Last week we went to Nashville
Last week we went to Nashville
to have Aneta’s fingerprints and photo taken at the USCIS office. (The
United States Citizenship and Immigration Service used to be known as The
Immigration and Naturalization Service. The new name is a lot nicer in my opinion.)
A year ago when we went to have the same thing done, Aneta and I were the only
ones there. This time there were tons of people waiting for stuff. Something
happened that really annoyed me. This middle aged guy was there with his elderly
mother. When she went in to get her fingers printed, He asked the lady “to
be careful”. This seems like a strange request, but if you take into
account the fact that he was not a native English speaker, it becomes obvious
that he was asking them to be gentle with his mother’s fingers. In my opinion
this is a reasonable request, and the person taking his mother back should have
said something along the lines of, “I will take good care of your mother,
don’t worry.” And then turned to the mother and said something nice
and smiled. That would have made both of them feel better about being there to
have something done to them that we normally only do for criminals. Instead the
lady started talking to they guy like he was a stupid foreigner and said that
she didn’t know how to be careful, and that if he really wanted her to be
careful he would have to go home and make a special appointment for that. Most
of the other people there were not so unfriendly, but this is a common
phenomenon at USCIS stations across the country. I really get upset when I
think about the fact that Aneta and I are paying this lady to be a jerk to
non-citizens. These immigration stations are primarily run by fees charged by
applicants, and Aneta and I have paid more than our share of these fees. Additionally,
Aneta (a non-citizen herself) works and pays taxes, and this kind of treatment
is unacceptable.