What my morning looked like

The “yeoman service” computer in my home office — a ThinkPad T430 running Linux — with the various “exhibits” that I’m including with Form I-751.

I spent this morning double-checking all the paperwork for filing U.S. government Form I-751, a.k.a. “Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence”, a.k.a. “My marriage to Anitra is real and not just for the Green Card, and I can ‘America’ with the best of them.” And what’s more American than having Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj on Netflix in the background while doing so?

Celebrating my green card status the American way at Burger 21, on January 26, 2017.

Long-time readers of this blog will know that two years ago, I acquired a temporary Permanent Resident Status Card, better known by the vernacular “Green Card” (it’s in the article titled Our green card interview). Back then, I joked that I should celebrate the event the American way: by having a hamburger, just as “President Ronnie” does with you if you successfully complete the videogame Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja…

…without knowing that someday, this would be an actual scene at the White House:

Click the photo to see the parody come true at full size.

But I digress.

As I wrote two years ago:

Since my status was gained through marriage and since Anitra and I have been married less than two years, my permanent residence status is conditional and temporary. Two years from now, we’ll have to file an I-751 (Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence) form to seal the deal.

Our immigration lawyer, Gerry Seipp, said that the bureaucracy takes their own sweet time processing I-751s — sometimes over a year, and how the shutdown will affect it is anyone’s guess. In less than a year, I’ll have the option to file for U.S. citizenship, and he’s seen cases where people have gained their citizenship while waiting for their I-751 applications to go through the system. We’ll see what happens later this year.

Cover sheet for my documentation, with my Alien Number redacted. And yes, I have an Alien Number! (Also, I am going to introduce Anitra to everyone as “My U.S. citizen wife” from now on.)

And so I spent my morning collating the 80-or-so pages that made up the I-751 form and supporting documentation, sent it off via FedEx, and went to the Sourcetoad office, where I think I do a pretty kick-ass job at contributing to the American economy as the law-abiding Lead Product Manager for one of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the U.S.:

C’mon, look at that plaid shirt. How much more American can you get?

Wish me luck!