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Do you really want to know how the USA treats first-world immigrants?

Freshly graduated with an International Baccalaureate I moved to the US at the age of 19, in 1990. Dutch, white, well-educated, fluent in Dutch, French and English.

I did, on a student visa, my Bachelor of Fine Arts and then my Masters of Fine Arts in California. 7 years that my parents and government were pumping tuition money into the American economy.

After graduation, I’d hoped that those 7 years counted for something, but no, they didn’t. I had to start the immigration process at zero, using an expensive lawyer.

I had to get a job with a company that sponsored foreigners for an H1B professional visa. So I did, with some effort. My new employer used this method to get cheap labor and keep employees’ complaints down while working in dangerous conditions. There were many foreigners working there: Irish, Tibetans, and all kinds of South Americans… the thing is, while your application for the H1B is running, you cannot really risk speaking up against your employer, who can fire you and stop your entire immigration process, which is job bound. Not that the boss was above hiring illegals, there were several undocumented people there. Great mix of talented characters, and some really good friends.

I got severely injured—electrified—due to a lack of maintenance on the machines. I reported it, and so did other people, but nothing was done. Then I was electrocuted again, and now I needed serious medical attention and rehabilitation for an injury nobody could see. At the time there was great discontent in the company, and I was seen as one of the ringleaders. So the boss sabotaged a project I had been put in charge of and fired me.

This was America; I could have sued the guy. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to compromise the shaky legal status of many of my friends there and screw over their immigration process.

But now I was fucked. I needed to start all over and found it very difficult to get a potential employer excited about doing a whole lot of paperwork for a foreign potential employee.

At this point I was, like, totally integrated into California, and most people thought I was American. I lived in the country for over a decade at this point and both H1B and Green Card were far on the horizon. I had a truck, I had tools, I lived in a warehouse in China Basin with fellow artists, I paid my taxes, and I had no criminal record. I didn’t want to marry any guy for a Green Card. I wanted to do this myself.

Then I found another job, with a great boss, in a more industrial setting, who would sponsor me for the H1B. I have been working there for more than a year, fully cooperating with an immigration lawyer and the INS. The lawyer was confident that there should be no problem getting the application approved.

At this point, the planes slammed into the towers.

Got a letter from Uncle Sam, a few weeks later, rejecting my application on the grounds that the functions of my new job weren’t sufficiently associated with my field of study. Henceforth, I was immediately to stop working for my new boss, who was not pleased to see me go, especially since I was in the middle of conducting an inventory and re-organizing the cleanup job of the parts room.

Uncle Sam added: if I continued working there, the company would get audited. So I lost my job and income that day. I was given 6 months to get out of the country.

So, to answer your question, this is how the USA treats people from first-world countries who did all the right things to immigrate legally and were fully integrated into the country.

I have no illusions about the current way the immigration authorities are treating those considered undesirable or undocumented,

So at this point, I’d had enough. Sold my tools, sold my truck, said goodbye to my dear friends, broke up, and had to abandon my new apartment.

As the plane took off, I cried my heart out for almost two hours, greatly upsetting an adorable set of kids and their mom, who was sitting next to me. I had just lost everything I held dear and was returning to Europe.

Like Jane, I went to Spain.

I had my N.I.E. two months later, the equivalent of a Green Card, thanks to the European Union, along with the right to medical care, holidays, and other important things. I got a job and started working right away and contributing to the new country I was welcomed in.