I learned in my undergrad psych class that the pledge system in frats is about cognitive dissonance. The theory is if you destroy your body and soul to pledge a fraternity, you will forever be convinced it was worth it. In order to not regret going through the agony of pledging, you convince yourself that you really, really love—like super love—your new frat.

I have often wondered if immigration lawmakers have modeled their policies on those of fraternities. I have a sneaking suspicion that the people high up in the immigration ladder want to make sure that all those foreigners really, really want to come to America, so they make it ridiculously hard to get here.

My Burmese husband, Morning, and I have been battling with immigration for almost two years. Our struggle has been so long and exhausting, I was staring to think even our immigration lawyer—who was supposed to be on our side yet managed to make dreadful mistake after dreadful mistake—was trying to make sure Morning really wanted to be here.

Now, fingerprints, dozens of passport-sized photos, HIV tests, vaccinations, visa runs, thousands of dollars in legal fees, and two marriage certificates later, Morning has won the prize: a Greencard.

Yes, it’s even better than a keg stand.

In order to get the Greencard—which is beige but does have a green line across the back—Morning and I had to be interviewed by an immigration official. Passing the interview was no small feat, for either of us.

Morning was getting the conditional permanent residency card through his spouse—me—so I had to go with him to the interview. I wasn’t sure what my role would be. I wondered if US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) wanted primarily to verify that I exist.

I assumed they also wanted to ensure Morning and I are actually married. Luckily, they didn’t make us run around campus naked or consummate our marriage on the floor of the USCIS office. With all the heat around immigration these days, I figured you have to be prepared for anything.

Morning and I spent days gathering all the necessary materials to bring to the interview. We had to bring the original and a copy of every document USCIS has ever sent to us. We started this process in February 2006, so there’s plenty of paperwork. We had to also bring letters from our employers and tax returns from the last three years, showing that Morning isn’t a burden on the country.

I didn’t use to earn enough to be his sponsor, so my mother filled that role. We had to bring her tax returns, proof of salary, sponsor forms and copies of her birth certificate and passport.

We also had to prove that we got married and the union is legit. We gathered our marriage certificate from last November in Los Angeles, the one from last January in New York and a Ketuba, the Jewish marriage certificate, from the rabbi in New York. We weren’t taking any chances—we’re very married.

As if that weren’t enough, we also had to show we’re still married. Some couples have an unfair advantage in the proof department: children. We don’t have those yet, but we added to our pile of papers the following: our lease with both our names on it, joint bank account statements, DWP statements, copies of the articles I’ve written about our relationship and immigration battle, photographs from our wedding and a printed copy of our Crate and Barrel gift registry, illustrating that our marriage is so legit people gave salad bowls to celebrate it.

We showed up at the USCIS office in downtown Los Angeles with our bags of documents and oversized wedding album. The officer welcomed us into his office. A stack of files for the day’s interviewees sat on a chair next to us. The officer said he has eight-to-ten interviews a day. Some of the cases are good and some are clearly bad, like the adoption case in which the grandparents first lied and said they were the parents. Now they’ve committed fraud and the whole thing is a mess, he said.

He made us stand to swear to tell the truth under God. Morning is Buddhist, but it wasn’t the time to question protocol. The officer then began asking questions.

He started with an easy one – asking Morning to recite his date of birth.

“1978 October 1,” Morning said, clearly nervous.

As if he had never spoken to someone who speaks English as a second language, the official raised his eyebrows and said: “Year, month, day? Huh.”

Then he asked Morning his address, parents’ names and how he met me.

Morning and I assumed the officer was observing our level of affection, so we sat close to each other. We are hand-holders anyway, but during the interview we made sure to be extra cute.

Then the officer moved to the tougher questions, asking us why we married each other. Morning replied, “Because I love her.”

“What do you mean you love her?” the officer asked, his tone flat and dry. “What’s love?”

I sat quietly, amused that we were discussing the definition of love with a Homeland Security officer, but eager to hear Morning’s response. It was pretty good – something along the lines of “We understand each other. I want to spend my life with her.” He passed, in my book anyway.

The officer wasn’t yet convinced. He went on to question why I—a Jewish woman—and Morning—a Buddhist man—would get married. “How do you feel about this?” he asked each of us. I thought back to my Pop and Politics column on inter-faith marriages. “Our children will be Jew-Bus,” I said with a smile, and left it at that.

“And your family?” the officer drilled me. “How do they feel about this?”

After about an hour, the questions slowly got easier. The officer was convinced our love is legit.

But then the interview turned into a diatribe about all the Israeli Jews who try to defraud the system by faking marriages to non-Jewish American women. The fraud cases, the officer told us, are usually the Israeli Jews marrying a non-Jew. It is something about their culture, he said, that they must marry Jews. But they want to escape the war in their country and get here so badly that they lie to immigration. It’s a shame, he said. If they want to come here, they should just “marry nice Jewish girls” and then there’d be no problem.

I did not debate or question the comments about Israeli Jews. The man still had control of Morning’s Greencard.

The officer then switched ethnic groups and started in on Mexicans. He said they often come to these interviews and want to be permanent residents, but they “insist” on not learning English.

Again, I bit my tongue. I couldn’t help but wonder why a representative of USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security, the face of our government to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of immigrants, seems to have a thing against foreigners.

In the end, the officer granted Morning the Greencard. With his conditional permanent residency card, Morning can work, travel and get financial aid at college.

There is only one condition—that we stay married for two years. Once the two years are up, we will have another interview and prove that we are still married. I have heard they will ask things like “What color is his toothbrush?” and “Which side of the bed does he sleep on?” Blue and left. I am prepared, as long as he keeps the same toothbrush.

So did the frat technique work? Does Morning really love—like super love—America? I don’t think so. But he does super love me. Maybe I should thank Homeland Security.

——
Hanna Ingber Win is a staff writer and editor at P+P. Pushing Off is a column of her dispatches from twentysomething land. Image: film still, The Trial, Orson Welles, 1962.