Originally posted by Sankrityayan
...but for the fact that I just cannot bring myself to assume a posture based on cajoling and beseeching the judiciary / public officials for acceptance, even though this perhaps is the wisest course of action available to us. Somehow I am still stuck on the premise that the benefit of employment-based immigration is mutual and hence anything that impedes the process has to be regarded as being dysfunctional by both the parties. Of-course, the callous indifference of the system should have made it clear to me a long while ago that the authorities see it as something that only benefits us (they seem to deliberately keep the approvals to a trickle as if this is a dole). It looks like I am perhaps either blind or pig-headed, or maybe both.
to an extent, i see things your way, too. i wish for my acceptance to come neither as a dole nor as a concession from a grudging and unreceptive host; hence my reluctance to either entreat or litigate.
trying to look at it another way, i do wonder just what acceptance might mean in this context. i have looked for acceptance in the more mundane, everyday things. ideally, to feel "accepted", i wish to be the subject of neither discriminatory nor preferential treatment in my everyday life. and, being inescapably an "immigrant" (even if not in the legal sense yet), i have been sensitive to the subtle signs, almost despite myself.
presuming to speak for nobody but myself (and to cut a long story short), my work is respected at my place of employment, and i am treated no differently from any of my coworkers. my wife and i have formed warm friendships with our colleagues and neighbors, and often with their friends. we have been on hogroasts and hayrides with them (these are the prairies, after all!). our children have playdates, and we have babysat each other's kids. in situations where we are not known on a personal level, be they the walmarts or the airports, we have met with nothing but the courtesy that is due any person. and this is not just in our home state where, being the bible belt, the people are just friendlier; we have experienced this all over the u.s.
so, BCIS, by delaying our paperwork, is not withholding acceptance by the denizens of this country. nor approval of one's I-485, ipso facto, suddenly makes one acceptable. to put it in its proper perspective, the delay at BCIS has legal, financial, etc., implications for us. it is not personal, as don corleone might say.
as a born citizen might have to recourse to legal means to right a wrong done them by a public body (some peoples' troubles with social security and medicare come to mind), the legal action that is the subject of this thread is of that ilk too. pursuing such a course need not be a statement of the lessening of our worth, even in our own minds where it is most important.
