by Judy Collins

Created on: April 19, 2009   Last Updated: April 21, 2009

I think that the U.S. immigration laws are very unfair, indeed! I am an American citizen married to a British subject. After meeting in the U.K., we travelled multiple times back and forth to visit each other. We came to the conclusion that visiting every two weeks was cost prohibitive and, quite frankly, we just missed each other too much in between. He came over to visit me in March of 2006, and during that visit we just decided to get married in Vegas and be together. We set about filing all of the forms needed for immigration...spousal sponsorship, I-485, employment visa, etc. We went to our first interview, where my husband disclosed that when he was 19 years old, he was arrested for counterfeiting (photocopying money on a copier) and when searched, he had speed in his pocket, so a drugs possession charge was added. He was given community service as a sentence, which he served.

He never was sentenced to go to jail. The immigration officer told him to gather the police reports (originals) and send them in and await further instructions. Almost 3 years passed. We contacted immigration several times to find out what the hold up was, and basically got nowhere. We simply carried on with our lives. Our son was born in the meantime, we bought a new car since our old car wouldn't do for the baby, etc. We really didn't think we had a problem since our marriage was real and we told immigration about my husband's past. My husband is 35 years old and hasn't been in trouble since the incident when he was 19. Recently we got a letter from immigration to return for another interview on Friday (the 17th of April). We attended it thinking..."finally, we get the green card and can come and go from the U.S. and move on with our lives officially!" We were dead wrong.

We were told that my husband is going to be deported because when he was on the plane to come over and visit in March of 2006, he ticked the box "no" to the question of a past criminal record. The officer said that he committed fraud and had no chance of staying in the U.S. My husband and I just looked at each other and said "which form is that?" We have always been up front about his past with immigration. The officer said to my husband "come, on! You know you were lying!" We asked to see the form and he reluctantly flashed it at us, but didn't allow us to read it. My husband told him that he didn't remember filling out those answers, but if the question was presented, he said "no" because the incident happened

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