Nicole speaks to her husband, Wajahat, at night before she goes to sleep, when he is waking up in Lahore, Pakistan. Or they talk in the afternoon, when she is getting out of her organic chemistry class at Roosevelt University and he is getting ready for bed. She doesn’t know when, or if, she’ll see him again.
Some of Nicole’s friends suspected the couple’s religious and cultural differences would be too big to overcome, but she says those differences ended up mattering little. “Before we really got seriously involved, some things were made clear–I’m Christian, I eat pork, and I’m not converting to Islam.”
At that point Wajahat had overstayed his six-month tourist visa–by more than two years–but he registered with the U.S. government as required. A few months later, he says, he received a letter summoning him to immigration court for removal proceedings.
Even then, the seriousness of their predicament didn’t dawn on them. Spouses of U.S. citizens (if they’re living abroad or if they entered the country legally) are entitled to legal permanent residency–a green card. To start the process, the citizen spouse files an I-130 form, also called a Petition for Alien Relative, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). “We just thought we’d fill out the paperwork and that would be that,” Nicole says.
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In 1986, to deter people from entering into green-card marriages, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to make legal status for alien spouses conditional for two years. At the time, immigration authorities were primarily concerned with preserving the integrity of the immigration system.
Today, they’re also concerned with national security. “The U.S. visa is one of the most coveted items in the world, and foreign nationals have acquired visas fraudulently to enter the United States with the intent to harm people,” a special agent with the State Department said during a press conference in December 2004. “Marriage and visa fraud potentially threaten the national security of the United States.”
But the couple still believed the separation was temporary, and that he’d be home in time for the baby’s birth. Nicole’s due date wasn’t until October, and that was still seven months away. “We were actually naively believing that things would come together and he would be able to come home very soon,” she says.
