February 25, 2000
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I was held in a concentration camp in Vietnam for ten years and then required to report weekly for a probationary period of eight years. I had been an officer in the South Vietnamese forces and taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. While I was in prison, the South Vietnamese terrorized my wife as a friend of capitalists. She was terrified. In 1993, I came to the United States. I came to the United States because I wanted my freedom and for my wife to be free of this constant fear. I became a citizen on October 22, 1998. I have ten children and four of them came with me to the United States. My wife who is 73 years old, my four children ranging in age from 35 to 42 years of age, and my daughter in law all wanted to be American citizens. They all applied to become citizens on November 10, 1997. All became citizens except my wife and my daughter in law. INS has delayed their citizenship. My wife filled out a physical disability form (N648), at the suggestion of the INS, and submitted it on September 24, 1998. Doctor Nhat Van Mai concluded my wife had a degree of dementia that compromised her ability to take the citizenship test, and concluded the condition was permanent. On February 5, 1999, Dr. Mai Nhat Van submitted another opinion, consistent with the first, that my wife had memory loss and forgetfulness and the condition was permanent. On March 9, 1999, we had an INS meeting to consider my wife's disability. But they didn't consider it. At the meeting we had with INS, the disability was not discussed at all. INS said instead, "You don't need to be here today. Go home and wait." We had a right to a decision even if it wasn't a favorable one. INS said they did not have my wife's file. That's not fair. We should be treated better than this. This delay has created enormous stress for my wife. Don't get me wrong. It's not like the separation we had in Vietnam. It's not even close. But she does have to wait, day by day, to know if she will become a citizen as I have. She wants to be a citizen the way her children have become citizens. Until she becomes a citizen, we are a family divided by this uncertainty.
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Bay Area Congressional Delegation
Studies Chronic Delays at Immigration Agency Statement of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren Statement of Jennifer Dineen-Ocon Statement of Sister Marilyn Lacey Statement of Jacob and Yetta Bromley Statement of Debra Jaramillo-Coker Statement of George Windsor Jones
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