Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream by Chopra Deepak & Chopra Sanjiv

Author:Chopra, Deepak & Chopra, Sanjiv [Chopra, Deepak]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: New Harvest
Published: 2013-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

There was so much richness about living in America that Amita and I decided to apply for green cards to stay here, if not permanently, then at least for several years. So we discarded our original plan, which was to finish our educations here and return to India.

Only immigrants to America know the world of the green card, the card originally issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service that makes a person a legal resident, meaning they have almost all of the rights, except voting, that American citizens enjoy. Without a green card you can’t legally stay in America.

Getting a green card turns out to be a big industry. It requires a good lawyer and it can be both time-consuming and expensive. But when an immigrant finally gets it, it’s like being handed gold. It means your life is changed forever.

Amita and I both applied for our green cards as we finished our internships at Muhlenberg hospital. Time passed and we didn’t hear anything, we didn’t receive any notices, so we assumed our applications were being processed, until we received a letter from Immigration more than a year later. “This is your third and final notice,” it read. “If you don’t appear for an interview on this date we will discontinue your file.”

Third notice? We hadn’t received any notice at all. But still, we were excited. We thought this meant we were going to be given our green cards.

We went for our hearing without an attorney. It never occurred to us that this was anything but a formality. This was America, the country that welcomed immigrants. The hearing officer was named Mr. Pickering.

“So,” he began, “you’ve applied for immigration?”

“We have,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.”

He turned to Amita. “Now let me ask you independently.” He looked at me and told me not to answer for her, then asked, “You’ve applied for immigration?”

“Yes, I have,” she said.

Then he turned back to me. “And you, Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, you got your visa to come here on the explicit terms that you would train here for five years and then go back. So now you’ve both applied for immigration. You’ve proven you are liars and dishonest. You’ll be receiving a notice within two weeks explaining that you have to leave the country within a month.”

We were dumbfounded.

“What are you saying? I have accepted a fellowship at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and Amita is going to be chief resident in pediatrics at Boston City Hospital. We’ve signed contracts. We can’t leave.”

He shrugged. “I don’t give a damn. Dismissed.”

We were devastated. What about our plans? We probably didn’t understand it at that time, but we had just entered a world familiar to so many immigrants, a world in which you feel powerless against the government, where every time you get a letter from the Immigration Service your heart starts beating faster. At first we had no idea what to do. How do you fight the government of the United States?

We had come to the States with the intention of going home when we had completed our studies.

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