Next Step

Saturday July 23, 2011

First full day without my boo and my dad here.  I don’t want to cry but I can’t help but be a little sad.  I don’t want to be depressed but all I do want to do is sleep so I don’t have to remember that I am here alone.  I know I am not, I am surrounded by family, my grandparents and several aunts that are spending their vacations at home with their parents but I can’t help but feel a little alone.  One week is all I’ve ever been apart from E and it was definitely the longest week ever.  I went to IEFL camp that week and was too busy to miss him much, but here I have nothing but time to think and miss him.  Its weird how in the almost 3 years we’ve been together I can remember every time I’ve been apart from him for longer than a day.  Three nights when I organized G’s bachelorette party in Vegas and a full week when I went to camp.  Now, who knows how long I have to be apart from him. 

The next part of this immigration process is to apply for a “pardon”, because I was in the U.S. illegally for longer than a year I did not qualify for them to approve my visa but I can ask for forgiveness and for that it will cost me another small fee of $585 USD.  Not to mention all the expenses we are already incurring with me living in Mexico for an undetermined amount of time.  The magic blue sheet I was given at my last appointment instructed me to call a new number where I could return to submit my “pardon packet”.  In this packet I must prove that it will be an “extreme hardship” on my citizen husband to have to be with out me or have to relocate to Mexico.  I called the number and I was surprised to be given an appointment day so soon.  Usually this second appointment takes months and here they were giving me an appointment of August 24^th.  A month from today I will be back out in Juarez waiting for yet another glimmer of hope.  At this next appointment they will take my pardon packet and review it.  It can take a few days, weeks or even months to review and have a decision ready for me.  If you are one of the lucky few to have an answer in a few days a packet will arrive for you at the local Juarez DHL office and it in it a newly stamped passport with a visa inside.  You take that to the nearest port of entry and a U.S. official will take your new visa and packet and decide weather or not to let you back in to the United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave.  Otherwise, you take your belongings and head back to the place you were residing in Mexico or stay in Juarez and rent a miserable room and wait and wait and wait for a response.  Submitting a “pardon packet” guarantees you absolutely nothing and just as easily as you can be approved you can be denied.  Denial means a new life and hardships, but to the U.S. it’s the price if doing business.