Dear Editor:
My husband came to the US 5 1/2 years ago on an H1B to try out for a IHL hockey team. His visa from Belarus indicated to him in his language that he would be able to be here for 6 months.
His I-9 stated 30 days in English. He went to training camp and got hit in the eye with a puck and missed the final tryout window. Figuring he had 6 months to find a team and this being his one shot to be in the US he through English speaking friends got on with another team and got an offer. A "friend of the team" thinking she was doing him a favor filed assylum paperwork on his behalf. The team unable to get him his work visa had to let him go. He found yet another team and now that his status was overstay and he had pending assylum paperwork etc, they didn't or wouldn't commit the additional money/time of an attorney to get it all sorted out and since he couldn't get a visa he couldn't get insurance hence they also dropped him.
He had limited resources and lots of time so he offered to help his neighbor who happens to be my best friends husband on a major renovation project I was doing on my home. Just about that time I got fired from my job so the free labor really came in handy. Now with limited resources and lots of time I took a look at his situation and found an attorney in Atlanta for his upcoming asylum hearing.
In short the attorney told him voluntary departure was his only option. So we paid the $1000 for the 15 minute court appearance and went back home in defeat. We had alot of initial attraction to each other but were kind of "holding back" because we didn't really see a future because of the Immigration situation and the attorney had told us not to get married here in the US because the INS would automatically assume the marriage was fraudulent.
During the time the clock was ticking on the voluntary departure date we cried alot worried alot and then we decided to get married and in the worst case scenario I might be able to go to his country on the basis of our marital status after my daughter graduated from school. Then we saw some things in the newspaper about 245(i) and felt it might be a bad idea for him to leave so he didn't.
We don't know what to do. So in short you have a US born American citizen married to an illegal alien who it seems has now no way of legally being here. I would love to hear of a place that at bare minimum would take us both and would be willing to give us both work visa's so we could support ourselves and live as husband and wife together.
Name Withheld Upon Request [Ed. 10/29/03]
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