years and knowing the waiting period for work visas, Ryan’s employer had the paperwork filed and sent in early and again the waiting began. But time started floating by with a lack of responsiveness from the  initial immigration lawyer and so a new lawyer was hired in his place who completed the process. And so the waiting  began again and dragged on towards the date when Ryan’s current visa would run out.  And then the worst came. It was like the whole world had come crashing down. Ryan’s visa request had been denied. Apparently, he was not eligible for entry under this particular visa. We learned later that the first lawyer should have started an application for a different visa type.

Dreading the thought of having to potentially be apart again we discussed our options. After months of avoiding Ryan’s marriage hints (sorry babe) Lindsey suggested we get married because to quote Lindsey’s Dad a green card isn’t a good reason to get married but it is a good reason to get married sooner. So, Ryan took Lindsey to the fanciest French restaurant he could find, which in Chicago wasn’t too difficult, and popped the question. We will save the sappy details for ourselves but it was beautiful and we got married at the Cook county courthouse five days later.

Unfortunately for internationals who find love abroad, your happiest day is followed by another  long waiting period. Ryan spent several months unemployed in our apartment going a bit stir crazy. Ryan is not one to be inactive. As with anything involving the government it involved extensive  and complicated paperwork. We decided we would utilize the immigration lawyer that had been used by our employer to ensure that everything got done right. God forbid the time be extended or even worse the visa denied due to an error. This of course added cost to an already very expensive process.

Then we get to the interview, which probably somewhat due to movie portrayals we were really nervous about. We looked into potential questions and brought tons of photos and albums to prove that our relationship was  the real deal.  We had a lot of stuff to choose from due to Lindsey’s avid scrapbooking. Ultimately, we had fretted mostly for nothing. Because our relationship was real it was very apparent to the interviewer and she asked us very reasonable questions that are simple to answer in an authentic relationship. Of course, like every aspect of this process we couldn’t quite make it through without some complication. Literally, a block away from our destination our one and only vehicle at the time that we were riding in completely breaks down, right in the middle of downtown. After, briefly considering abandoning the car as there was no way in hell we were missing the immigration interview we notice that not far away is a parking garage and manage to push it over and into a parking spot for the time being to worry about afterwards. Needless to say, by the time we got to that interview it felt like miracle.

After the interview, was more waiting, more of Ryan being unemployed, and finally that beautiful green card in the mail telling us our stress and waiting was over. He had to renew after two years and will again ten years after that. We have been told that after that they start pressuring you to become a citizen but we will just have to wait and see.  All in all we would of course do it all over again in order to have the life we have now. We also certainly respect the need for security in terms of who is able to become a legal resident. That said, surely there must be some way to make this whole process less dreadful for the applicants and more expedient so that those who have the desire can start becoming contributive members of the community more easily and quickly. So thats our story. Have your own immigration story? We would love to hear it. Please share below.