What Colors the Steel Sky Blue

The last you want to be in a country that's been recently hit by terrorism of foreign origin is to be a foreigner without a legal status. I came really close to being an illegal alien in March 2002. According to Sapient's legal representation, my H-1B worker visa was void as of March 15 2002. A conversion of status from H-1B to tourist visa was out of the question. They told me the best bet was to go back to Turkey and try to obtain a tourist visa to come back to the United States. This was some poor piece of advice: Anyone in their right own mind at the time could tell you that going back to Turkey meant that I would not be able to come back for some amount of time.

After the ordeal that was 9/11, United States made the process of getting a tourist visa in a foreign country a complete nightmare. Don't get me wrong, it was not as if it was easy to get a tourist visa at a US embassy in the first place. Even people with F-1s and H1-Bs were being turned down. The most common reason being the immigration officer's belief that the person applying for the visa is intending to settle in the US and perhaps look for employment --heaven forbid, how could they intend to do such a horrible thing.

This country has completely forgotten how it got started in the first place --in more ways than one. The one I have been most exposed to is with respect to its policies about immigration. It seems that one can float to the US shore from Cuba and get instant asylum. This same person could to go to an ivy school and then get a graduate degree; perhaps even proceed to work in the tech industry for several years. This time, he would have to go through a 4-7 year application for resident alien process. The application process involved trying to prove his worth to the Department of Labor and the INS to get a green card.

When I explain this process to an American citizen not familiar with the subject, they’re usually shocked with disbelief. This is because most Americans think that the current immigration progress is similar to what they read in their history books. Well it isn’t; and it has not been the same since the !980s at which time INS made some fundamental changes to the green card application process that made it orders of magnitude difficult to complete.

The current system is geared towards beefing up the lower class that is usually willing to work under harsh working conditions and be paid comparatively nothing for their long hours at work. Therefore the legacy of the first generation Americans continues --we lose this first generation to health problems related to poor working and/or living conditions. The second generation eventually makes it but they too go through a lot.

I do not know why I thought I would be an exception to this rule. Well, I wasn't. The US that embraced my cash so fondly when I was attending college suddenly grew cold and distant after graduation. It seemed that the relationship had ended but I still carried on like a desperate husband, trying to keep everyone under the same roof.

What's worse is, my employer, Sapient, used the green card as a carrot to motivate me to move to New York City. The harsh truth of course came up once I had uprooted my whole life and moved to New York City. The person in charge of foreign workers there informed me that unlike the previous information given me, the green card process did not take 2 years, it took 7-10 years. I felt so betrayed as I held the phone in my sweaty palm. Her calm voice carried on telling me how difficult the process was –as if she was just telling me about the congested traffic on the West Side Highway. This was so disheartening for me but I still had to believe in the process, and the good will of the corporation towards its employees. Sapient's behavior near the layoff and afterwards proved my hope to be in vain.

After the layoff, everything Sapient legal team told me involved leaving the US, going back to Turkey and forgetting my life in the US. I was not willing to give up just like that. I had spent a good ten years in the US. I had a life, a career and a loved one here. It did not make sense to give up all that just yet.

The only help I got from the most unlikely source ever, the cleaning lady on our floor. She was an Indian national and she had obtained a green card. She recommended her attorneys and gave me their contact information. I called the attorneys the next day; Khine and Napolitano LLP.

Theresa Napolitano met with me that week and she was very helpful. She informed me that my status still could be changed to tourist B2 visa. We swiftly completed the application and sent it to the INS. We heard back from INS in a couple of weeks. My visa was approved for 6 months. I figured this was plenty of time to find another job in the New York City area.

So the job hunt began; I was excited. I felt that this would be a new beginning, and another chance to find my place in this big city. I kept saying to myself, "if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere". I sounded like a bad Broadway musical. But it was spring; how depressed could I allow myself to be when the trees in Union Square park were blooming, when the streets called out my name, when afternoons at the Virgin Mega store were followed by a walk uptown on Broadway to meet my cousin for dinner.

I had money from the severance, my parents were reluctant but still supportive --for a while I was on top of the world.