In Franz Kafka's chilling story "The Metamorphosis", a man wakes up one morning to find that he
has been transformed into a "gigantic insect".
Recently, a California family, all permanent residents for over 30 years, was suddenly informed
by the government that they were all illegal aliens and must return to Thailand.
Mr. Promsiri entered the United States on a student visa. His wife and two young sons, aged 10
and 3 joined him in 1971.
In 1975, the parents obtained a divorce from a Thai Consulate in the U.S. The wife married an
American citizen, and the couple honeymooned in Thailand. The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok examined
their marriage certicate and the divorce degree before granting the wife permanent residence.
The couple then returned to the U.S. where the citizen stepfather sponsored his two stepsons.
Another agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) examined the paperwork and
granted green cards to the boys.
Fast forward to 2009. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), successor to the
INS, recently ordered the mother and the boys to appear before an Immigration Judge and charged
them with being illegally present in the U.S. Nearly 34 years after examining their paperwork and
granting them green cards, the agency suddenly decided that they should never have been granted
permanent residence in the first place!
Why?
Because the government maintains that a divorce granted by the Thai government in the U.S. rather
than by a state court is invalid.
Why then did two U.S. government agencies approve the paperwork for the Promsiri family back
in 1975? If they had found the divorce to be invalid then, the parents could have obtained a
divorce in the Superior Court, and the mother could have remarried, and obtained a valid
green card.
Did the agency ever get a chance to review the paperwork since 1975? Many times. In 1983, the
older brother Andy applied for U.S. citizenship. The INS examiner approved his application, and
he was scheduled for a swearing-in ceremony. However, the day before the ceremony, someone from
the INS called Andy's mother, told her that there was a problem with her divorce and that Andy
should not appear at the naturalization ceremony. The agency would let them know what they needed
to do.
Despite the passage of 25 years, dozens of inquiries and many new naturalization applications, the
family was kept in the dark until 2009 when they were suddenly placed in deportation proceedings.
During those years, time did not stand still. Andy and Kevin graduated from college. Both have
prestigious jobs, one at a major university; the other at a bank. Both are homeowners and
taxpayers and have no connection to the country of their birth. Their mother, now 71 years of age,
has retired. Andy and Kevin support and care for her.
As soon as they received the notice from the Immigration Service, they came to see me. They were
in a state of shock. After living almost their entire lives in the United States, they are
American as American can be. All their lives, they had played by the rules. Why did the government
want to send them back to Thailand?
We requested that the local director of the Immigration Service exercise prosecutorial discretion. To
our great relief, he did so. He agreed to cancel the removal proceedings against the Promsiris.
The Promsiri family were all smiles when we told them the good news. See
http://shusterman.com/photo17.html
We hope that now the family can finally become U.S. citizens.
We also hope that other families will not be subjected to the Kafkaesque ordeal that the
Promsiris have suffered.
This sort of thing should make all those people frothing at the mouth for more regulations pause.
I read articles like this and remember the 1970s all too well.
Well done, btw. Sometimes simply finding someone who will step back from "the rules" and think can be challenging, especially when dealing with the government.
Posted by: Jenda | May 07, 2009 at 04:41 PM