Getting a green card: a day long into eternity
'25.08.2017'
Source: Emigrantvideo.us
American Life Stories from Ksenya Konovalova
A night long into eternity, Or as I missed the appartment at the US Citizenship and Immigration Offices and I almost closed my application for the Green Card.
My package of documents on the green card went back in early June. Two weeks ago, I received a letter from the Citizenship and Immigration Services that on July 27 at 8 in the morning I must appear at a certain address for fingerprinting and photographing my new American documents. “The result of a non-appearance will be the automatic cancellation of your case,” I read in the letter. Since this is one of the most important steps in the process of obtaining a resident card, I, naturally, reacted to it responsibly. I immediately announced to my husband that on such a day I would have to leave home with the first roosters, and, opening the online calendar, I immediately entered the date and place of my appointment. Moreover, I also set myself a reminder for the day in order not to forget exactly. But I didn’t notice that the hardware I had preserved not on 8 in the morning, but on 5 in the evening, because when you put time in the Google calendar, it offers you the next hour, based on your current time. And then there was something about half past four Sunday evening.
And yes, exactly one day I get a notice about tomorrow appointing, although I already remembered him. Putting the paper and passport in the bag, I wrote to the chief that tomorrow at 4 I would have to leave in the evening, and went to bed with a clear conscience. Everything went according to plan. It seemed to me ...
Exactly at 4 hours past noon the next day I went out in the direction of the immigration office. I go to the subway and I think, let me check the address again in order to drive maps for the route into Google. I open my piece of paper and then I have a stopper .. Appointment time - 27 July, 8 o'clock in the morning ... I feel that I am losing my balance and now I will fall ... The pulse in my head starts to beat crazy, making it difficult to think .. "The result of non-appearance will be automatic cancellation of your business," - the phrase from the letter never stops repeating in my head. “All right, this is pi ** ec,” I decided. I call my husband. "Sorry I can't talk right now". "Your f * ck!" - I swear almost out loud. In a jittery and shaking fingers, I type a message for him, how I got bored, that everything was lost and that I would be deported in general before I could finish writing this message. I go down into the subway and, wearing heels, without looking, jump over two steps. I am writing to a lawyer friend, whom I consulted and with whom we remained good friends, how the calendar let me down, and that “I was glad to meet you and goodbye, America!”. I'm exaggerating now, of course, because in the end everything was resolved, but just yesterday I did not know how much it would cost me.
«Can you call me? ", - I get a text message from a lawyer. Rezvanivat instantly. I almost cry into the phone.
“Where are you, Ksenia?”.
“On the way to Brooklyn,” I reply.
“Okay - then tell me what made you sick of the pain in your stomach, and that you couldn’t get out of bed all day. If you start explaining the story with the calendar, stop listening in half. Health problems are the only reason why non-attendance can be forgiven. All good luck. Let me know how it went. ”
I go out to the desired subway station in Brooklyn and run to the nearest store to buy napkins (well, wipe the sweat from your face or cough). This is already the building of the Immigration office. I go up. I go inside the lobby, pulling the door of the office where fingerprints are taken, and there ... CLOSED. Opening hours: from 8 in the morning to 4 in the evening ...
“Go tomorrow morning and ask to be accepted,” the lawyer says in a calm voice. “And don't be nervous, everything should be fine.”
You know, I always considered myself a balanced person who knows how to control himself. But this case knocked me out of the rut. While driving home, one single thought was spinning in my head: “So much work has been done, so much time and money have been spent, so much effort has been put in, so many people who helped…. And all to hell because of my mistake! ”
I would miss the moment that my husband and I had a small date - 2 had been married for a month - and a table was reserved in the restaurant, which we eventually canceled and decided to quietly make dinner at home. I am so grateful to him - I did not say a bad word when I saw me in the evening, but tried to support and feed me.
The morning of the next day. 7: 30 in the morning I'm in Uber. The driver turned out to be Georgian - David - chatted merrily all the time. And I would have a coffee, yes more - I slept restlessly all night. We arrived. She thanked David and went to the office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Getting in.
I think: "Well, okay, keep quiet and pretend to be business, until they themselves ask." At the entrance, the officer asks me to turn off the phone and asks for my paper and passport. “Everything,” I think, “right now, he will notice that I did not appear yesterday, and will say:“ Orevuar, beauty! ”
Not. Requests to fill two forms and come back to him. Fill out the forms, around me forms in the waiting room sits a man 30. Fill as quickly as I could, so that at least one or two immigrants, but overtake. I come up with forms, look at him inquiringly. “Well, now he will definitely say:“ Aahhhh, we were waiting for you yesterday! Orevuar! No, she silently stamps on the forms and sends me to the queue to the woman who gives the numbers and sends them to the officers for the fingerprints! Standing in line. “Well, this woman is exactly like me, she is looking at something so closely at that couple.” I bent even more, coughed up, held my stomach (and my stomach really started to hurt! In self-suggestion!) Knees are shaking. A woman takes my papers, greets me with a smile and asks how my morning is. I, already not understanding anything, why nobody tells me anything about my non-appearance, answered that everything was fine, my stomach hurts, but on the whole it is ok. The woman, with compassion after squinting her nose, pointed me to some water in a corner of the room, told me to “get better"And sent me to the window in which a female officer was waiting for me to take my fingerprints. The fingerprinting procedure itself took no more than 7 minutes. The female officer smiled all the time, making compliments to my dress, and said that if I want to correct the make-up before the photo, then I have a couple of minutes while she enters my information into the database. Then she asked me to fill out a small form and write a review about the service provided. Needless to say, I put five stars on all the questions !?
In general, I successfully passed my fingerprints and took a photo. I went out into the street, still not believing my happiness. I bought myself a cappuccino at the nearest Polish coffee shop (although the area was Jewish), and taking the first sip, thanked her angels and the entire immigration system of America combined. That's all the same, when you're on the right track, everything works out!+
It was a great morning, isn't it! What about you?
