I was thinking that I only have 11 months until I can apply for my citizenship (then of course wait 1+ year to get approved) and I began to reflect on my journey through the immigration process and how long it was.
Reading my signature line, it seems so distant when I came here on my first visa and going through the RIR LC etc. I remember the many people on the forums here that helped "track" things and the websites they created like:
CIBA's tracking site
http://www.geocities.com/ciba_2/I485/WebCSC.htm
and PCee's tracking site
http://pceegcee.tripod.com/
and people like Kashmir and Sillyman etc
and it occured to me that the immigration process to citizenship consumes 20-30% of your lifetime to get... yes read that again 20-30%!!! And that thought made me more than ever realize how bad this process is.
How I determined 20-30% is let's assume your childhood/teen years, you really aren't "started" in "your" life but merely under the control of someone else. So I figured I really started my life for myself when I was 20 years old and let's assume I live to 70 years. That gives me 50 years of living my life. If this process takes 10-15 years.... of the 50 years... that has consumed 20-30% of my life where I've actually had to act, process forms, worry, stick with an employer, have uncertainty etc.
This is obviously worse if I'm a family immigrant person and it's even far more worse for those going through the EB process now, I guess it could take them 15-20 years... I know I'm stating the obvious when I say the process is busted... but I guess I never realized how much of your life it actually consumes... let's hope with a new election they come up with a more fair and faster process.
Reading my signature line, it seems so distant when I came here on my first visa and going through the RIR LC etc. I remember the many people on the forums here that helped "track" things and the websites they created like:
CIBA's tracking site
http://www.geocities.com/ciba_2/I485/WebCSC.htm
and PCee's tracking site
http://pceegcee.tripod.com/
and people like Kashmir and Sillyman etc
and it occured to me that the immigration process to citizenship consumes 20-30% of your lifetime to get... yes read that again 20-30%!!! And that thought made me more than ever realize how bad this process is.
How I determined 20-30% is let's assume your childhood/teen years, you really aren't "started" in "your" life but merely under the control of someone else. So I figured I really started my life for myself when I was 20 years old and let's assume I live to 70 years. That gives me 50 years of living my life. If this process takes 10-15 years.... of the 50 years... that has consumed 20-30% of my life where I've actually had to act, process forms, worry, stick with an employer, have uncertainty etc.
This is obviously worse if I'm a family immigrant person and it's even far more worse for those going through the EB process now, I guess it could take them 15-20 years... I know I'm stating the obvious when I say the process is busted... but I guess I never realized how much of your life it actually consumes... let's hope with a new election they come up with a more fair and faster process.
Last edited by a moderator: