More than a feeling

Early this week, I had to rearrange my schedule for the rest of the day because of a new client who was panicking over her petition. Her case was handled by another attorney who seem to disappear after her petition was denied. She had only one day to file her appeal.

Her case is one of the saddest stories I have ever encountered. She was petitioned by her husband to come to the USA. In her hopes of building a family, she gave up her career, sold her properties and even earned the ire of her own family for marrying her husband.  They made plans for her to come to the US, however the very minute she landed, was the very moment her problems started. Upon arriving in New York, she called her husband from the airport. His response was for her to go back to her home country, not to expect that he will live with her and that he will kill her if she makes an effort to see him. Alone, afraid and penniless in a foreign country, she scampered around and asked for help from strangers. Good Samaritans came to aid her and sent her to a shelter where she stayed for a few weeks. She met fellow citizens from her country who provided her basic needs until she can get up on her own. With the verbal threats, emotional and psychological abuse, she filed a VAWA petition, which was subsequently denied.

Though this client is not from the Philippines, her story presents a lesson for all those who are coming to the US as fiancee's or spouses. Please make sure that you are marrying someone who is really committed with your relationship for the long haul. I have heard stories of Filipinas who came here in the US under K1 visas but their fiances never married them. Or Filipina wives who were petitioned by their US citizen husbands but once they arrived, were maltreated by their spouses and whose immigration status is used as a leverage for further abuse. In fairness, there are far more cases where relationships between a US citizen and a Filipina successfully lasted.

Love is more than  just a feeling. Make sure that when you are in a relationship that it is always based for the right reasons. Getting that US visa should not be the prime reason for marrying a US citizen.