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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Squatter no more!

Granted I had the easy way out and did not have to stake out a corner for seven, eight, twenty years to claim my place legitimately, I am squatter no more. Hooray!!

The Drama:

After filing applications for my permanent residency status last October, I was given travel and work permits without further hassle. In May this year however, Scott and I were summoned for an interview, that basically required us to submit more supporting documents. So we dredged out love letters(emails!) when we were dating, put together photos of our weddings and sent them to Immigration Services via certified mail.

Last week, we received a letter: our application was denied. My work permit and advanced parole(travel permit) were terminated with immediate effect. I was to leave the country within 60 days.

The reason: we had failed to respond to requests for additional documents.

This must surely be a mistake. Horrified and in panic mode, we quickly got together our receipts and delivery proofs and sent them in with a letter to petition a reversal/re-opening of the application.

Scott and I were on tenterhooks over the weekend as we waited for a reply. On Monday, sooner then we thought it would, a letter arrived in the mail: Immigration Services has reconsidered and "the adverse decision is vacated"(the hubs thought the choice of words was pretty funny). Omg!! I can stay!! I shrieked in relief and hugged hubs. What a scare that was!

Then we realised that the letter was dated the day we sent in the petition to re-open the application. They must have found the documents and instantly rectified the situation with this letter, even before they got our petition letter! In any case, I was glad it didn't have to be a drawn out battle that would last years and stress us out. False alarm forgiven.

Two days later, another letter came that congratulated me on my new permanent residency status (yayyy!!), and also welcomed me to the United States. Funny this second part of it, for I have been here a whole year. I guess when I was alien and illegal, I was non-existent.

My green card arrived today. I exist.

Now I guess I will have to start paying taxes.


2 comments:

Natasha Yong said...

Hey gal,
Nice to have you online again.
See that you're having a absolutely fabulous time in US. I wanna be there too... find me a US beau leh! Surfer dude can!

Miss you... when u coming back?

ppirouettes said...

it's summertime and surfers are here in droves. Book your flight over quick!!