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Sex and the citizenship process

lux-magazine.com

11–20 of 111 posts

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#11
post #9

> The stakes are high — real families can be separated and lives ruined by a denial. It is understandable, then, that some people throw everything they have at the wall during the green card process. The system tells them that marriage, and the sex that consummates it, “is compulsory if you want access to the circuits of movement across borders,” Schaeffer said. What a stupid system. Why are we still doing this in 20…

What’s the proposed practical alternative to this “stupid system”?

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#12
post #9

> The stakes are high — real families can be separated and lives ruined by a denial. It is understandable, then, that some people throw everything they have at the wall during the green card process. The system tells them that marriage, and the sex that consummates it, “is compulsory if you want access to the circuits of movement across borders,” Schaeffer said. What a stupid system. Why are we still doing this in 20…

What’s the proposed practical alternative to this “stupid system”?

I mean, I'm sure many people have different thoughts, but if you're specifically asking my views on borders, I very much prefer completely open borders.

This is a huge country with plenty of room, friendly people, fresh water, and lots of work to be done. I have no interest in my state deciding whether my new neighbors are wanted.

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#13
post #6

> Now, submitting graphic materials like this is generally a bad idea. No shit, what are these people thinking? after all of the years of hardwork to get the citizenship, they would just send it for what? for fun??

> No shit, what are these people thinking? after all of the years of hardwork to get the citizenship, they would just send it for what? for fun?? The article dances around the subject a bit, but I think that the answer to your question is still clear: They do it because, in their minds (and let's face it, they're not wrong) it will undercut questions about whether they are serious about their claims to be in a consum…

The article dances around the subject a bit

A bit? The article is absolutely atrocious. It's one of those mind-numbing creative-writing pieces that make you want to scream "get to the #!$%ing point!" at your computer. But then you just calm down and reach for the back button.

It's the kind of writing that gets people to cheer for ChatGPT and Co. in the hope that soon all these writers will be looking for a different job.

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#14

> Now, submitting graphic materials like this is generally a bad idea. No shit, what are these people thinking? after all of the years of hardwork to get the citizenship, they would just send it for what? for fun??

Have you ever tried to navigate the immigration process? I have, twice now. It's a Kafka-esque nightmare of Orwellian bureaucracy, and I wish I could think of a third famous writer to reference to finish this sentence.

The first time, years ago, they "lost" a packet of information we had to reconstruct at great pains, and then had to get a second physical because they lost the report from the first one. We only found that out after getting our state's federal senator's office involved.

The second time, we ran into both rapidly-changing immigration requirements[0] and a pandemic, which made it super-unclear which issue was more relevant to the seemingly-interminable wait of years.

The instructions are vague in the best of times, and even immigration lawyers have no idea what a given USCIS staffer will care about on any given day. A rejection can mean anything from another year or two in the queue to a demand to leave the country and the life you've built within 30 days, so the stakes are high.

In my most recent application packet, I did include a photo I wouldn't publish online. While it featured no nudity, it was taken in bed. The same photo rotates through a digital frame on my desk in a house with a child in it, so it's by no means risque, but that is why people send in photos you might consider unwise.

0. I can't think about this without offering my best wishes and condolences to Mrs. Miller, who married the architect of that immigration nonsense the same year I married my partner.

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#15
post #5
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they would just send it for what? for fun?? USCIS instructs you to provide proof that you're in a 'real' relationship, and half the people in the world are below-average at exercising good judgement... Or at parsing weird written and unwritten bureaucratic rules.

So, ah, how would a person who is above-average prove they're in a "sufficiently committed" relationship?

The first time I went through this, in the end it's possible that the only thing that mattered was my partner being several months pregnant at the time of her interview.

The second time, I wrote a photo-story instead of just packing in a pile of 4x6 prints. "Here's us dating, here's us married, we took this trip here, this other trip there, here's my partner and her child with my parents and one of my siblings, here's me meeting her parents, here's our wedding, here's me and the kid, here's all of us at various events, here's us celebrating an anniversary," etc.

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#16
Initially I assumed this was going to be about gender. The tagline changed my mind on that really quick. Imagine my surprise as I kept reading and found it circling back around to something prosaic after all.

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#17
Citizenship laws are arbitrary. I live in Australia, with a non-married partner, and we have very similar backgrounds, both being born in the same country (not Australia). But she is an Australian citizen, since it turns out that her mother was Australian and emigrated. I could now also become an Australian citizen, by obtaining a partnership visa, but it's a slow and expensive process involving a lot of intrusive paperwork. I'll just live here as a temporary visa holder instead, which I can do indefinitely. I don't lose much besides the right to vote.

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#18

> Now, submitting graphic materials like this is generally a bad idea. No shit, what are these people thinking? after all of the years of hardwork to get the citizenship, they would just send it for what? for fun??

Well, as one frustrated would be immigrant (mind you, it was not to the US) once said to me:

"What other evidence do these people need that we have not yet sent!? Do they want to see us f***?"

It seems some people get more frustrated than others.

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#19
post #9

> The stakes are high — real families can be separated and lives ruined by a denial. It is understandable, then, that some people throw everything they have at the wall during the green card process. The system tells them that marriage, and the sex that consummates it, “is compulsory if you want access to the circuits of movement across borders,” Schaeffer said. What a stupid system. Why are we still doing this in 20…

Oh what's worse? If you have a happy consummate marriage, you will still be issued RFEs for "more" evidence of your marriage of a random officer feels like it.

It's like they need to come see you having sex and making babies to be really sure.

Re: Sex and the citizenship process

#20

> Now, submitting graphic materials like this is generally a bad idea. No shit, what are these people thinking? after all of the years of hardwork to get the citizenship, they would just send it for what? for fun??

Literally the next paragraph: "The fact is, the government does tend to view certain types of unions as more “legitimate” and certain types of spouses more worthy of citizenship. “Expectations of sexual intimacy are implicit in all of the laws around family reunification for [mixed-status] couples, and I think some couples try to make it explicit in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of their relationship,” said Jan…

Honestly, you'd think it would help.
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