Coming To America: A Study in Failure

Part One: Coming To America

I want it on record that I tried really, really hard. This, of course, means nothing. If trying ever meant anything, we wouldn’t have a Brazil as the only 5-time World Cup Winner, but rather an assortment of one time winners made out of nations who aren’t as good, but try real hard. Like Mexico. Or Senegal. Or maybe even the United States. Look at me, writing for Americans and using a soccer reference. Great start, Felipe.

I wanted to write this piece today, because today, April 1st, was the first day of what I call my “American Farewell Tour.” Why today? Because today is the day work visa applicants can start sending their applications to the US Citizen and Immigration Service. But we’ll get back to that later. The point is: I tried to emigrate here. I failed. Chin up, wipe off the dirt off your clothes, and move along. “Just be sure to move along south of the border, please” I imagine the USCIS will say to me.

I tried coming here the right way. The legal way, because immigration is such a vague term that calling something right or wrong is sophomoric. Trump-esque. I came here almost three years ago on a student visa to go to graduate school. I went to a fantastic school in probably the most amazing college town in the world: Boston. I met people who certainly helped me as a writer, but more importantly, made me feel welcome. They never made me feel smaller or less worthy, even if my first language was Spanish, but I wrote in English like they did. I would say that Americans are as welcoming as the immigration system is unwelcoming, which is a lot. I feel I must explain it to my American friends.

Part Two: A Lil’ Background Info

Coming here is not easy. It never is. Whether you do it legally like me, and incur in tremendous expense, or you do it ilegally like thousands of people from my country, and risk losing your money, your dignity, and your life. However, it is important to me to dispel many rumors about ilegal immigration. Most immigrants don’t come through the Rio Grande (I’m pronouncing this in Spanish in my head). Over 40% of undocumented immigrants overstay their visas. Undocumented immigrants pay taxes. Undocumented immigrants get paid significantly less than US citizens. So no, undocumented immigrants don’t come to America to “take [your] jobs.” Mainly, because there is no way a US citizen will perform a job to get paid 11% less than other US citizens, right? And yet, here they are. Undocumented immigrants. And small business owners in immigrant-heavy states play coy and pray that they don’t send their employees behind a giant Game of Thrones-like wall because then how are they going to pay US citizens without going out of business?

I’m not an ilegal immigrant, but I understand why they go through so much to come here. This country is effing great. Don’t listen to what the fake blonde-haired demagogue tells you, this country is still great. You guys have Amazon Prime, Seamless, a Starbucks in every corner… Okay, so healthcare could be improved, the weather can kill you pretty much everywhere in the nation, and you have a penchant for rigging elections in Latin American nations to suit your interests, but you have AMAZON PRIME. You order something and it’s on your doorstep in less than 3 days. They’re even making an Amazon delivery service with drones! I’ll give you 2 minutes to watch the video about it. No for real. Go ahead. It’s awesome. It’s got Jeremy Clarkson formerly of the hit BBC series Top Gear, in it. Although, he’s, to use his lingo, a wanker.

So awesome. Anyway…

Part Three: Studying in America

I love living here. This is why we try so hard to come here. And this is why when you do things the right way, it hurts to know you have to leave. To come to the US like I did, you have to get an F-1 student visa. How do you do that? You apply to an American school. Remember, the application process you did to get into college? The grueling hours spent looking at the blank screen trying to come up with a compelling essay that showed you were amazing, but so humble and committed to giving back to the community? Add to that the fact that most third world countries don’t really have a culture of “extracurriculars.” Remember those pesky application fees you had to pay? Add to that the translator’s fee for translating your transcripts, the admission fee for the Test of English as a Foreign Language, and of course the international shipping fees for your application. Overwhelmed already? We’re just getting started.

Once you’ve been accepted to a school, comes payment. I don’t want to diminish the serious plight of federal student loans. FAFSA is the devil of most of my generation. For foreign students, however, there is no FAFSA. Most of us have no financial aid. None from this country. Some may get scholarships from their respective countries, but many, myself included, are funded by parents who must really love when their children tell them their awesome internships in New York City are unpaid and there’s no promise of a real job afterwards.

You go to school. Yo try your hardest. You realize you can’t work while you’re at school. The workload is heavy, but that’s not the reason. Legally, you are NOT ALLOWED to work during school. You can only work at the school. That’s why all the international students are dying to get those TA positions. Six months before you graduate you apply for OPT.

Part Four: OPT

OPT. Those three words only mean anything to international students and University staff. They stand for Optional Practice Training. This is how the USCIS describes it:

“An F-1 student may be authorized up to a total of 12 months of full-time practical training at each educational level (e.g., undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate).”

Neat, huh? And if you’re a part of what USCIS and the Department of Education calls STEM (which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) you get an extra 17-month extension, which is a huge F-you to the liberal arts. Oh, and starting May 10th, 2016, the extension works for up the three years for STEM students! For liberal arts or arts students? Nada. Why? Because F-you and your pansy English literature Ph.D. America needs bridges, not essays on the poetic reoccurrences in The Wasteland.

If you send your papers in properly (with the help of the angels at your university’s International Students’ Office) and pay the $300+ fee, you’ll get OPT and a neat “Employment Authorization Card” in the mail. But remember, you only get to work for a year. And you are the one who decides the start and end date of your OPT. And yes, it’s horribly stressful. You graduate in May. Should you start working in the summer? Or should you take a break and start in September? Remember, if you stay in the country for over 90 days without a job, you HAVE to leave the country. And remember, getting OPT is no guarantee of getting a job. It just means you can be hired. I chose to not risk the 90-day period, and signed my OPT start date for June 8th, 2015. It felt a little like this:

Part Five: Work Visa

Congratulations! You have your OPT! Now to move to the big city and get a job that can help you make ends meet while you dedicate yourself to your artistic endeavors. Oh wait. You can only get a job in your “area of expertise?” Yep. According to the USCIS, you can only work in what you went to school for. So unless you got your degree at the Starbucks School for The Dopest Macchiato you can’t get a barista job to start off.

Oh wait, you can get these jobs. You totally can. Except if and when you apply for a work visa, the USCIS will want to look at all your employment history. And God help you if you worked in something you didn’t study for. I was lucky enough to find jobs in my industry. I managed to write and work in entertainment every day for almost a full 10 months. The whole point of your OPT is to work so you can find a company that will sponsor a work visa for you. This is what most international students believe. This is not really what the USCIS wants. If you’ve reached this far, you might realize that the USCIS doesn’t want international students here.

Working under OPT is grueling. At least it was for me. You get a job in the industry, but you’re always thinking about your next job. About the one company that will sponsor you. Few people are lucky enough to find a job that will do it. And sponsorship is an expensive process; it can cost a company anywhere between $5000 and $10000 in application and legal fees. Thus, you spend every day hoping you’ll get that job in that one company you know sponsors people.

And then there’s the more human factor of knowing you only have a year left in the country. All year you hope it’s not going to be just a year, but the uncertainty makes everything hard. It’s hard to focus on the job you know won’t sponsor you when you know you will be leaving as soon as you find one where the possibility of sponsorship is 1% higher. It’s hard to make friends when you won’t just leave the city in a year. You’ll leave the country. Same goes for relationships. It’s hard to buy furniture or books when you think about shipping them to South America in a few months time. Working under OPT basically gives you a human expiration date. You won’t be available after this date. It’s during the tough days of this year that you start getting the nasty thoughts.

Part Six: The Nasty Thoughts

The Nasty Thoughts is what I call all the ideas of doing things ilegally when you’re scared you won’t get a work visa. These include classics such as:

–I’ll overstay my visa, and never have health insurance.

– I’ll marry an American to get a green card. What American? Any American. You live in New York, you can marry a dog as long as it’s a citizen!

And of course everyone’s favorite:

– I’ll rob a bank and get 1 million dollars. Then I’ll invest that in an enterprise that provides jobs to at least five Americans, thus ensuring me an investor visa.

Why do we get this thoughts? Because all of these plans seem easier than the Kafka-esque nightmare that is applying for a job when you’re looking for sponsorship. Vice ran a piece on green card marriages that showed that many times getting a sham marriage is easier than getting a work visa. So to any American readers:

Part Seven: Univision

So here’s the part where I lost hope. I fought the law and the law won. I know my OPT runs until June 7th, 2016, so there’s still time for me to find a job that will sponsor me, right? Well, yes. And no. See, in February of this year the head of social at Univision reached out to me through Twitter. She was an Argentinian journalist looking for talent to join her new digital team. Univision, for those who don’t know, is the Hispanic network which looks less like this:

And more like this:

I was offered a job. It was an awesome job. I was going to cover the election! I was offered sponsorship. I signed 17 sheets of paper with my immigration history (which included questions like: “Have you ever been a part of a terrorist cell? Have you ever been involved in traffic of human slaves?). I spoke for over two hours on the phone with Univision’s immigration lawyer. I don’t want to say they lied. But they did. They backtracked on their offer. Five days before I was due to move to Miami. Three days after I’d told my well-paid, super-fun job at a startup not to renovate my contract. I was angry. I was destroyed. I applied to other jobs. I asked the woman at Univision to give me a recommendation for one of those. She had, after all worked for that company before moving to Univision. I never heard from her again.

Univision had to spend a lot of money to sponsor me. They chose not to. It’s hard, when you put everything into perspective, not to take that as a “you’re not worth it.” Sometimes, particularly after a job interview that’s going pretty well until I tell them I need sponsorship, it feels like a “you’re not worth being in this country.”

Part Eight: In Which I Hope It’s All Gonna Be Okay

So that’s how I failed. I tried. I got a masters degree at an elite university. I learnt so much from my peers and my teachers. I worked two high-maintenance jobs in New York City. These were jobs that often kept me up until 3 am. I aced them. I also freelanced for novel and exciting publications like BuzzFeed on the side. I also did comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade on the side of the side. And I failed.

I still apply for a few jobs every now and then, but even without sponsorship, who wants to hire someone for two months? Someone with degrees in literature and screenwriting. I really made getting a job an uphill battle with my career choices.

Now, the application process for sponsorship is open. Every day that passes my chances of getting a work visa are narrowed down. Last year over 200,000 people applied for an H1-B work visa. Only 65,000 get them every year. That’s a hard number set by Congress. Not one more, not one less. And they’re picked by a lottery. One of them was my Iraqi-Colombian cousin. He deserved it. This year, it’s expected that over 250,000 people will apply. I won’t be one of them. Come July, I’ll be back in my native Colombia. Looking to “apply what I’ve learnt.” I’ll be scared, and filled with uncertainty, but for the first time in three years, I won’t feel like the system is rigged against me.