Frustration

I usually try not to use the blog for whining and complaining. But I must confess I am a bit frustrated today. I thought that once we arrived in the USA our immigration nightmares would be over. Ah, was I naive!

So William has received his permanent resident card (aka Green Card). Which means that he basically has most of the same rights and responsibilities as citizens. But he is not actually a citizen. Normally to become a citizen you have to live in the United States without leaving for 5 years. If you are married to a citizen then the time is reduced to three years. We have recently heard that if you are working for an approved mission organization that is based in the USA they will often allow two of your three years to be served overseas. That all sounded great to us. We figured that William will now have the freedom to come and go between Africa and America without stressing about a visa.

Well it turns out that if you are a permanent resident and you leave the USA for extended periods of time they consider it to be abandoning your interest in living in America. They can take away your green card and deny you re-entry into the states! So if you want to leave for any extended time you have to apply for something called a "Re-entry Permit". And of course you have to pay a re-entry permit fee. Surprise surprise! It allows you to leave for up to two years at a time. It must be fully processed before you leave the country.

So today I get to spend my afternoon applying for a re-entry permit for him. It looks like the more times you get a re-entry permit the harder it is to renew each time. So I guess at this point I just need to apply, follow the rules, and continue to trust God as we take things one step at a time.

I will say that over the course of the last year I have grown more and more appreciative of what an amazing country America is. Which makes it a little easier to understand why it is so difficult to get in.

Oh, and I just want to mention that the instructions for filling out the form are 8 pages long. That is just the instructions alone! Ahhhhhh big sigh.....