20th of July, 2015

I had just returned to Orlando when I received an email from my mother. It came as a surprise, as none of us thought we would be getting an email like that for another year.

Some 12 or 13 years ago we filed for a petition to obtain a U.S permanent resident card. Visa numbers are limited, so we have to wait in line until the National Visa Center calls us up to proceed with the application (filing a bunch of paperwork, submitting documents etc). Our petition was approved in 2008, but a visa number was not available to us yet. Bummer.

All these years I have been vaguely aware of the complication that we might face when we do start our visa application, though I did not fully understand the scale of our problem until recently when I started to do more research on the whole process. As my mother is the main applicant and I her dependent, I am not qualified to be included in the actual visa application when I turn 21. My mother would have to start the whole process again for me when she does receive her permanent resident status, which will take an extra 7 years or so. I will celebrate my 21st birthday in October.

As this is a very time-sensitive case, I decided to hire a lawyer. I wanted to look into the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA), an act that was established to protect children of permanent residents/U.S Citizens from "aging-out" while waiting for their visas. I wanted to see if there is a way I can be protected by this act. The success rate of the CSPA hasn't been the most consistent (50/50 chance), so we decided to file for a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to dig around my family's case for information that might help us to figure out our next step. Before we even heard back from the FOIA (we still haven't heard back from them), my mother received the aforementioned surprise email from the National Visa Center telling us to start collecting a bunch of documents and send them to the embassy together with our visa application. We were ecstatic at first. Our long wait is finally over! The National Visa Center didn't forget about us after all! Then, reality set in and all of us went, "Oh."

I sat down with my mother over Skype to talk about several issues, each one of them just adds to my long list of worries that might contribute to early strands of gray hair. To condense our problems into an easy-to-read list:

a) I'm turning 21 in three months. There is a chance that I can still be included in the application if our lawyers manage to expedite our case, but that also means that I have to fly back in the middle of the semester for a month to deal with all that hullabaloo over medical check-ups and interview at the US embassy in KL.

b) My younger brother is in his final two years of secondary school. He can't just drop everything and come over here to attend high school. I mean technically, he can, but that would mean he has to get used to a whole new system for his final year, going from the UK education system to the US system. The transition might just kill him.

c) My father will need at least 3-5 years to settle his business. While he is excellent at what he does, he does not have the certification to do similar jobs here in the United States, and besides, that man has been working like a dog for 3 decades. It's time for him to rest.

d) One of the documents required by the embassy is a police certificate/Certificate of good conduct from everyone over the age of 16. According to the e-konsular site it takes about 1-2 months for the request to be processed. If that's the case, I am screwed because the lawyers can't expedite the case fast enough to save me from getting kicked out of the application by the National Visa Center.

The lawyers came up with solutions for problem b) and c). For problem a) I have been advised to return to Malaysia for a semester to deal with it and save money from having to withdraw from the university classes. That could have worked if it doesn't take eons to acquire a police certificate.

Writing this gives me a platform to organize my thoughts. I always find myself feeling overwhelmed having to deal with immigration issues and meeting with lawyers 40 minutes from my house. This entire process is time-consuming, it burns holes in our wallets as there are so many application fees to pay and lawyers to hire. Though I often feel alone in this process, I know I'm not. I have so many people to thank for their unending support, for their empathy and their prayers (in the case of my hippie neighbor, her good thoughts and vibe.)