Kuso becomes a United States Citizen!!!

October 17, 2012, Kuso was sworn in to be a Citizen of the United States.  Finally.

 

I submitted the original paperwork to get him back to the United States in October 2006.  He has been eligible for citizenship for over two years now, but we just didn't have the money to make it happen.  The immigration process is very expensive, confusing, and time consuming.  Having been involved on THIS side of the immigration debates, I have some pretty strong feelings about some of the immigration reform topics that get brought up from time to time.  MOST of the time, when I express my view to people, they change their view, at least slightly.  I'm not saying I have all the answers, and that if the government fully adopted my view it would work, but SOME things need to be taken into consideration when immigration is being discussed.

 

Sorry, I'll stop.

 

I'll have to look back through all my posts and see if I ever posted the original immigration story - about when we were dating and he got "stuck" in Samoa and without my help probably would have never been able to return to the United States.  If I did, then some/most of you know the story, if not, maybe I'll get around to that someday.

 

If you know the background, we were SUPER DUPER excited to get to the LAST STEP of the process.  The paperwork said the ceremony was at 1:00 pm.  My mom's neighbors had gone to the swearing in ceremony a few months prior and told us that seating was limited so to get there early.  So we did.  At 11:30.  We were in the building and got ushered out by security because they had not done security checks yet.  At that point, we were told the doors would open at 12:45.  I inquired about starting at 1 and the IDIOT lady told us the ceremony was at 2, but they put 1 on the paperwork to get everyone there on time.  Fine, so we went to lunch at PF Changs that was literally right next door.

 

We finished lunch, returned to the venue at 12:40 - and the place was PACKED!  There was NO WHERE for us to sit in the auditorium and the same IDIOT lady told us we could sit in the overflow area downstairs and watch it on a video screen.  Needless to say I was PISSED.  I dropped a few F-bombs.  My dad heard me.  He just raised his eyebrows and backed off, giving me the space I obviously needed at that moment.  I was emotional and refused to take that as the final answer.  I walked up to the balcony area just to see for myself.  Sure enough, there was NO seating.

So I asked that same IDIOT lady what time they opened the doors?  She said "12:45."   I was a LITTLE more composed and told her she was a "FREAKING LIAR" because we were there at 12:40 and it was full.  She then hums and ha's around like she had been caught.  I lost it. STORMED down the stairs.  I was HEATED.  I probably had steam coming out of my ears like a cartoon character.  The ONE thing that calmed me down was my sweet Leila.  (I'm getting emotional as I write this right now.)  She just hugged me, told me not to cry, and snuggled me for a minute.

 

So then we WAITED for the stinkin program to start.  While we were waiting, we started talking to some ladies behind us.  I was still a bit miffed about the whole situation and said something to the effect of "I paid a lot of money to have good seats."  They thought I really had paid money to be there (like a movie theater), but when I explained the whole immigration process, they were shocked at how much money it costs.  They were there supporting a nephews girlfriend or something like that.  After relating the story to them, THEY were ticked!  lol.

 

Anyway, the program started and it was probably a good thing we were in the overflow area because Leila was restless by then.  We had another photo shoot, the likes of which you will see below.  In one of the pictures, you can see how ridiculously small the screen was that the overflow area were supposed to watch.  Luckily, my dad had listened to the lady and gone down and got seating while I stormed around thinking I was going to fix something.

 

The program was nice.  A bit long, but pretty cool.  I think they said there were 211 people being sworn in from over 50 different countries.  Toward the end of the program, they had people stand from the different areas of the world (continents mostly) and then had a few people tell us where they were from and what it meant to them being sworn in.  I thought it would be lame, but that was probably the best part of the program.

 

At the very end, they showed a video as they played Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" which is possibly my favorite song ever.  I lost it again.  I was crying like crazy because it was FINALLY over.  I didn't have to worry about anything regarding Immigration Laws to separate Kuso from our family again. 

(After looking at this picture with her hood on, I told my mom I might consider becoming Muslim just so my daughter would wear head dresses every day.  Look at that darling face."

After the ceremony, we were waiting to meet up with our "new citizen" in the lobby.  I'm looking and looking, wanting to be the first one to see him.  He taps me on the shoulder and I turned around to see him, holding our daughter.  I was a bit emotional again (as I am again as I write) but didn't show it this time. 



 

The relief I felt after the ceremony was complete was so awesome.  I didn't realize how nervous I was about the situation until it was resolved.  At one point in the past, Kuso said he would just keep his Green Card current.  I told him I wasn't taking that risk and that he needed to become a citizen.  I think getting married and having a family helped him to make that decision.  I made a comment the night before that I was probably more excited than he was.  He said "No hon.  I'm pretty excited."

 

I AM proud to be an American and proud that my hubby is too!