Four Years and Waiting. ..

I am blogging today hoping to find answers. My wife is a Canadian citizen and we have been trying to get an immigrant visa for her since March 3, 2003. We have traveled many hundreds of miles, met with a lot of people and paid thousands in fees, yet we are still waiting. We have tried to get a lawyer to handle this, but there are none in town. From what I have read, most lawyers who do this are a 50/50 proposition at best because they are tied by the same federal bureacracy that my wife and I are bogged down with. I was hoping the Journal could look into this for us and we would be forthcoming and honest in telling you the whole story. It just seems to me that a border town that handles so many crossings a year and sees both Canadians and Americans marry one another would have some resources to alleviate the suffering (oh yes, real suffering my friend!) of dealing with the United States government. My wife, Leslie, is a highly intelligent, respected woman who currently works in the Fort at Wal-Mart. She has had jobs in the past where she worked for the government of Canada, had to be bonded, and helped others make a better life for themselves. I am 49 years old, Leslie is 44, and with this stress on us, we are missing out on the simple joys that the Falls-Fort area brings, namely, fishing, camping, hunting and just being together. She cries every day and asks me, "When can I go home?" and I have to tell her it is Okay with me, but the people at the border will just send us back. To say it is straining our marriage would be true, but the one thing we have learned through all of this is that we do have each other. We just want to be there for our kids, Joshua and Melanie who live in far away towns and miss their mom and dad. Currently, we are waiting for a ruling from the Vermont Service Center on a petition we filed last May. We have been misled by their website and then by the person on the phone, (which takes forever to connect to, by the way). If they rule in our favor, then Leslie will receive an immigrant visa. Vermont will send the paperwork to Montreal (which is the closest U.S. Consulate for Canadians to immigrate into the U.S.) and then we might have to drive there (again) and get the visa. Or they might mail it to us. We have already paid for the Canada Post envelope for that. I will continue this blog tomorrow and until then, peace and love from the both of us, as we have learned, love is all with really have. . ..