RE: Immigration Fail 🛃😔 A Devastating Setback For My Family
You are viewing a single comment's thread:
Oh noooo! I feel so bad for you! Although I tend to look at bureaucracy with general skepticism, I was actually hoping for a pleasant surprise, maybe just in this one case of your family. I'm sorry that it didn't happen.
What makes things worse is the utter bullshit of reasons behind it: SreyPov's birth certificate, for being born in a refugee camp? And your domicile in the States? Both sound like the typical cases that you could explain to a human being in under a minute, and they would have to be reasonable about it. Only some pre-AI algorithm would ditch it automatically, for not being able to make heads or tails of it. So sad!
The only silver lining at the moment may be that your waiting in limbo has come to an end. I really hope that you'll be able to figure out a decent solution, and find a good place where all of you can be together and make a living. Once you are allowed to go to Cambodia, wouldn't your marriage be valid there, letting you stay and work? Otherwise, I really wish some other country will let you in. Is Albania still an option? Maybe some other Balkan nation, like Macedonia or Montenegro?
Albania is the only country a Cambodian citizen has a remote chance at immigrating to in all of Europe. The other countries are hard even for me to meet the requirements. Albania would require them to enter on and e-visa and then later leave the country to elsewhere with or without me while I arrange a family reunification visa.
It's not impossible, but definitely inconvenient and expensive because no nearby countries would take a Cambodian tourist for a few months during this pandemic. Now with many documents beginning to expire that we can only obtain in person back in Cambodia, the choice is a tough but easy one, they must return with or without me.
We did some asking around of Cambodian citizens in the USA, and all of them born in Site Two Refugee Camp, Thailand, paid bribes in Cambodia to have new birth certificates, and in some cases totally new identities created by local authorities for them. Apparently it's almost impossible to be born in Site Two, have that on your paperwork, and successfully immigrate to the USA. She'll have to pay a lot of bribes to get out of this debacle, but I sense we've given up, and we're ready to just return to Cambodia and live a simple life, likely parting ways with the western hemisphere.
Frustrated beyond belief to know I'll be putting my family on a plane without me soon, damn governments. Power to the Haitians in Suriname who had enough of these conditions and marched all the way to Texas. They certainly had enough of life in Suriname, and we have too.
Damn governments! Seeing all this makes me wish those nutwing theories were right, claiming nation states are soon going to be a thing of the past. I mean, I can certainly see it happening, but probably not this year, nor within the next few.
From what I've read (mostly in your blog), Cambodia seems like quite a sweet place to live. Lots of small-scale commercial activity, low cost of living, wonderful people, (... if only the government stopped bothering you.)
So I wish all of you a successful ending to this debacle, and that you'll be reunited soon! Best of luck!