An exiled journalist’s ordeal with the abbys of immigration services

When I had to flee my home country Turkey in March 2016 after the increasingly oppressive government brutally took over our newspaper, I thought the problems I would encounter in the Western world would be much less frustrating and challenging.

The year I spent in Belgium’s highly divided, bilingual and decentralized bureaucracy made me think the U.S. would be a better place to live for an exiled journalist like myself. After coming here for a journalism related project, I decided to stay. After all, the US is a country of immigrants as the famous expression goes. Given my graduate school experience in the US, I was able to safely argue that becoming an immigrant in the US would still be easier than anywhere in Europe. Little did I know about the dark abyss of the United States Center for Immmigration Services (USCIS)! 

Let me try to simplify and oversummarize (I know there is no such word, but I had to coin it) my ordeal with the USCIS in the last three years. Through my lawyer, I applied for an employment based green card in October 2017. I received my work authorization card relatively quickly, in January 2018. When I got married to a US citizen, my lawyer filed for a marriage based petition in March 2018. How difficult could it be to link the two cases for the bureaucracy of a country that landed on the moon almost half a century ago? Apparently, much more difficult than I could imagine.

My marriage-based petition was also approved in September 2018. However, despite months of waiting, there was no word from USCIS. I decided to be proactive and asked for the help of a senator’s office to be able to get some sort of an idea about the status of my cases. Anyone who deals with USCIS knows that contacting its officials are almost impossible without help.

At some point in Spring of 2019, through that senator’s office, I was told that USCIS sent a request for further evidence for my first petition, but neither I nor my lawyer received such notice. By that time, I already lost months without even knowing that action was necessary in my case.

After consulting with my lawyer, I decided to continue with the marriage-based petition only. In the meantime, I had to renew my work-authorization card in order to be able to renew my driver’s license since all are connected to each other. No need to mention the frequent dreadful visits to DMV because I am still an alien...

Even though my lawyer’s letter asked in huge capital letters not to deny my marriage-based green card application, but to link the two cases, in September 2019, I received a notice- and to my old address for some reason- that my petition was denied. While expecting a date for my green card interview, my lawyer said that I had to file a petition from scratch in order to remain legal in the country. With extreme frustration, I filed a brand-new application in the beginning of October 2019 and had to pay another application fee in the amount of 1225 USD (not to mention all the previous lawyer and application fees that have been trashed). Only a few days later, my lawyer received a letter acknowledging the mistake by USCIS. My initial case was reopened on October 11, 2019. 

Even though I had two active ongoing applications as of February 2020, I could not even renew my driver’s license since USCIS had not send me a new document (EAD). I had to cancel an upcoming flight. You might wonder why I could not use my passport as an ID. When you are an exiled journalist, even a valid passport becomes a luxury. I was able to renew my driver's license for another year when I finally received the required employment authorization card (EAD), but I am still waiting for an interview date. As a final resort, I expressed my grivances with Ombudsman office, but in March 2020, I received a message stating that my case is within 'normal processing times' although a friend of mine with the same kind of application received not only an interview date, but also her green card in less than a year. That inconsistency in case processing times is another question mark about USCIS bureaucracy...

If I’m lucky (!) I should receive an interview date for my green card from the deep abyss of the USCIS. However, on top if all, because of current COVID-19 lockdown, the bureaucracy slowed even further down. In other words, USCIS bureaucracy went from bad to worse due to the pandemic.

There is no way of knowing when to expect what because it is literally impossible to receive a proper and timely response from the immigration services.  It is incomprehensible that USCIS cannot put together and track two applications by one person under the same ‘alien’ number. It would not take more than 10 minutes to finalize my case if an officer take ownership...

Unfortunately, the longer I wait for my green card, the longer it takes to receive an eventual travel document and passport which is an additional headache for a political dissident.

Compared to my jailed colleagues and friends in Turkey, of course, I can’t complain, but as an immigrant, my life is on constant hold and frustration grows each day thanks to the broken immigration system of the most powerful country on earth!