What Eight Years of Paperwork Taught Me About Immigration and Empathy
By: Ana Saturria Mcgregor
Tags: Humanity, Immigration In Usa, Storytelling, Human Interest, Immigration

Photo by Nitish Meena on Unsplash

On a late October afternoon, on a day that was shaping to be rather inconsequential, I saw the change in my application status I’d been waiting for for the last eight months.

My interview to become naturalized had been scheduled.

Needless to say, anyone undergoing any kind of immigration process involving the US this year got a couple of extra slabs of stress thanks to office closures and threats of furloughs that further jeopardized processing. So seeing this change in my online account was a long time coming, and a huge relief. Thanks to the five-week advance notice, I had plenty of time to prepare.

For reasons I still don’t understand, I decided to not double-check my paperwork until the afternoon before the interview. Very unlike me. Maybe it’s another one of those mental lapses I can only explain with “the pandemic has made us all crazy”. As part of my preparations for the possibility that my assigned immigration officer would go over my evidence and paperwork with a fine-tooth comb (which they are allowed to do), I started organizing every copy of every notice I’ve received, every appointment confirmation, every approval notice, every old document I’ve kept, from every benefit I’ve applied to for the last eight years.

And then it hit me, as I saw all the piles of documents organized by petitions — this process has kind of engulfed a massive part of my attention for the last eight years. Making sure everything was filed on time, no appointment was missed (going as far as flying from China to the US once for only 72 hours so I wouldn't miss an appointment), everything had been properly documented and codified in my files. For eight years.

I’ve largely completed my immigration process on my own. I’ve filed all the paperwork by myself — thanks to my Law education, I know my way around laws. Except for the US Tax Code. Nobody understands that, not even tax lawyers. I’m also fluent in English, a language I’ve been learning since I was six, interpreting for compensation since I was nine, and teaching in one capacity or another for the last five years. I’m also privileged to have married into a family that has been nothing but supportive: driving me to every appointment because I didn’t have a US license, scanning documents I could be missing, even providing paper checks because we millennials rarely use them. When I saw all those documents on my bed and thought about everything me and my husband’s family have done in the past eight years, I couldn’t help but think about three things:

It’s weird to see such a large portion of your life manifested in paperwork, especially such a nerve-wracking part. I’ve spent most of the past eight months, after filing for naturalization, very stressed out. The end felt so close and yet so far…and then Covid hit. USCIS offices closed, pushing everyone’s processing times back. Many were unable to continue fulfilling processing requirements, like fingerprinting, for many months. And at the end of it all, it all could be condensed into a couple of piles of paper. There are stories, people, and their families behind each of those applications and processes. Stories that I wondered if the officers that had to evaluate my evidence had any idea of. Probably not. And it made me wonder how many times people appear in front of immigration officers, hoping that these people who make life-altering decisions will see them as people, and are just seen as piles of paper, more work to do. How incredibly hard it is for those who seek asylum, who were brought to the US as children and had no say in the legality of their migration, the women leaving the abusive relationships that brought them to the US, those who are trying to make things right after an unauthorized entry or stay. I’m not here to advocate for unauthorized entries, or open borders, or anything like that. But in a system that has to answer to so many competing priorities and interests, sometimes it does feel like there is no sense that behind all those papers, and all that time, there are people.

I feel beyond grateful and humbled to be able to complete my immigration processes largely on my own and that when I needed more specialized legal counsel, I could afford it, and access it in a language I could understand. I couldn’t help but think about all the people looking for opportunities in the US that could change their lives, or allow them to feel safe.

The morning of my ceremony arrived. Only those of us being sworn in were allowed in. The only exception to this rule is those who need an interpreter.

I’d say the youngest person was a man in his early twenties. He looked happy, and even with his mask on, you could tell he smiled through the entire ceremony. He later asked me to take the traditional picture by the American and Homeland Security flags. I wonder how many people he texted afterward with that picture.

The oldest person was a Vietnamese man who came in with an interpreter. I don't know if the interpreter and the man were related. He looked rather frail, and a little nervous. He spoke almost no English. Based on his age, I imagine he or his family have probably been affected, in one way or another, by the Vietnam war. It’s entirely possible that's how he ended up here.

The rest of us included young women and older ladies, all dressed for the occasion, and delighted to take one picture after the other once the ceremony was done. It was a short affair, lacking the pomp and circumstance of “normal” ceremonies, which usually include playing the national anthem, and sometimes even speeches from local officers. They also included friends and family.

When my husband’s 6th-grade class found out I was applying for citizenship, they all asked if they could have a field trip and go watch the ceremony when it happened. Given that they’ve never met me in person, I thought that was rather sweet.

But I digress.

The officers repeated often how happy they were for us, and what an incredible accomplishment it was to join in with the rest of Americans. My husband has always said that what makes this country unique is that “anyone can come here and be American”. And when I looked around at the people taking the Oath of Allegiance with me, I saw that.

The idea that the United States is a land of opportunity remains alive because each person that believes in it makes it so. I’m not attempting to sweep the years of inequality and systemic racism under the rug, but there is an openness in the United States that doesn’t exist in other places. For each of us to choose to naturalize as Americans, the action carries a different meaning. However, it also carries a commitment to uplift the values that allowed that adoption in the first place. Values that, when the US is on the right side of history, help it lead by example.

At the end of the day, the most important thing I’ve learned as an immigrant is this: behind each case, behind each application, and each number, and each bundle of paperwork, and set of fingerprints, is a person. The person that, as one of the officers said at my ceremony, maybe the one “who started it all” for their family.

I don’t know if becoming a naturalized American will substantially change my future. But being part of a country with so many people whose lives affect the rest of the world carries responsibility and a greater level of awareness of how our actions affect others. Most importantly, this process has shown me that everyone deserves to be acknowledged and heard. And piles of paper, no matter how detailed they are, can never carry the full extent of who people are.