Immigration – Conversation Lesson

AJ: Y’know, a common question I get a lot actually is about green cards. Y’know, people ask me,

“How do I get a green card? What’s the best way to get a green card?” And the green card’s the,

what, I guess permanent residency card for the United States.

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: Allows you to live here and work here.

Kristin: Right.

AJ: So, y’know, we’re not immigration lawyers. I don’t know why people always ask me that. I’m a,

y’know, teach English, I’m not an immigration expert. Maybe because my wife has a green card. But

as far as I know, there are three, y’know, the three most common ways to get a green card. Number

one, the easiest one, is to marry an American.

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: That’s what my wife did, obviously. The second one, I believe there’s a lottery system. That’s

where you sign up at like an American embassy and they just do a lottery, so they just pick a certain

number.

That’s pretty tough because I think it’s a small number of people for most countries, so it’s hard to

get the green card that way. But that’s one way. And then I think the other common way is to be

sponsored by a company, right? So some company will sponsor you saying they offered you a job

and they’ll sponsor you to come over and get at least a work visa, I don’t know if a green card, but at

least allow you to come and live and work.

Kristin: Mm-hm.

AJ: But I think that’s also tough because, y’know, maybe for some high-tech jobs and things, you

can get those kind of sponsorships but for most other kinds of jobs it’s very difficult.

Kristin: Yeah, it is tough and I know I have a friend, she’s from…originally from India and the

situation with that is that once you come, you can’t change jobs.
AJ: Oh.

Kristin: Like she would like to be doing something completely different, but she can’t, unless she

became a citizen and she’s trying to do that, but that’s something else is that they kind of dangle the

possibility of becoming a citizen, they dangle that like a carrot.

AJ: Uh-huh.

Kristin: But she doesn’t know when that might be possible for her to apply.

AJ: Uh-huh, right.

Kristin: So she keeps on working as just a, y’know, permanent resident.

AJ: Yeah, right.

Kristin: But anyway, yeah, the process of coming, when you marry someone, an American, going

through getting the green card that way, it’s…it’s so much bureaucracy. Remember when we were

living in Thailand and I was doing that for Wat…

AJ: Yeah.

Kristin: …to come over here…

AJ: Yeah.

Kristin: …and I thought I was going to pull my hair out. I hate…I hate, y’know, a lot of bureaucracy

anyway.

AJ: Yeah.

Kristin: But I can remember there were all these…there was a ton of paperwork, all these nit-picky

things I had to go through and make sure everything was answered perfectly, no mistakes.

AJ: Yeah.

Kristin: We had to go and take pictures around our house to make it look like we were actually really

living together.

AJ: Oh, right.

Kristin: Like that I wasn’t trying to just bring him into the country and we weren’t actually a couple.

AJ: Right, right.

Kristin: And…

AJ: Interview, too, right? Did you get the interview?

Kristin: Yes, we had…that was the final thing, which we were so nervous about and we went to the

American embassy, I went with him, and it was like five minutes or less.

AJ: Oh, well, you got luckier than I did. That’s weird.

Kristin: Oh really?

AJ: Yeah, I would have thought that Thailand they would have been more strict but we had our

interview, Tomoe and I, it was Tokyo I think, the Tokyo American embassy. And they were kind of,

it was kind of tough. I mean they were…acted kind of suspicious, y’know, that were we a real couple

and how long had we been together. But the guy’s tone was kind of unfriendly.

Kristin: Oh.

AJ: And he started asking more specific questions, y’know, like where did you meet? Y’know, how

long have you been together, what have you done together…like he was kind of…and he would say

things like, “It seems like you haven’t been together very long. Why are you getting married?”

Kristin: Oh, gee. Well, quite honestly, that’s what I was expecting.

AJ: Yeah.

Kristin: But it ended up, the guy we had anyway was very nice, very friendly. Asked very similar

questions but his tone was just really nice…

AJ: Ah.

Kristin: …and it really put both of us at ease actually.

AJ: Yeah, I guess, y’know, I don’t know if I just got a bad guy or something, y’know, but it was like

an interrogation.
Kristin: Yeah. But, you know, speaking of that, because now Wat, obviously we’re no longer

together but him still being a friend, y’know, Joe and I both, especially Joe, has helped him get his

citizenship.

AJ: Yep.

Kristin: And so he actually hired an immigration attorney which, thinking about it, it’s like god, I

wish we’d had the money to do that to have gone through the process for him to get the green card

and be able to come into the country. It just really helped things tremendously.

AJ: Yeah, for sure, if you can get a good immigration lawyer, it makes…yeah, it just makes things go

more smoothly. I think at least just because it seems the government respects them more so they can

sort of…and they know what to expect, they know what not to do.

Kristin: Yes.

AJ: Yeah, yeah. I know. Y’know, it’s a complicated topic. So many people ask about it and I know,

y’know, a lot of people want to come to the States to live or get jobs, and it really isn’t so easy.

What’s weird is it’s almost easier to come illegally.

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: I mean, my wife…what’s funny now is she has a green card and now they interrogate her at

immigration every time we come into the country after we travel. Now it’s like the opposite. So

before they were suspicious like, “Why do you want to come to America? Are you a real couple?”

Now they’re suspicious when she leaves. They’re asking, “How long were you gone? Are you really

living in America still?” They even do that to me sometimes. It’s like, oh my god, they’re so

unfriendly.

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: American immigration is horrible.

Kristin: Yeah, they definitely can be when you’re coming in from a flight overseas.
AJ: Yeah.

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: And, y’know, it’s not just America. I know that, y’know, this kind of bureaucracy exists in most

countries. I mean, for example, I know that at some points I’ve thought about wanting to live in

Europe for a while. Just, I don’t know, just to do it, for fun.

Kristin: Mm-hm.

AJ: Maybe like live in Spain and practice Spanish a bit. But it is super, super difficult for an

American to legally be a resident of Spain or of any European country.

Kristin: Oh, yeah, you’ve told me that.

AJ: It’s the same thing. You’ve got to be sponsored by a company. You have to show that, y’know,

they couldn’t hire a European to do that job. It’s really, really difficult. And I’ve been told the same

thing by people that, oh, just do it illegally, it’s much easier. Just fly into Spain as a tourist and stay.

They won’t throw you in jail. It’s like okay, well…I don’t know. I just feel weird about doing that.

Kristin: Do you have to leave Japan if you’ve been in the country for a certain amount of time?

AJ: I get three months, yeah, so every three months I have to leave.

Kristin: Oh my god!

AJ: Yeah.

Kristin: I didn’t realize that.

AJ: Yep, yep.

Kristin: That’s worse than Thailand, because you know Todd has to leave once a year.

AJ: Well, it’s worse for Thailand, I’m on a tourist visa though. He’s on a marriage visa.

Kristin: Oh, why don’t you do the marriage visa?

AJ: We’re thinking about it. We might. But right now we’re keeping our official residence in

America.
Kristin: Oh, I see.

AJ: For her green card, for our business and income taxes, all that. We got, we’re residents of the

United States and we visit Japan.

Kristin: So if you were there on a marriage visa, how…would you have to leave at all?

AJ: I don’t think I’d have to leave at all, no.

Kristin: Oh, okay.

AJ: No.

Kristin: That’s how it should be.

AJ: Yeah, I could get Japan residency because I’m married to a Japanese person. And then, like their

version of a green card. And then I could just stay.

Kristin: Uh-huh.