The Accidental Immigrant: Mary’s Story
MSA Chronicles Chapter One

Mary Grace Evans grew up in Baguio City in the Philippines; raised by two smart Filipino parents. She had an exciting early career as “DJ Rikki”, and a successful business career after that as a customer success trainer; manager; and accent-neutralization specialist. Eventually Mary started getting promising work offers outside of the PI and began traveling around the world to explore her growing career options.
Mary met a man named Arian in Manila. They hung out in museums; ate Japanese food; and burned the nights discussing the virtues of ABBA, Better Housekeeping, and Keeping it Real.

Eventually Arian left Manila and that was the end of their story.
At the exact same time Arian left Manila - Mary was headed to the US to visit family on both coasts. Mary also planned to evaluate US companies that were recruiting her while visiting family there - but otherwise she simply was enjoying a long-overdue holiday in the US.
On this fateful trip Mary discovered she did not have the correct Canadian Visa and was rerouted from Canadia to San Francisco, where it just so happened that Arian was also stuck for the annual RSA Conference. Arian invited Mary to hang out for a few days during RSA, and go camping after RSAC. Mary agreed — and just like that — Arian’s freedom became history. Arian concluded that — due to Mary’s myopic vision and limited ability to hear him talk — he was unlikely to get a better shot at locking down a smart and beautiful woman.

Put more simply: Arian proposed to Mary. Mary lost her mind and said “Yes”. Yet….neither Mary nor Arian had any idea what the cosmic coincidence control center had in store for them in the coming years.

Thus began Mary’s accidental American-Immigration journey. The linear view looks like:
- City Hall Marriage (highlight: random Asian rent-a-witness)
- Skipped the traditional Bachelor/ette Party, and Wedding/Reception. Mary & Arian did not have any family in the immediate area, and Arian was already wrapping up a 40-year long bachelor party.
- Arian submitted an I-130 to USCIS so Mary could stay in the US. Her US Visa prior to marriage required her to return home every six months. By staying she would become an “out of status immigrant”.
- Mary’s mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer during this process. Mary applied for “advance parole” to enable her to leave the US legally, to visit her mother, Delia, in Baguio City. We were informed by attorneys that we had to have this. This guidance would turn out to be incorrect.
Arian failed to hire competent attorneys. This also failed to show that they respected USCIS’s authority. Saving money on attorneys would turn out to be “Penny-wise; Pound-foolish”, and cost more later.
Challenges continued to surprise. Arian’s commute grew to 5.5hrs/day on average in Silicon Valley, up from 3 hours (total). Construction and rollout of the new Apple Campus spiked traffic on the route to work. Work also frequently required international travel, leaving Mary to fend for herself. Mary was indeed a Stranger in a Strange Land at this time.
Another challenge: Arian paid for premium healthcare benefits that refused to cover Mary (even as his wife) because she did not have an SSN, which USCIS prevented her from getting during this period. The corporate HR department also refused to help Mary. Mary had emergency health issues requiring surgery that had to be paid out-of-pocket due to inability to use heath insurance we paid for.

Mary likewise faced daily challenges of: “US immigrant wife alone in a foreign country while husband is overseas for weeks at a time”. This compounded with “US immigrant whom cannot get a SSN or Driver’s License (and thus drive/work/etc.)”. Arian also began to wonder why there were bills for pool-boys while he was overseas. They didn’t even have a swimming pool.

Six months into the immigration process, Mary’s mother Delia was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Mary’s mother lived in Baguio City, PI, which is the only major mountain city in the Philippines (think Denver of the Philippines) and about an 8 hour bus ride from Manila. Mary & Arian were misinformed by two attorneys that Mary could not re-enter the US if she chose to leave. This guidance turned out to be incorrect: In 2012 the US DoJ Board of Immigration case Matter of Arrabelly & Yerrabelly 25 I&N Dec. 771 (BIA 2012) found that an immigrant with advance parole has an implied right to enter the US lawfully.
We did not find this out until after Mary’s mother passed away. The last time we talked to Mary’s mother was via video chat during Derbycon, 2016.

In 2017 Arian decided to change jobs to reduce travel & insane commute times, and refocus on technology. This turned out to have unexpected ripple effects. After changing jobs & moving - Mary & Arian:
- Were flagged for marriage immigration fraud.
- Decided to hire new attorneys. (<- Highly recommended)
- Were sent to USCIS SF for “Stokes Interviews”. These are marriage-fraud interviews where you are separated, questioned & recorded, and then they compare answers for consistency. After the process, Attorney Roten informed Mary and Arian they were too similar (<95%) in their answers, instead of being too dissimilar (<70%). Below 70% creates marriage-fraud flags, but so does being <95% accurate. Being too accurate looks to USCIS like you manufactured and rehearsed your answers artificially. HELLO. MEET MARY THE OCD TEACHER / TRAINER that forced Arian to use flash-cards to prepare for the interviews.
- Successfully completed fraud interview process. Had a big drink.
- Collected a Green Card, meaning:
- Mary became a US Permanent Lawful Resident.
So, all good — right?
Nope. Not even close. They had no idea what was in store for them.
The 2017 job-change enabled Mary & Arian to focus on finding their son Sage who had been kidnapped. Being able to focus on this was awesome. However, the benefits turned out to be short-term gains. The new job turned out to be a terrible choice for financial and employment stability, which is also a requirement for immigration. However, the slow death of that startup makes for a boring story. We will keep moving on to the good stuff — next up is:
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