Immigration

 There’s no way I could possibly hope to cover immigration in any great detail in just a few pages, so I hope you will not be too disappointed if I do not attempt it.  You will find, following this section, some information on spousal and fiancée visas, obtained by me from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service’s website.  You may also find the Acronym glossary in the Appendix of this book useful, since it includes the names of most forms and quite a few important immigration terms.  But there’s no way for me to give you the full scoop about immigration without writing a whole second book on that topic.  Since there are already plenty of good immigration books out there, there’s no reason for me to write another. 

I will, however, give you some idea what to expect, along with some advice: 

Forms.  There are many, many government forms to be filled out, by you and your fiancée/wife, both in your homeland in the Philippines (forms that allow you to marry one another, that allow her to leave the Philippines, that allow her to come to your country, etc.).  The forms are revised constantly, so you must ensure that you have the most current versions, and you must fill them out to the letter or they will be returned to you unprocessed.   I strongly recommend that you ONLY use forms downloaded or mailed from the government.  Do not download forms from other websites, because governments are always revising forms, and it’s very easy for a Webmaster to have an outdated form on his or her site.  If you download and fill out the wrong version of a form, you may be required by the government to resubmit the form, using the correct version.  This will mean that you and your fiancée/wife will spend additional days, weeks, or even months apart, unnecessarily.  That’s the reason I do not include forms as part of either this book or the ASAWA website.  I don’t want to be responsible for providing you with an outdated form.  

Money.  If you want anyone to look at that form you spent three days filling out, you’ll have to pay him or her to do it.  Almost every form carries a “processing fee”.  You might pay that fee in person (common in the Philippines) or you might pay it by mailed check (common in the United States).  You will spend several hundred dollars on form fees, so budget for it.  Also, odds are that you’ll use FedEx, DHL, or some other overnight delivery company at some point during the immigration process to rush a form to the Philippines.  That’ll cost you.   Forms can sometimes be “wired” (faxed), but there’s a fee for that too.  You’ll also have to finance the travels of your fiancée/wife and her escorts when they travel to the nearest Embassy or Consulate for interviews and paperwork, and you’ll have to pay for any trips for medical checkups, classes, etc.  You’ll have to pay for transportation, food, housing, and fees.  Also, you’ll make and answer numerous long distance calls during the immigration process, so be prepared for that, too. 

Frustration.  Oh yeah, you’ll have some of that.  Based on my observations, after years of working with folks suffering through the immigration process, westerners tend to go through several rather predictable stages.  Please allow me to illustrate a few of the most common stages, using as an example a hypothetical fella named “Brad”:  Brad is, for the purposes of this exercise, an American, recently engaged to a Filipina named “Hope”.  

Stage 1: “Unfounded Optimism”.  At this early stage, Brad presumes that bringing Hope to America requires little more than buying her a plane ticket.  Well, he suspects there might be a form or two to fill out at the airport, but that shouldn’t result in a very significant delay.  They should be together in a week, he thinks.

Stage 2: “Reality Sets In”.  Brad learns that both the American and Philippine governments require some paperwork to be done before Hope can fly to the U.S.   This disturbs Brad somewhat, because he really misses Hope (they’ve been apart for almost three days now), and he’s anxious to have her in his arms again.  Hope is similarly impatient.  Brad assures her, though, that he’ll get the paperwork done quickly, and that they’ll only be apart for a few weeks longer. 

Stage 3: “Confusion”.  Brad has submitted a dozen forms, three of which were returned to him (after several weeks) with boilerplate letters from the INS telling him he needs to clarify, add, delete, or reiterate something. To his surprise, the INS also wants to know when the last time he went moose hunting in Canada was, whether he bagged a moose, and why he chose to go moose hunting instead of duck hunting, since Canada has some really cool duck hunting spots, or so the INS has been led to believe by the folks next door.  In the Philippines, Hope learns that she must make a twelve hour bus ride to Manila, at which point she will stand in line for another six hours to get into the U.S. Embassy, assuming the bus doesn’t drive off the side of a cliff, or get swallowed by lahar, or get incinerated by a volcanic explosion.      

Stage 4: “Resentment”.  Brad is getting bitter and Hope if falling into despair.  Brad finds himself saying things like, “What business does the government have to tell me whom I can or cannot marry?  What right does the government have to keep me and my fiancée apart?  Isn’t this a free country?”  Desperate and bitter, he tries to get creative.  Maybe he can get her a tourist visa, or a work visa, or an education visa, he thinks.  Sure, those would be fraudulent visas, but it serves the government right for keeping him and his fiancée apart!  Hope, at this stage, has been standing in line for three weeks and has lost feeling in both legs.  She can’t even remember what she’s in line for anymore, though she hopes it tastes good.   

Stage 5: “Rebellion”.  Brad has been told by cooler heads that he has no hope of bringing Hope to the U.S. via a fraudulent visa, and that even if he pulled it off, Hope would be beheaded by the INS if she were ever found out.  Well, beheaded or deported, the cooler heads can’t exactly remember what the penalty is, but whatever it is, they’re sure it’s very bad.  Brad decides to write his Senator a forceful letter protesting his treatment by the INS.  The Senator has the letter date stamped and triple-notarized before folding it into a paper airplane and throwing it out his office window.  In the off-chance that it catches a headwind and flies back through his window and lands on his desk, he may act on it, but he’d prefer that it fly quietly to the ground below and poke out the eye of a Senator from the other party.    

Stage 6: “Despair”.  Brad hasn’t heard from the INS in weeks and has no idea where his petition stands.  He’s grown paranoid, and studies the photocopies of every form he submitted, riddled with anxiety.  Do his O’s look like zeroes?  Is that causing a problem, maybe?  Should he have written “an” instead of “a” in that narrative about the moose hunt?  Has the INS trashed his form and rejected his petition because he’s such a poor writer?  Can they even do that?  He calls INS and spends hours on hold only to be told that INS has his petition and is processing it.  When he asks if there’s a problem, he’s certain that he can hear INS staffers laughing in the background and asking, “Is that the guy?!”  Brad has taken out a second mortgage on his liver in order to pay for all of Hope’s expenses, plus those associated with the immigration paperwork itself.  He’s comforted somewhat by the news that Hope will be off her crutches soon. 

Stage 7: “Zombieland”.  Brad is in a daze.  At work he spends his time lazily surfing Filipino Internet sites.   At home, he mopes.  He begins to doubt himself and his plan to marry Hope.  He begins to think Hope has found someone else during his long absence.  He grows resentful of other married couples. Sometimes he thinks it would be better just to call the whole thing off, to tell Hope he loves her but fate won’t allow them to be together, but then he talks to her on the phone and falls in love again and cries himself to sleep.   

Stage 8: “Victory”.  Without warning, Brad learns from Hope or the INS or Santa Claus that his fiancée is free to catch the next plane or magical sleigh or flying carpet to the United States.  Just like that.  Gone today, here tomorrow.  Brad spends an hour in absolute shock, then feints, then gets up and goes screaming into the streets like Jimmy Stewart at the conclusion of “It’s a Wonderful Life”.  Because, at that point, it is, isn’t it? 

The Odds. Never lose site of the fact that the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor...   

(End of book excerpt – if you’d like the entire text, please consider ordering The ASAWA Guide to Fil-West Relationships.  Thank you!)

All original materials on this website (www.asawa.org, www.filipinawives.com) are copyrighted by the author, Bob Lingerfelt, 1997 -2007  with materials on file at the U.S. Copyright Office.  No reproduction is authorized, in any form, without express permission of the author.