Someday I'll Bring My Husband to Passover
One couple’s struggle to overcome immigration’s hurdles.
By Hanna Ingber
Monday May 15, 2006
President Bush will address the nation from the oval office tonight, regarding immigration. In response to the growing pressure from the right-wing of his party to crackdown on “illegal” immigration, he is expected to endorse putting the National Guard along the U.S. Mexico border. With that in mind we thought it appropriate to share the story of one couple separated by the U.S. government’s restrictive post 9/11 immigration policy.
My sister has brought a date to Passover every year for as long as I can remember. This year, once again, I went alone. My fiance is not allowed into the country.
He is from Rangoon, Burma, where we met. Aung Moe is now living in Thailand, working as a graphic designer. Last October, we got engaged. We were eating dinner at Riverside, a candle-lit restaurant with palm trees and outdoor tables a few feet from the Ping River in northern Thailand.
 | | Hanna and her fiance, Aung Moe |
Probably like most newly engaged people, the images of our future together started flooding my brain: raising children, decorating a home, growing old as we traveled the world, him taking photographs, me writing stories. I imagined Aung Moe coming to America and finally seeing the New York skyline. I can’t look at the skyline without thinking of him, without waiting, hoping for the day he sees it too.
One day he’ll be with me in New York, close to my family and friends, available for Passover Seders and summer barbeques.
Or so I hope. With immigration policies becoming stricter, you never know. He was refused entry into America before. After I spent a year in Burma, working for a newspaper and falling for Aung Moe, he wanted to visit my family in New York. He applied for a tourist visa, but the U.S. Embassy denied him. They said he failed to prove he was not intending to immigrate to this land of opportunities. Now, two years later, we’re ready to get married. This time Aung Moe wants to immigrate. But will they let him?
Last week our fiance visa petition – a collection of affidavits, photographs, proof of income and e-mail exchanges documenting our relationship – was approved by Citizenship and Immigration Services. But before he gets the visa, he has to pass the interview at the U.S. Embassy in Thailand.
He has to have the correct police records and vaccinations and identification papers and sponsorship forms and…
If Aung Moe gets the visa, he comes to New York, and we have 90 days to get married. About three years after we started dating, he will finally meet my friends and extended family. He’ll eat bagels and lox on Sundays and walk over the Brooklyn Bridge as I grab his arm and shout, “Look, look! The skyline!”
Once we’ve got the paperwork and skyline down, Aung Moe might get to live the American Dream. Maybe he will land a challenging job as a graphic designer, working hard by day and studying at college by night.
Our immigration lawyer is out of town this week closing on a house. She said to me, “You’ll get to do this in the future too.”
Is she right? Will my husband and I be able to afford a house? She also told me not to fret that the sponsorship form forbids Aung Moe from receiving public assistance until he becomes a citizen, dies, works here for 40 quarters or leaves the country. “Don’t worry,” she said. “He’ll get a job easily.” I want to believe her. She is a lawyer. She seems to have experience with immigrants. Maybe her foresight is accurate. Or maybe I am paying her to calm my nerves.
My husband might take the other path. He could become the hardworking, underpaid immigrant who has to balance three dirty, dangerous jobs that barely pay the rent. We could live in an unsafe neighborhood and fight incessantly about bills and who takes care of our adorable, but expensive, interracial kids.
It is a possibility. Just because he’ll be married to a third-generation American doesn’t mean he won’t be an immigrant.
We don’t know what will happen. We don’t know if he’ll like my friends, snow days or omelets at O’Rourke’s. We don’t even know if he’ll get the visa. Other engaged couples worry about seating charts and booking a band. They talk about parenting styles and whose career will be put on hold. We haven’t gotten there yet.
For me and Aung Moe, we’d be happy to make it to JFK Airport. Together.
Hanna Ingber, 24, is program associate at the Partnership for After School Education in New York and plans to attend graduate school for journalism at the University of Southern California in the fall. This article originally appeared in the Hartford Courant.
|
!
