We were on a relatively normal process of getting Naturalization status for my wife when 9/11 happened. Then everything was frozen. But I had received a grant to do research abroad. Somehow, we managed to get a deferral (I can’t remember what it’s called, but basically you can’t leave America until the Naturalization process is complete) but she had to be back within one year. So we came home two weeks before the one year permission expired.

I went through my citizen line upon return, but she and my infant son weren’t getting through. So I went to the area behind the line she was in and saw her crying, and so I approached. The officer at customs was yelling at her: “why did you leave the country?”

It was fucking written on a document stapled into her passport: May leave for one year. We were out for about 350 days of the year.

To this day i could probably recall that fucker’s face. I approached and intervened to explain. He huffed and puffed. I probably wasn’t supposed to do it, but he quickly relented and she and my son got through.

Now I’m worried about her leaving again, though I shouldn’t. She’s thinking of citizenship, but she has some money in her country’s welfare system like social security pension that she’d like to have, but can’t if she renounces her citizenship (she thinks I’m going to die on her! Ha!).

Now I have to worry again….