By Beryl Forman
Before getting married, my Brazilian husband lived in San Diego for several years with an expired visa. Acknowledging the circumstance, he remained acutely nervous of military bases, checkpoints and kept his distance from the international border.
Before anything bad happened, he returned to Brazil. After my first visit to see him, we decided to get married and applied for a fiancé visa. As assumed, the process was arduous, inconvenient and expensive, with several unexpected hurdles.
Four years passed, and he was finally granted a visa and we were married. On the day he received his green card, we accompanied some friends for an evening across the border. With the intentions of parking in San Ysidro, by accident, and quite ironically, we drove across the border. Luckily, the border agents allowed us to avoid the headache of the border wait by assisting us in making a U-turn directly in the front of the line. That night, my husband successfully crossed the border twice with his brand new green card. [Read more…]