It's Me, Sara Louise

(This post is a follow up to ‘Still Frustrated’, which continued on from, ‘Frustration‘) 

Well that’s that then.

After five weeks of trying everything I could to finally get my Congressman’s office to request Gregory’s Green Card be processed sooner rather than later (instead of merely checking on the status as they seemed to be content to do), I have failed. 

This is the email I received from them yesterday:

Dear Sara,
Listed below is the email response we received. Unfortunately, the US Embassy in Paris denied the expedite request. We will continue to check on your case accordingly. As soon as we receive any information, it will be forwarded to you.
… … …
This is a follow up to your email dated November 24, 2014 concerning the immigrant visa petition filed by Sara Louise XXX on behalf of Gregory XXX with assigned case number XXX Per correspondence from your office, the National Visa Center (NVC) forwarded an expedite request to the  U.S. Embassy in Paris, France.  The response from the U.S. Embassy indicates that they are not willing to accept this case for expeditious processing.

And once again, I had allowed myself to get my hopes up when last week I was finally told that if I wrote a letter, detailing the hardship reason that we needed the visa expedited (and in fairness, I’d hardly call getting it finally processed after thirteen months ‘expedited’), the visa center would send it on to the embassy in Paris for review. 

Foolish me, I thought that my Congressman requesting this expedition on behalf of a constituent that’s going broke because she and her husband live in two separate households in two separate countries would be reason enough. I guess not. 

So here I am, broken, That’s how I feel, broken and empty. There is nothing left for me to do. I am merely a tiny speck on the back of the NVC and they don’t care. I have to wait 120 days for one set of documents to be reviewed and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. At least there are only 17 days of the second ’60 day wait’ left to go (but then again, that’s day-days and not business days, so who knows… at this point I feel like the process is never going to end). 

On the bright side, I will see Gregory in a week or so when he comes to stay for Christmas, but on the dark side, he will have to go back afterwards and I don’t even want to think about how we are going to feel when that day comes. I better start stocking up on waterproof mascara.  

P.S. Here’s a thought… how about before we focus on immigration reform for people who entered this country illegally, why don’t we try and address the problems within the process, for those who are trying to do it legally, because receiving two back-to-back ‘60 day wait‘ letters, is inefficiency at its finest.