Chaviva's husband can't return to the US for months

[LucySnowe]

Checked in on Chaviva.

So Mr. T is out of the country indefinitely, thanks to an immigration law that says it takes forever once you start green card processing to get your travel documents, and if you don't have your travel documents, you're stuck in this country. Parent dies? Sorry, unless the right USCIS agent tells you to go to a local office to get an emergency "advance parole" document, you're up a creek. Unless, of course, you go ahead and leave the country anyway, in which case you screw yourself to the point of not being able to re-enter the USA. So that's where we are. I've emailed state senators, I've emailed local representatives. I've talked to a handful of lawyers. Everyone says the same thing:

Why did he leave? Did he know what he was doing when he left? That was a really stupid move. You guys really screwed up. Sorry, there's nothing that can be done. The law is the law. He'll have to transfer his case to the UK or Israel and wait 8-12 months for consular processing. Yes, that means he won't be able to see his son. Yes, that means he'll miss his son's first birthday. Sorry.

So there we are. The result was an emergency visit to the local daycare, an explanation of logistics, finances, and realities. We'll see how I do. We'll see how Ash does.

I know how difficult immigration can be. My husband and I spent a collective total of twenty-five years under the thumbs of various countries’ immigration rules, and I’ve read zillions of threads on immigration forums, and we know how these rules can fuck up family life. I was lucky in that I never had to spend any time apart from my husband, but the year before he finally got the right paperwork to be able to come and go as he pleased, he had to watch helplessly from another continent as his mother deteriorated mentally, and the state took over legal responsibility for her and put her into a care home. Thankfully she is doing as well as possible in such a situation and my husband has been able to visit her since then. But she could have died without his being able to see her again.

So I get it and I sympathise.

But you can’t just leave the country when the rule is that you can’t leave the country while ignoring the document which allows you to leave the country, and expect that you can make it better with an email to a state senator. It’s not like USCIS doesn't have a procedure in place for exactly this situation.

http://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-c ... ncy-travel

What’s sticking in my craw here is that Chaviva is blaming this entire debacle on the fact that “the right USCIS agent†didn’t tell her to go a local office to apply for this. Fuck no. Everyone’s responsible for their own immigration, and while I completely understand that many (perhaps most) immigrants have additional barriers, anyone who's a native English speaker and well-educated should be able to play by the USCIS rules, tedious though they may be. Yes, sometimes they screw up big time and you have to pay a lawyer a lot of money and argue your case in front of a judge before it all gets fixed (been there, done that, grateful I got a good lawyer), but it’s your responsibility to make sure you toe all the lines.

Sorry for writing a novel, but I've seen so many people follow the rules and suffer because of it (including spending months if not years apart, even after they get married) that I have difficulties with people who circumvent them and then whine.

[Trynn]

This is why people immigrate illegally. Immigration just sounds waaaaaay too complicated and harsh.

[FaustianSlip]

Except I don't think her husband actually immigrated. If you come in with an immigrant visa, you usually get a stamp in your passport that functions as a green card until you get your actual green card in the mail. You're not trapped in the US, unable to leave, until you get your magic green card in the mail. It just doesn't work that way.

It sounds like he was trying to adjust status, which means he came in on a non-immigrant visa, which means that by definition, he lied (or omitted certain facts, let's say) to the visa officer who interviewed him. Because if he said flat out, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to the US with my American wife to live there permanently, we just don't want to mess with the whole immigrant visa process," to whoever interviewed him, it's pretty unlikely they'd have approved a non-immigrant visa. And now that he was already over there trying to adjust status (from his non-immigrant visa), no way is someone going to issue him another one if he applies. They were already playing fast and loose with the rules to get him there in the first place, so I don't have a lot of sympathy that they're having issues now that they ignored the rules a second time.

And looking at the blog, they knew that his grandmother was ill. It wasn't a case where she died super suddenly. They could have contacted the immigration authorities when she first took ill to ask what they could/should do if there was a family emergency and he needed to leave the country for that reason. That might have avoided all of their issues, and why they didn't do that, I really don't know. Certainly, if I was aware that a potential consequence of my getting on a plane without talking to someone would be separation from my wife and young son for up to a year, along with thousands of extra dollars in immigration fees, I would make damn sure I checked all of the boxes and talked to all of the right people before I left.

[LucySnowe]

Trynn - yeah, but the downside is that you can get trapped in a country without any legal way to work, or get health care, or access public services; you can also get banned. Friend of mine did that "going to the UK on repeated six-month visitor visas" thing and she's lucky she never got caught, because she'd have been banned for ten years. Countries are really cracking down on the "well I'm here already so they'll just let me stay" route; Australia has a vicious campaign at the moment.

FaustianSlip - thanks for the info. I assumed things were done beforehand, but given the haste with which they left Israel, your theory makes more sense. My guess would be that they were doing an Adjustment of Status, but now that's out, so they need to do the Consular processing route.

[keen23]

The majority of the people who work for me are from Mexico and Central America. We run into issues all the time, where someone will get married in Mexico and bring their wife over. Except they don't always go through legal channels. And get caught. And then try to legally get their wife into the country and run into all sorts of legal issues. I know of at least 10 employees who have wives living just over the Mexican border who can't get into the US legally due to prior legal issues. Those guys visit their wives every weekend or every other weekend in Mexico. They can cross legally, but they can't live here with their wife and kids.

[shedemei]

I feel a lot of compassion for Chaviva. She seems very lost and flails about trying to find her place, but never seems to settle in places or jobs. I knew she wouldn't stay long after aliyah, but I was hoping having a family would give her an anchor. :|

She's posted a on Facebook, publicly, about the situation.

[FaustianSlip]

Honestly, I used to feel badly for her, but a lot of these situations are partially or wholly of her own making. She makes these sudden, rash decisions, things fall apart, and then she sits back and bemoans her poor luck and blames someone else for her problems.

This current situation with her husband sucks, no doubt, but they both knew that this was what would happen if he just up and left without talking to USCIS. They also knew that his grandmother was poorly. They didn't take any action to look into this issue, then she dies, and they still don't bother to contact USCIS before he leaves town. Whatever the faults of U.S. immigration law (and they're many and varied, no argument there), Chaviva's current situation isn't down to the whims of the evil U.S. government, but to a series of poor choices she and her husband made that directly flouted every instruction they'd been given about ensuring his legal status to remain in the U.S. The fact that he had the opportunity to adjust status at all was essentially the government doing him a favor. It's not on them to keep letting him evade the proper immigration process just because he and Chaviva don't like it and find it inconvenient.

Meanwhile, she complains all about not having work, being unable to find a job, et cetera, but she doesn't ever seem to stay more than six months at a job. Plus she's posting publicly about all of these issues and drama, which raises the question of whether you'd want to hire someone who has all of this stuff going on. I can sympathize with her situation and her frustration, but she really doesn't seem to do herself any favors.

[lagenialester]

I don't want to say much, because I'm sure there will be that inevitable "yupitsme" post coming up soon. I'm sorry when anyone has to go through a tough time. I stopped reading her social media accounts once I realized she tweets at companies to get what she wants. (Just scroll a few days through her twitter feed and you'll see what I mean) I do feel bad that her kid doesn't get to see his dad right now, but I also think they could have gone about things a little differently to avoid this situation. Of course, nothing is her fault...

I agree that it's the airing of "dirty laundry" so-to-speak that really bugs me. If I recall she did post publicly about issues with her step-son's mother as well. Totally inappropriate.

[FaustianSlip]

Yeah, she did. I hadn't been following her blog or anything for quite a while, but this stuff popped up elsewhere, and it mostly made me roll my eyes. I do feel really badly for the kid, because none of this is his doing, but the adults involved in all of this? Not so much.

[shedemei]

I have often wondered how she gets these social media jobs when she's so bad at doing her own.

[LucySnowe]

That Twitter feed is a nightmare. "Oh hello @[company]. I hear you're hiring. Me. ;)" What's the point of that? Or of announcing that the job you didn't get has just been reposted? What does that bring to the table to show your professionalism? All you're doing is telling future employers that you go public when things don't go your way.

Berating United because they can't provide a kosher meal with less than 24 hour notice? Yes, it would be nice, but kosher meals can't be prepared in-house, and aren't sitting around in every airport caterer's freezer. If the airline isn't playing ball, phone GateGourmet's general manager at Washington Dulles and play the "bereavement flight" card and ask if he has a spare kosher meal that could be loaded onto the flight (no idea if that would work, but going straight to the source is more proactive). The customer service agent (one of three who responded) did suggest bringing food onto the flight - okay, Mr T was in Dulles overnight, but he had eight hours - time to get to some 24-hour grocery store and grab fruit and matza or *something*. Or, while it might not fall under the "preservation of life" rule, just get the vegetarian meal so you can keep up your strength for your family.

I guess I just don't understand complaining on Twitter.

[Peas n carrots]

Man, I can't help but to facepalm with the latest immigration situation. USCIS makes it pretty clear that while waiting for your green card if you must leave the country this is a possible consequence. Interesting in her blog post she notes that every Senator/Congressperson she has written to has replied the same. It's awful, and I think the policies suck too but it is what it is - your family is not a speshul snowflake in the eyes of the law.

Chaviva and Mr. T really need to start thinking things through before making impulsive decisions. Maybe this will be the kick in the ass they need? I hope so...their baby is young and won't remember, but you can't do this to older children and not expect consequences later in life.

Edited for clarity

[FaustianSlip]

I remember reading a Lennon biography years ago in which his attempt to immigrate to the U.S. was discussed. He had come to the States and was in the process of adjusting status, I guess, when he became convinced (rightly, as it turned out) that the FBI was investigating him. This was around the time he was hanging out with Abbie Hoffman and other radicals, singing about Attica, et cetera. The government ultimately took action to deport Lennon, who fought deportation and was refused a green card, ostensibly because of his 1968 hash conviction in the UK. This was in the early '70s. Lennon's immigration status wasn't resolved until 1976. During that time, he was terrified of leaving the US (and never actually left, I don't think), because he knew that if he left, he might never be allowed to reenter. This is John Lennon, we're talking about here. Beatle, world-famous millionaire. If he managed to comply with immigration law for fear that he would be barred entry if he departed the country, why in the world would Chaviva and her husband expect anything different? If INS (now USCIS/CBP) made no exception for John freaking Lennon, I really don't see them making an exception for her.

But of course, this is all someone else's fault, just like everything that goes wrong in her life is someone else's fault.

[DGayle]

Oh, Chaviva, you and your husband aren't exempt from US laws, even if you have kids. Nope, kids aren't a shield. Think twice next time.

[Emme]

I remember reading Marcus Samuelson's autobiography, Yes Chef. One of his parents died when he was in the midst of immigrating and he couldn't go home for the funeral.

[shedemei]

Berating United because they can't provide a kosher meal with less than 24 hour notice? Yes, it would be nice, but kosher meals can't be prepared in-house, and aren't sitting around in every airport caterer's freezer. If the airline isn't playing ball, phone GateGourmet's general manager at Washington Dulles and play the "bereavement flight" card and ask if he has a spare kosher meal that could be loaded onto the flight (no idea if that would work, but going straight to the source is more proactive). The customer service agent (one of three who responded) did suggest bringing food onto the flight - okay, Mr T was in Dulles overnight, but he had eight hours - time to get to some 24-hour grocery store and grab fruit and matza or *something*. Or, while it might not fall under the "preservation of life" rule, just get the vegetarian meal so you can keep up your strength for your family.

Oh, that touches a nerve. Yeah, if a vegetarian "meal" (on United, that would be the the fruit and cheese plate) is actually available and if there are any left by the time the flight attendant gets to your seat. I once ordered a vegetarian meal from Qantas with my tickets one month before departure. I called the day before the plane left to check as they recommened, and was told they didn't have a record of it and I was SOL. Then, on the way back they ran out of vegetarian meals (I tried to ask a flight attendant to save one for me but that didn't work), so I got to pick chicken out of a salad and eat the non-perishable snacks I'd brought with me. Fuck you, Qantas!

And that's why I buy myself food in airport terminals for domestic flights. At the very least, Mr. Chaviva cuold have cobbled together a meal from prepackaged foods like us veg*ns have to. Sucks, but less than being hungry. Learning to be prepared and take care of yourself, rather than depending on others, is a necessary life skill.

I feel like Chaviva would be better off if she stopped posting to social media all the time and concentrated on living her life instead of putting on a show to promote herself.

[FaustianSlip]

The kosher meal thing is a complete head scratcher for me. First of all, there's a lot of prepared, hechshered food out there that's certified kosher. It wouldn't have been difficult at all to bring some fruit or a tuna sandwich or something and a bag of chips to eat mid-flight. Secondly, he had an eight hour layover in DC? That's more than enough time to rent a car for an hour or two, drive out to Silver Spring, where there are a number of kosher grocery stores and restaurants and buy something to eat on the next flight. Not to mention that I think there's at least one or two kosher restaurants in DC proper. Thirdly, if he really, truly couldn't leave the airport, why not call a Chabad rabbi in DC, explain the situation and see if they might be able to offer some help or advice? Again, there were solutions to this issue that didn't include yelling at United because they couldn't magic up a kosher meal with zero notice.

Chaviva is a grown-ass woman, yet the amount of handholding she appears to require to complete the most basic tasks and to solve the most mundane problems really blows my mind sometimes. And again, if I were a prospective employer and read this whole saga online, I would immediately toss her application in the "nope" pile.

[lagenialester]

The kosher meal thing is a complete head scratcher for me. First of all, there's a lot of prepared, hechshered food out there that's certified kosher. It wouldn't have been difficult at all to bring some fruit or a tuna sandwich or something and a bag of chips to eat mid-flight. Secondly, he had an eight hour layover in DC? That's more than enough time to rent a car for an hour or two, drive out to Silver Spring, where there are a number of kosher grocery stores and restaurants and buy something to eat on the next flight. Not to mention that I think there's at least one or two kosher restaurants in DC proper. Thirdly, if he really, truly couldn't leave the airport, why not call a Chabad rabbi in DC, explain the situation and see if they might be able to offer some help or advice? Again, there were solutions to this issue that didn't include yelling at United because they couldn't magic up a kosher meal with zero notice.

Chaviva is a grown-ass woman, yet the amount of handholding she appears to require to complete the most basic tasks and to solve the most mundane problems really blows my mind sometimes. And again, if I were a prospective employer and read this whole saga online, I would immediately toss her application in the "nope" pile.

ITA! If I was in that situation...I probably would have bought a few kashi bars and a couple of pieces of fruit from one of those stands that are everywhere in the airport. A LOT of prepackaged foods are certified OU kosher now. Sure, it wouldn't be as nutritionally filling as a sandwich or something, but come on. And Chabad definitely would have been my next thought as well! The things I have seen our local Chabad rabbi get accomplished for a Jew in need are incredible. Surely this is a situation that the local rabbi at Dulles would have had to deal with already. So that's a little confusing to me.

But all of the twitter stuff comes across to me as like "give me what I want or I'll make you look bad by tweeting about it!" Not a fan.

[LucySnowe]

From her Twitterings, it sounds like his flight out of Dulles was at 9am (United has one that leaves at 910am, arriving in London very late that same night) - so if he was there for 8 hours, that meant he got into Washington after midnight. Lots of airports shut down the food stalls. So he might not have had as many options as usual.

I've known some pretty generous Chabad rabbis and the introduction to Sue Fishkoff's "The Rebbe's Army" talks about a Chabad guy who rushes to the airport to bring her some kosher food before her flight, so I wouldn't rule out a middle-of-the-night run. On the other hand, he must have left Denver at a reasonable time. Chaviva could have made a few phone calls (or tweets) during normal hours even if the getting-him-to-the-airport part was rushed and frantic, and had some information for him by the time he landed.

I don't know why this is annoying me so much. Given that they knew this flight was a possibility, packing his bags in advance and adding some kosher snacks should have been a priority. I nearly had to fly 5000 miles on very short notice a couple of weeks ago - Monday I was getting casual emails, Tuesday he was in the hospital, and Thursday they turned off life support - and when I was booking the flight I knew perfectly well I wasn't going to be guaranteed a vegetarian meal, so "snack bars in the carry-on bag" was right below "passport" and "SuperShuttle reservation" on the to-do list. I know people handle stress differently, but....

What I just realized is that in her blog post she says "Parent dies?" implying that this was *that* serious a journey. I'm not saying that a grandparent's death isn't something to be upset about. But she deliberately implied her situation was something else.

[Peas n carrots]

Mr. T could have been super close to his grandparents, or even raised by them. I was raised from birth to 6 by my grandmother, and my bond with her is more akin to a mother/child than child/grandparent. When she passes, no matter where I am in the world I'll do everything I can within reason of the law to be there for her funeral.

I'm not unsympathetic...I feel sorry for Mr. T losing someone who it seems he was very close to. A lot of the red tape around immigration sucks and is a burden, I get that too. But when immigrating to the US (and many other places) you have to be cognizant of the rules and understand that if something like this happens, you aren't a speshul snowflake.

I've had friends in the military stationed abroad who have had to miss funerals of close family members...accommodations are made (for example, on friend's family taped the service and mailed it to him). Yeah it's not ideal, but it's better than being separated from your family long term and losing thousands of dollars to the USCIS.

[LucySnowe]

Good point (about being super close to/raised by grandparents). May your grandmother have a long and healthy life!

I also feel sorry for Mr T because the last two years must have been a roller coaster for him. Chaviva made aliyah just around two years ago and they didn't meet until at over a month later, so in just under two years, they met, got married, had a kid, and moved to the states. Sure, he must have been on board with the quick engagement/marriage/kid, but that's a *lot* of change in a short period of time.

Absolutely no snark: I hope they're able to survive an 8-12 month separation. That's tough on a couple, no matter how much Skype you use, especially with other stressors (financial and her ill family member among them).

[lagenialester]

You bring up a good point about the military, Peas n Carrots. My great-grandmother passed away while I was working abroad in a foreign country. That is, WORKING with a VISA that I had acquired months before I left. I was financially unable to attend her funeral, even though she was a significant figure in my life. It would have been within the law for me to leave and come back. But I didn't. If it hadn't been within the law to do so, I wouldn't have even questioned it! It just irks me when people assume their situation is above the law, when there are SO MANY families that are torn apart because they are doing things the right way. Like, why would you assume your situation would be any different? Ugh, I don't know if any of this is making any sense anymore. It just bothers me when people blatantly go against the law (or rule, or common sense) and then say "it's not my fault, somebody fix it".

[FaustianSlip]

I'm another one living abroad. My last living grandparent is in her '80s now, and I'm sure at some point (some point years in the future, G-d willing), I'm going to get a call or an e-mail telling me that I need to book a ticket and get on a plane, ASAP. Right now, I might be able to make it back in time, if it's not something sudden. When I was living in China? Almost impossible just from a logistical standpoint, never mind the expense.

If this had been a completely sudden, unforeseen thing, I would feel sorrier for their situation (obviously, I feel sorry for the husband losing his grandmother- that's awful), but there are multiple posts, as I recall, referencing that his grandmother was in a bad way. They knew that this was a possibility. All it would have taken was a call to USCIS, and they might have been able to get him special permission to leave. But no one did it, which seems crazy to me, and now it's endless complaints about how horrible the USG is. Again, I'm not a big cheerleader of the current state of our immigration system, but come on. You're adults, you need to take some degree of personal responsibility for your own/your husband's immigration status. To me, the immigration fiasco and the whole "How dare you have no kosher meals on short notice?!" things are symptoms of the same larger issue.

There's a pretty good-sized Orthodox community in the greater D.C. area. I would be shocked if Chaviva hadn't been able to find someone, Chabad rabbi or otherwise, to run out to the airport and bring her husband something to eat before his flight if she had just bothered to post on Facebook/make a phone call/send an e-mail. I mean, she's touting herself as a professional social networker, for G-d's sake. And even if the airport was shut down when he landed, it wouldn't be closed much later than six in the morning or so (I've flown out of Dulles a lot), and for sure the news stands would have had stuff that was hechshered. I mean, Lay's potato chips have a hechsher. So do Cliff bars (kosher dairy!), all kinds of different juices and drinks, various candy bars that you find almost anywhere. I'm not saying it would have been a gourmet meal, but a couple of those things and an apple would've at least kept him going. And these are OU hechshers, too, so pretty reliable.

[LucySnowe]

On Twitter: "For the first time in 12 years, I am applying for retail jobs. #desperate" Followed by a tweet naming four companies she applied to.

I hope she lands something.

[mystikchick17]

I do, too. I imagine a lack of a solid, stable income will not work in their favor over the next year as she tries to re-sponsor Mr. T. for immigration.

This was all avoidable, and the victim mentality is growing real old, real fast.

And here's the other thing that I'd never realized before - her Twitter feed (the new one) has next to no activity from other people on it. Sure, she tweets all the time about everything, but she has a very, very low ratio of retweets and substantive Twitter-based conversations for someone who's meant to be a social media maven. And I can't help but wonder if that, combined with her penchant for public sharing and her job history, are working against her in the social media field. I think the social media ship has sailed without her and she hasn't realized it yet. Retail sucks, but at least it will hopefully offer some stability and a steady income and maybe lead to better things.