David started the conversation: "look at that little nut. What can I say? We are a nut family. I recall that Dallas souvenir shop had a mug with the phrase: 'my family tree is full of nuts' printed on it". "What do you mean we are nuts?" Jade replied. "Well, I mean we moved from US to Canada, because it took too long to get a green card there. Then we came to Canada and had just gone through a nightmarish application process to get our Canadian citizenship. And it seems that we are going to go through another nightmarish green card application process again if we want to work in US, as if we really enjoy immigration applications, and we just thrive in this kind of challenges".

Speaking of the nightmarish "immigration application", that was what broke the "American dream" for David's first trip to the United States. For people who never need to worry about things such as "immigration status", it seems like a waste of time keeping up with immigration rules and regulations. For most immigrants who had gone through the immigration processes, it is a life changing experience one would probably never forget. Although afterwards, most immigrants would simply chose to appear normal and pretend not to feel the pain and not to dwell on the bitterness of the immigration application and focus their attentions on raising 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants.

David's immigration application is by no means the most difficult type of cases, comparing to immigrants starting from "illegal alien" status. He had always stayed legal after entering United States as a foreign student on F-1 visa status. After graduation, there was a one year period which foreign students could work on "practical training" status with an employment authorization document (EAD). In fact, when David graduated, each of the foreign students was allowed two practical training periods, one called "curriculum practical training" and another "post curriculum practical training" with one year each in length. If an F-1 student isn't finished with using curriculum practical training, then the time left could be carried over for employment after graduation. David started his employment with two practical training periods left, which is way more relaxed than got two timeouts left after the "2 minute warning" of an American Football game. He applied for H1-B visa as a skilled professional and got approved. So far so good, and David started looking for an immigration lawyer to help applying for a green card, which is actually in pink color these days, also called "permanent resident alien" registration card. But that was about the end of all the good times with this journey of immigration status.

David's employer Soil Engineering Inc. started cutting people because of a downturn in the environmental industry. Everyone in the office was teaching David a new English phrase "last hired, first fired". This first cut included 3 employees -- David Chen, a Chinese immigrant with Master of Science degree in Environmental geology, almost 2 years of services, Salem Badat, a Pakistani immigrant with Master of Science degree in Environmental engineering, almost 1 year of services, and Bill Milford a 50 year old senior manager transferee from Chicago office with 20 years of services. They were all truly close to "last hired" in the office.

It wasn't too bitter at the time for David, because he felt he could not even speak 5th grade level English yet. Maybe he was overpaid and not truly qualified for the job. Plus he was only 24 and how much could a young boy truly care about jobs and expenses? Speaking of expenses, he unexpectedly got several weeks' paycheck for "severance pay", the meaning of which he didn't even understand at the time. So he was quite grateful.

Luckily, computer and Internet started taking off, and as a computer geek, he quickly found another job and career while continuing with his H1-B status as a programmer. He felt this new career more interesting and futuristic than a career as an environmental scientist. While his career started moving along again, he found the rocky road of applying for a green card had just started.

With the help of his employer Cincinnati Times Chronicle, the local newspaper, he started applying for his green card. The first step of applying for a green card is to go through a process called "Labor Certificate". The purpose of this step is for the employer to prove to the Department of Labor that there is no qualified local candidate willing to take the vacant job. Therefore the alien applicant can get a "Labor Certificate". Such a process takes one year and a half to two years depending on different people's luck. David thought this was fair enough. After all, a country should take care of her native citizens first, to be a normal sovereign country.

Then an employment based green card applicant is supposed to ask his or her employer to file a form called I-140 to move into the next stage. The date which I-140 was filed, was a landmark date called "priority date", a notorious date for many immigrants. The interesting thing about the priority date is that, besides marking the beginning of the I-140 application, which usually takes at about two years to complete for many immigrants, it also serves as a "number" as someone "take a number" from a machine in AAA or BMV when the office is busy. The waiting lines were especially long for immigrants from People's Republic of China and India around the year 2000. David's first US graduate school roommate, who was from Republic of China (or Taiwan), got his green card 6 months after getting his "Labor Certificate" approved.

There are many, many I-140 applicants lined up from India and P.R. China waiting for a small quota allocated to their countries. David suddenly remembered one famous quote from Chairman Mao: "birth must be controlled!" and think US INS must have been thinking along the same line as Chairman Mao, while forgetting the fact that most of the other US governmental branches were criticizing the "birth control" policy as a form of human rights abuse.

INS came up with this "priority date" system, telling every immigrants waiting in line that they are now processing applications for people with certain "priority date", much like the Bureau of Motor Vehicle clerks telling customers, they are working on "number 13 customer" and rest of the customers should just be patient. Looking at the line that David was standing in, in late1998, the "priority date" for Chinese born immigrants was something close to April 1996. Another odd thing about the "priority date" system is that: it is not based on citizenship of the applicant, but rather based on "birth place" of the applicant. Therefore, such a system is not based on "racism" or "citizehshipism", but based on "birth-placism". If David were to go through the same employment based application process for green card, he would run into the same problem again even after becoming a Canadian, Australian or some other kind of citizen who can now buy a British Airway ticket, without worrying about "transit visa". On the other hand, Queen's subjects born in different places could be treated differently depending on the GDP of the "birth places".

In early 1999, David also wished that he would receive a Babu style visa renew application, because he was going to use up the upper limit of his H-1B visa after changing from F-1 to H-1. But INS is more or less like a gargantuan malfunctioning vending machine. It usually only takes in coins and bills (actually checks and forms) but rarely spit out anything. No phone call can ever get into an INS office from published numbers, although insiders, just like vending machine maintenance crews, could obviously cut in and occasionally arrange the merchandise items. When a non-functional vending machine does dish out a piece of paper, it is either miraculous or spooky.

No paper ever came from INS about David's pending expiration of his H-1B visa, but his $5,000 market price employed lawyer wrote him a letter ". . .based on your upper limit of you H-1B visa expiration date and the present status of the priority date system, I advise you to make other arrangements. . .".