Do the ends justify the means

I firmly believe that the employees at the consulate willfully employ psychological warfare tactics on the people they see every day. If you want a job where you can insult and belittle people on a daily basis, this may be the place for you. On another day I’ll talk about his first appointment at the consulate so that you can make up our own mind about the workers in the consulate. Anyway, yesterday was Alberto’s second appointment with immigration officials at the consulate in Ciudad Juarez. He arrived at 7:30 am for his 8 am appointment and spent the next several hours waiting to be seen. When Alberto was finally seen by an official, he was told that he needed to travel to the Zaragoza Bridge and retrieve a copy of the arrest record which began this fiasco in 2007. Alberto contacted me after leaving the consulate to ask me what he should do. We were in agreement that the likely result of this trip would be his arrest in relation to the warrant for his arrest. He asked me to contact both attorneys to see what each said about this situation and what advice they would give.

I contacted our immigration attorney first and was dismayed to discover their phone system was set to the answering machine in the middle of the business day. After calling several times, the receptionist returned from her lunch break only to tell me the attorney was currently out to lunch. I made her promise to have the attorney call me the minute he returned to his office because I needed to talk to him as soon as possible. I received the call approximately 30 minutes later and spoke with Lance. Lance said that based on our situation and the problems we have been experiencing with immigration; we would never get the opportunity to fix Alberto’s legal status without resolution of the warrant and criminal case. Lance was also of the opinion that the idea was to have Alberto arrested and extradited to Minnesota to stand trial. Lance also stated that there was the potential, given a favorable conclusion of the criminal case that Alberto would be allowed to adjust status from within the United States. Since Lance was not handling our criminal case as that is not his sphere of expertise, he said that he could not advise us as to what Alberto should do. My next contact was to speak with Brian, our criminal defense attorney. I last spoke to Brian a few months ago about our case and what our chances were if we went to trial. Brian is still of the opinion that they don’t have a case against Alberto and we have a good chance of getting this taken care of without having to take a plea bargain. To make this 100% clear to everyone, Alberto did not do what they’re accusing him of. However, if for some reason a miscarriage of justice were to occur and he were to be found guilty of a felony, he would NEVER be allowed reentry into the United States. Hence the option of plea bargain is on the table if it looks like we could lose, with the idea to reduce the sentence and severity of the crime to misdemeanor level. Because family come first, as it always should.

The Consequences

Tonight is pretty much guaranteed to be horrible and there’s not much I can do about it. Tomorrow is the next big appointment for Alberto with immigration and anxious does not begin to describe how I’m feeling right now. I’ve tried to push this from my mind all weekend, and thankfully we had a family get together that helped me do just that. I was never able to go and get that pedicure with Lizzy that I was counting on for relaxation, but I’ve gotten pretty good at handling mild anxiety these last few years. I swear I wasn’t a basket case like I am now even 4 years ago.

Noemi in CDJ contacted me around 10pm to tell me that Alberto had called her husband Agustin from the bus station. Agustin left immediately to go get Alberto from the bus station because it is not safe to be out after dark in Ciudad Juarez. If you need an example of just how dangerous CDJ is consider this: on March 13, 2010 the spouse of a consulate worker was killed while his two young children in the vehicle at the time were wounded, only minutes later an employee of the consulate was shot and killed along with her husband while their infant wailed in the backseat. If you consider the first victim was a Mexican National, you cannot simply say this was a demonstration of violence against Americans. I’m afraid for the safety of my husband, and more than a little angry that the USCIS thinks nothing of causing me this extreme level of anxiety.