My immigration journey pt. 4

If you’re new here, welcome! This is part two of a series where I discuss my immigration journey from 2010 until now. If you want to read part one, click here. For part two, click here. For part three, click here.

Here we are in year 2020… when the world basically was set on fire. Before COVID-19 became what we know now, our lives started to reset and get back to normal. My husband and I moved back to Orlando in February, he was getting so many career opportunities, and I was planning on going back to UCF. A full time position opened and it was perfect! The day of our move, I had to head to Tampa and do my biometrics for my green card (fingerprints, photos, etc.). Usually this meant the process was coming to a conclusion soon, so I was ecstatic. My employment authorization card was valid until July 2 2020, so I had a few months before worrying about renewing it. A month later (early March) I received a letter saying my interview was scheduled for April 13! I couldn’t believe it was finally happening. To my surprise, early March was when everything started shutting down and I anticipated the worst — my interview being postponed. That’s exactly what happened.

At this point, I had a little over 3 months before my employment card expired. In order to avoid what happened the previous year, I submitted my forms to renew it right away. I still hadn’t heard back about the job I applied for, but regardless, I couldn’t be without a valid license or the possibility to work whenever they called. As you’re probably guessing, it took forever to hear back from them and by the time they did reach out, it was to tell me I used an expired form.

The form I used was from their site. The form they have on their site was expired and instead of just accepting it since it was their mistake, I had to redo the form and resend.

By the time I resent the form, my document had already expired and I was back to where I started. It would be one thing if this never happened, but the fact that it was not the first time I went through this with them, I can’t even blame it on the pandemic. One thing the pandemic did change was the budget for the position I applied for, which resulted in them offering me the position at a part-time schedule until budgets were back to normal. Of course I wanted to accept, but I needed them to give me some time until I received my renewed document in the mail. Thankfully, they were super patient and waited until I was able to officially accept the job — that took quite a bit of stress off my shoulders because I really did not want to miss out on the opportunity to work with them again.

Just a little recap: my employment document expired on July 2, I sent in my application to renew it around the second week of April, and by the end of August I was still waiting on a response. I hadn’t heard anything about my permanent residency interview or my employment document renewal. By the first week of September, we received a letter in the mail finally rescheduling my interview! I was truly appalled at the fact that I still didn’t receive the employment card, but by this point it really didn’t matter anymore. My interview was scheduled for September 22 and I was READY. I got together all of the many documents they asked for (even though they maybe asked for one thing when we were there), my husband took the day off from work, and we were ready to go.

The interview process started out a bit rocky. When we arrived, the security guard vaguely gave instructions on what he wanted us to do (by vaguely, I mean he said one word), so when we naturally did something he didn’t want us to do, he yelled at me. If you know my husband well, you can imagine this did not go over too well with him. I had to pull him to the side because I was not gonna let some lowly guard get in the way of this. Although I love it when hubby gets protective over me, this ain’t the time lol.

Here’s a tip: some of these people get off on whatever power they feel they possess over immigrants. Had it been any other circumstance, my husband would probably have to drag me out of there lol but in that case, it’s not worth it. Just ignore it and keep it moving!

Once we got called in, the guy was really serious but respectful. He asked a few standard questions, asked for a document or two, and then approved my case. He told me I’d probably get my card within 2-4 weeks… y’all… I got it in 5 days. My interview was on Tuesday and I received my card that Saturday. I couldn’t believe that it was finally over. By over I mean the struggle of all the document renewals just to drive and work, the repeated disappointment of not being able to travel outside of the country and feeling like I’m less than in some ways because I couldn’t do ‘everyday things’ that I felt everyone around me could do. That Monday I went straight to the DMV to renew my license and I couldn’t believe it was valid for 10 years! I guess many people just see this as a regular thing, but before then it was 1 year or 2 max. It was all a breath of fresh air.

I loved sharing the picture of the card with my family and close friends and seeing their reactions. It was like they won the lottery lol — everyone knew the struggles I had gone through and it felt great to share my victory with them. If you’re reading this and you’re going through this process, I’m here if you need any help at all. Even if it’s just to vent. If anyone understands what a burden this can be, it’s me lol. Next up… citizenship! 🎉