Sue got approved for her green card today. As much as I bash federal agencies, I must say that the people at the INS and DHS are very nice and helpful. They are hideously bound by regulations. For example, Sue need a medical waiver because our stupid politiciticans have decided that immigrants need a useless flu shot. We didn’t want her to get one because of the baby. And we had the medical waiver but the doctor had not checked the right box. We were presented with a scenario in which if we got the fixed waiver to them by 4 pm, she would get her green card. If she didn’t, the application would go back on the shelf and it might be months before it was considered again. The INS agents were strictly limited in this. They could not hold a file open for a a few days. They were only allowed to pull down X number of files at random for consideration each day. It was ridiculous.

Fortunately, the agent in charge stayed a bit late to get our FAX and approved her.