Green card (2)

In order that I could get a visa allowing me to live and work in the United States (the famous 'green card'), my wife had to sponsor me. We had always assumed that, being married to a US citizen, my right to such a visa would be automatic should I ever wish to apply for it. But in fact, it wasn't so simple. The application process, which we did through the US Embassy in London, was torturous and took several months to complete. There was a lot of beaurocracy and form-filling; a lot of gathering of documentation and information; a lot of waiting for them to get back to us; some hefty fees; and repeated phone calls to the £1.20 a minute helpline only to get answers which, if they weren't vague to the point of uselessness, contradicted information we'd had earlier. I had to have a medical and a police check. And, as I didn't have a job to go to in the States, my wife had to show that she had the means, and agree to commit, to support me financially - including for a further ten years should we get divorced.

It soon became clear that, although on paper there was no reason why I shouldn't be granted the visa, it was in fact completely discretionary, and depended entirely on a decision made by one immigration official at the Embassy. Well before we got the result, I had resigned from my job, we had sold our house, and my wife had left the country to make preparations for starting her new job - so it would have been a bit of a problem if the answer had turned out to be 'no'. In the event, it was all fine, and indeed the Embassy official told me that the portfolio of documentation we submitted was the most thorough he'd ever seen. That's what you get for being married to a librarian.

On the way to the airport yesterday, the taxi driver asked me about the visa application process. He explained that he was interested because his wife has also applied for the right to join him in the States. She applied seven years ago, and she's still waiting. She happens to be Mexican.