My Divorce From Argentina

[camberiu]

I don't live in the States any more (I am still a citizen - the only time I'll renounce my citizenship is when Texas secedes )

The moment that happens, I will apply for Texas citizenship.

 

[sleslie23]

The moment that happens, I will apply for Texas citizenship.

Ha ha, both of you act like the Republic of Texas will have liberal immigration policies. I wouldn't count on it.

Also, you'll probably inherit Oklahoma and eastern New Mexico.

 

[earlyretirement]

and I can't bring my wife to the States for a visit on a tourist visa.

ElQueso, I agree with much of what you wrote. I do think many locals are biased against others from Mercosur countries. Especially Bolivia and Paraguay. I kind of equate it to Americans that complain about Mexicans stealing opportunities from them yet Mexicans are some of the only ones that are willing/able to do the jobs that no Americans want to do.

I've met many hardworking citizens from other Mercosur countries that live in Argentina so I do agree that statement was totally biased.

I did have one question ElQueso. You mentioned that your wife can't get a tourist visa to visit the USA. Why not if she is married to you? I have many friends that married their spouses from other Mercosur countries (Bolvia, Peru, Colombia, etc) and they all were able to get tourist visas for their spouses. I'm just curious why your wife can't get a tourist visa to visit the USA?

Also, gieryp86... just out of curiosity what do you plan to do with a Spanish Lit degree?

 

[ElQueso]

Ha ha, both of you act like the Republic of Texas will have liberal immigration policies. I wouldn't count on it.

Also, you'll probably inherit Oklahoma and eastern New Mexico.

Controlling a border is different than immigration policy. Considering the large amount of legally-immigrated Mexicans and other Latinos who live there, it's not like we have a bias against foreigners - we just happen to have a border that the federal government has tried to deny Texas to patrol and enforce on its own, and has absolutely no control whatsoever on immigration policy, aside from the congressmen we send to Washington who collude with other state congressmen to mess us over

I don't know what the immigration policy would like, really, but I would think it would be three-fold: A realistic worker visa program, enforced immigration laws related to illegal residents and denial of all but emergency services for those who are illegal.

Of course, granted, there may be some big problems with groups like La Raza, but most legal Mexican immigrants, believe it or not, share the opinion that illegal immigration isn't a good thing.

Who knows - it can't be worse than what we have now.

 

[volver]

Cordobese, divorcing from Argentina is the best decision you'll ever make! Cheers!!!

I'm 28 years old woman and I spent my last 5 years abroad studying/working/enjoying life. I lived in Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland and USA (I chose a weird career path). I just returned form Washington DC a few moths ago and I CANNOT understand why so many expats are still here!!! This city is hell -nothing works, life quality is really low and most porteños are just incredibly mean, selfish and aggressive.

I have been very lucky and I got to travel a lot throughout my life, so I learnt that: Argentina is not the most beautiful country in the world (not even close!), we don´t have the best football players, our food (read meat) is not as good and we are not the prettiest women on earth.

If my family was not here, I would NEVER return to this place and I am 100% sure I would not miss it. Yes, I am homesick - I miss DC. I miss the Swiss Alps. I miss Scandinavia. I miss living in places where things work, where people (and my friends) are reliable and where life is uncomplicated and sweet.

Unfortunately I can´t go back to DC now, but as soon as the EU situation gets better, I´m out of here too! As Cordobese said: Argentina is an OK place for HOLIDAYS.

 

[sleslie23]

Controlling a border is different than immigration policy. Considering the large amount of legally-immigrated Mexicans and other Latinos who live there, it's not like we have a bias against foreigners - we just happen to have a border that the federal government has tried to deny Texas to patrol and enforce on its own, and has absolutely no control whatsoever on immigration policy, aside from the congressmen we send to Washington who collude with other state congressmen to mess us over

I don't know what the immigration policy would like, really, but I would think it would be three-fold: A realistic worker visa program, enforced immigration laws related to illegal residents and denial of all but emergency services for those who are illegal.

Of course, granted, there may be some big problems with groups like La Raza, but most legal Mexican immigrants, believe it or not, share the opinion that illegal immigration isn't a good thing.

Who knows - it can't be worse than what we have now.

Yeah, I was just making a sarcastic joke.

I think the reality of the US splitting into various "republics" would be anarchy. Forget immigration from Mexico to Texas. You would have people from some areas of the former US trying to get in, and just as many trying to get out. Do you think your average Austin resident will want to live in the Republic of Texas? Hell, even Texas has its factions El Paso is not Austin is not Dallas is not Crawford. And a million in-betweens.

The more populous states of the US (Texas, California, and New York) aren't homogenous. There is a vast difference between rural and urban residents within all three. Your average Bakersfield resident has more in common with someone from Wichita Falls than someone from LA or SF. Likewise, someone from San Jose probably has more in common with someone from Houston than someone from Modesto.

 

[ElQueso]

I did have one question ElQueso. You mentioned that your wife can't get a tourist visa to visit the USA. Why not if she is married to you? I have many friends that married their spouses from other Mercosur countries (Bolvia, Peru, Colombia, etc) and they all were able to get tourist visas for their spouses. I'm just curious why your wife can't get a tourist visa to visit the USA?

According to the embassy, in a conversation I had with an official there via email, the biggest reason was what I mentioned related to her being an immigrant here. He literally told me that she was considered a high-risk person because she immigrated to Argentina from a poor country. There was not much more information related to his comment about that.

He also said that marriage does mean anything. Everyone applying for a visa must stand on his or her own, marriage is, if anything, a detriment to a tourist visa, going back to the first comment.

In addition, he wrote that a person needs to prove roots in the country in which they are resident. Usually this means a job, paying taxes, a bank account, owning a car, owning property, a large family, etc. They want to know that the person will return to their country of origin within the parameters of the visa.

My wife held jobs in the black here the first year or so that she lived here, until she met me. She was very unsophisticated about things like opening a bank account and such. Once we got married, she stopped working.

Now, she has a bank account in her name and she does some work, part time, in the black again (she likes to be independent and not feel like she's spending "our" money on herself - I love the attitude, but it was her idea ). We're working on getting her enrolled as a monotributista so she can prove salary and tax payments.

She owns no cars, no property. Her extended family with the actual roots are still in Paraguay, where she is not resident.

I was told by the embassy before she went to her interview that I would not be allowed to accompany her into the interview, even though I had read many forums talking about exactly that be allowed. In my place, I wrote a letter explaining that she was married to me, that we wanted to visit my folks due to their age and condition. I included my bank statements, her banks statements (at the time only about a year and a half of history), our marriage certificate from Paraguay (we've been married for almost five years now, not doing this just to get her a tourist visa), nicely legalized (which I had also registered with the US Paraguayan embassy shortly after we were married), my birth certificate, her birth certificate, our past 4 years of long-term rental contracts, the last 4 years of payments to private schools for her sister (trying to prove commitment to be here), made clear in my letter my business arrangements and showed contracts I had with various contract programmers here, all to prove I had no intent to return to the US permanently any time soon. I think there was more even, but don't recall it all now.

Problem is, most of the important stuff was in my name and not hers. We never considered she would need such a history to get a visa.

This was at the beginning of the year that she was rejected. We are going to try again, in addition to all the other stuff, this time with a notarized letter from my folks asking her to be allowed to come, with some of their medical reports/bills, etc. I'm also going to go with her this time (she didn't want me to go last time - she wanted to do it on her own since they weren't going to let me in - I think that was a mistake on my part the first time) in the hopes that I can have some influence as a citizen, in some manner.

I wonder sometimes if the root of the problem was just that our age difference is significant and they plain didn't believe her - maybe thought the letter, marriage certificate and other things were forgeries or something, that we got divorced shortly after, I don't know.

The officials at the embassy have the discretion as to whether or not to give a visa. My wife told me the official with whom she sat down was very sympathetic, but said she had to ask her supervisor. My wife watched her talk to the supervisor, show the documents we had, and without even reviewing the documents or saying a word to the official conducting the interview, simply shook her head "no" and dismissed the interviewing official.

My poor wife felt humiliated. She cried off and on for days after, and until the last couple of weeks had refused to even try again.

 

[ElQueso]

Yeah, I was just making a sarcastic joke.

I think the reality of the US splitting into various "republics" would be anarchy. Forget immigration from Mexico to Texas. You would have people from some areas of the former US trying to get in, and just as many trying to get out. Do you think your average Austin resident will want to live in the Republic of Texas? Hell, even Texas has its factions El Paso is not Austin is not Dallas is not Crawford. And a million in-betweens.

The more populous states of the US (Texas, California, and New York) aren't homogenous. There is a vast difference between rural and urban residents within all three. Your average Bakersfield resident has more in common with someone from Wichita Falls than someone from LA or SF. Likewise, someone from San Jose probably has more in common with someone from Houston than someone from Modesto.

I'm almost certain that most Austin Texans (and there are a LOT) would want to stay, absolutely. BTW - we're all very proud of Austin. We consider it a lot like good parts of California, fairly liberal but without the craziness that places like San Fransisco bring to California.

You have a point about the lack of homogeneity, to an extent. However, considering that my ex-mother-in-law is from San Jose and I visited there quite a bit, I don't know that I would agree with you on that particular comparison I think Austin might be a better comparison to San Jose than would be Houston (I lived for quite some time in both cities, Houston the longest by far, though I have many good friends who still live in Austin and I used to visit them quite a bit even after I moved back to Houston).

One thing that all Texans (not just people who live in Texas because they were transferred, or thought they might try it, for example, but people who came to Texas and love it - I'm included in that, originally being from Oklahoma) have in common is a fierce sense of independence and can-do. Hell, we don't like Unions in Texas Also, in most places (leave aside some of the idiots who still continue with some of the Blue Laws, like in Northeast Texas) there is a live-and-let-live feeling.

The problem I see with the States is that there are too many laws that try to control all types of behavior, and too many people who think that's good. I would hope that a Republic of Texas constitution and legal structure would be more like the original founders of the US intended. A looser legal structure without too many specific laws, and let the counties be responsible for specific local laws as the local inhabitants see fit.

I've reviewed some suggestions for secession related to what you bring up as far as those in Texas who would want out, and those outside who are US citizens that might want to immigrate. This kind of thing would obviously not be settled overnight. People who choose not to become RoT citizens, for example, could be issued temporary or permanent residencies and can continue their life as-is until they decide to leave, or become citizens. People who want to come in from the States would be allowed (hopefully except for certain criminal types).

To me, the biggest issue would be the US debt and how Texas would take care of its portion.

If the US were to simply collapse upon the secession of Texas (a secession run that went viral by other states, let's say), it would be a moot point. There would be no more US government, and I don't know how foreign debtors who hold bonds and US national banks who were part of creating money out of thin air through fractional reserve banking would feel about it, but who are they going to go after? It could be decades or more before something like that got sorted out, if ever.

If it was just Texas, I could see some serious issues with this, though, for sure. With such a big economy, Texas would make a big impact in such a separation. It could cause the collapse of the US simply by countries who hold bonds on US debt losing complete confidence in the dollar. Something would have to be done in a single separation to help that out, but I don't know what that would look like.

Texas contributes more in federal contributions than it receives:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-fiscal-union

Unfortunately, there are quite a few states that do even better than Texas in that regard , but we're number 13 out of 21 states who are either even (1 - Pennsylvania) or in a surplus with the federal government over the last 20 years. The 20 states who have surpluses are paying for programs in other states. Redistribution of wealth on a state-by-state basis. Puerto Rico, BTW, is included on the list in very last place, right after New Mexico and Mississippi. Poor Maryland, near the bottom of the list, had Washington, D.C. included in its numbers.

My point in bringing this up is that I wonder if that would be a bargaining point in favor of Texas' debt contributions related to severing ties with the US. And I would think that only "real" debt, i.e., borrowed through the issuance of bonds (not fractional creation of money), would be counted, but I could be wrong about that.

Texas, with 2 senators and 32 US representatives and a President that ran up a debt second only to the debt run up under the current president, has certainly contributed to an extent, to the US debt.

My apologies for being so off-target on this thread...

 

[earlyretirement]

According to the embassy, in a conversation I had with an official there via email, the biggest reason was what I mentioned related to her being an immigrant here. He literally told me that she was considered a high-risk person because she immigrated to Argentina from a poor country. There was not much more information related to his comment about that.

He also said that marriage does mean anything. Everyone applying for a visa must stand on his or her own, marriage is, if anything, a detriment to a tourist visa, going back to the first comment.

In addition, he wrote that a person needs to prove roots in the country in which they are resident. Usually this means a job, paying taxes, a bank account, owning a car, owning property, a large family, etc. They want to know that the person will return to their country of origin within the parameters of the visa.

My wife held jobs in the black here the first year or so that she lived here, until she met me. She was very unsophisticated about things like opening a bank account and such. Once we got married, she stopped working.

Now, she has a bank account in her name and she does some work, part time, in the black again (she likes to be independent and not feel like she's spending "our" money on herself - I love the attitude, but it was her idea ). We're working on getting her enrolled as a monotributista so she can prove salary and tax payments.

She owns no cars, no property. Her extended family with the actual roots are still in Paraguay, where she is not resident.

I was told by the embassy before she went to her interview that I would not be allowed to accompany her into the interview, even though I had read many forums talking about exactly that be allowed. In my place, I wrote a letter explaining that she was married to me, that we wanted to visit my folks due to their age and condition. I included my bank statements, her banks statements (at the time only about a year and a half of history), our marriage certificate from Paraguay (we've been married for almost five years now, not doing this just to get her a tourist visa), nicely legalized (which I had also registered with the US Paraguayan embassy shortly after we were married), my birth certificate, her birth certificate, our past 4 years of long-term rental contracts, the last 4 years of payments to private schools for her sister (trying to prove commitment to be here), made clear in my letter my business arrangements and showed contracts I had with various contract programmers here, all to prove I had no intent to return to the US permanently any time soon. I think there was more even, but don't recall it all now.

Problem is, most of the important stuff was in my name and not hers. We never considered she would need such a history to get a visa.

This was at the beginning of the year that she was rejected. We are going to try again, in addition to all the other stuff, this time with a notarized letter from my folks asking her to be allowed to come, with some of their medical reports/bills, etc. I'm also going to go with her this time (she didn't want me to go last time - she wanted to do it on her own since they weren't going to let me in - I think that was a mistake on my part the first time) in the hopes that I can have some influence as a citizen, in some manner.

I wonder sometimes if the root of the problem was just that our age difference is significant and they plain didn't believe her - maybe thought the letter, marriage certificate and other things were forgeries or something, that we got divorced shortly after, I don't know.

The officials at the embassy have the discretion as to whether or not to give a visa. My wife told me the official with whom she sat down was very sympathetic, but said she had to ask her supervisor. My wife watched her talk to the supervisor, show the documents we had, and without even reviewing the documents or saying a word to the official conducting the interview, simply shook her head "no" and dismissed the interviewing official.

My poor wife felt humiliated. She cried off and on for days after, and until the last couple of weeks had refused to even try again.

Wow! This is really horrible and it sounds like a difficult situation but I really encourage you to try again. Especially if you've been married for 5 years now! That just doesn't seem right.

Even with her not having any jobs, not owning property or having assets or a bank account I'd think as long as you had bank statements and also a certified letter stating that you'd be totally responsible for her would be enough.

My now wife (then girlfriend) just got out of school, didn't have a bank account, didn't have any assets and she easily got a tourist visa to visit the USA many years ago and we weren't even married. We were just dating. I also know others in the same situation and they easily got tourist visas for their significant others.

My girlfriend at the time just moved to Argentina from a Mercosur country and didn't need to "prove roots" to Argentina at all. She still applied at the USA Embassy in Buenos Aires due to just having a DNI which I assume your wife has.

DEFINITELY go back to the Embassy and try again. Have as much documentation as you can about YOUR assets and bank statements, etc. You can even get a bank account opened for her in the USA just by applying for an ITIN # which you can easily do and it won't cost you anything at all.

This just doesn't sound right at all.

 

[RNelson]

I was told by the embassy before she went to her interview that I would not be allowed to accompany her into the interview, even though I had read many forums talking about exactly that be allowed. In my place, I wrote a letter explaining that she was married to me, that we wanted to visit my folks due to their age and condition. I included my bank statements, her banks statements (at the time only about a year and a half of history), our marriage certificate from Paraguay (we've been married for almost five years now, not doing this just to get her a tourist visa), nicely legalized (which I had also registered with the US Paraguayan embassy shortly after we were married), my birth certificate, her birth certificate, our past 4 years of long-term rental contracts, the last 4 years of payments to private schools for her sister (trying to prove commitment to be here), made clear in my letter my business arrangements and showed contracts I had with various contract programmers here, all to prove I had no intent to return to the US permanently any time soon. I think there was more even, but don't recall it all now.

I am sorry that your wife was put through that. I would definitely ask for help from the Senator or Congressman in whose district you last lived (or one in which you have family). The consular staff at the embassy is there to help you, and by extension, your wife. If you can interest a congressperson in helping, you'll almost certainly have a better outcome. Good luck!