My brother decided to get married in the end of June, so this summer I decided to take my annual leave around that time in order to be in Turkey for his wedding. I came to Turkey for two weeks, with the thought of spending a week down in the Mediterranean after the wedding. Things were going great, until the day after the wedding when I had to go to the American Embassy to get my work permit visa stamped into my passport. There was no reason for anything not to go smoothly, so I headed to the Embassy to pick up my passport in the afternoon, when I was called in for an interview. It was there that I was told that I could not be given my work permit. This was due to a problem with a previous visa that the American Embassy had issued for me.

In June 2000, when I was accepted to The George Washington University as an exchange student from the Copenhagen Business School, I was issued a J-1 visa to go and study in Washington. Those of you who are familiar with this visa should know that, once you go into the US with a J-1 visa, you are subject to a 2-year home residency requirement. This means you have to go back to your home country and physically live there for 2 years before you can go back in to the US. When accepting the visa, I checked for this rule in my application and noticed I was NOT subject to this rule. This was clearly stated in my visa too. So, since then, I never even bothered to think about this rule. Later on, when I found a job in NY, I had no problems accepting it and getting sponsored for a work permit, as I was NOT subject to this rule. I have been working for this company on an H-1 visa since April.

Now, the Embassy in Ankara claims that what had happened is that the American Embassy in Copenhagen at the time issued me a wrong J-1 visa and that although it says clearly that I am NOT subject to this rule, I should actually be subject to the rule too. Unfortunately, against all my arguments, they did not change their opinion. I spent almost a week with my lawyer, company as well as friends, digging into the immigration law to find ways to prove that they do not have the right to all of a sudden say that they think the visa is wrong and they want to change it now. But they didn’t even listen to anything I had to say! All they did was to tell me that their responsibility is to correct a mistake as soon as they notice it and there is nothing they can do for me, no matter what the consequences are for me.

All this was frustrating enough, until I found out things can get more frustrating when you’re in the middle of a unique case like mine. No one, not even an immigration lawyer with 25 years of experience knows how to resolve the situation when a mistake has been made by the American authorities. First of all, the American Embassy was not at all helpful in telling me what to do to resolve the case. All they could suggest was to look through the INS website and that I should be able to find all I need in there. Then another time I was at the Embassy, they gave me an address in Texas and told me to write them a letter explaining my situation. Talking to my lawyer, he told me I am supposed to fill in an application form available on the internet and send that to Texas. Then on another occasion, he told me to send that application to a place in Missouri. I also tried calling the Visa Division in Washington to get help regarding my case. The first time I called, the lady on the phone told me it is the responsibility of the American Embassy to correct their mistake and that they should be the ones applying to the relevant authorities to resolve this situation. Although I told the American Embassy what was told to me from the Visa Division, they did not accept this and did not feel responsible for the mistake. Another time I called the Visa Division, they told me I should apply for an Advisory Opinion, which would be able to clarify whether or not in this case I should be subject to this rule.

Not one single person told me the same thing as another person! So, I ended up doing every single thing everybody told me just to be on the safe side! Not to mention that I learnt the whole J-1 section of the immigration law by heart!

Besides all this, I also asked for help at the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC. They have been very helpful and are doing their best to speed up the process, at least for their part. In this process, one of the ways to resolve the case is to send the INS an application for a J-1 Waiver. What happens is I send them a request for my 2-year home residency requirement to be waived, they review my application and ask the Turkish authorities whether or not they have any objections to me leaving my home country. The Turkish authorities issue a no objection letter based on a research of whether I have any obligations in Turkey due to the fact that I went to the US on the J-1 visa. This could be in the form of mandatory service or money I owe to the government for a scholarship I may have received from them for this study in the US. This basically involves a lot of paperwork and is quite time consuming. But, once all this is done, the no objection letter is sent back to the INS and the INS waives my 2-year rule (although I probably was NOT subject to it in the first place!)

My company has also tried to help, writing letters to the different American authorities to speed up the process. All I can do right now is to wait and see what happens.

So, right now, I am in Istanbul, living with my aunt and working for my company from here while I wait for a response from the different places that I have applied as well as think of new ways to resolve this situation. This has all obviously created many difficulties for me in my career life, personal life as well as financially. I don’t think it would be a good idea to go into the details of that right now as this story may turn out to be a book in that case!

Many thanks to all of you, who have helped, offered to help and have been a great support during all these days. In the meanwhile, let me know if there is anything you think may be a solution to all this mess.

Still smiling,

Petite