WOW!!! A 3 DAY-RAIN!!! Unbelievable...
Thought you might like to read about how REALLY "F'd-up" the USA is!!!
He's patriot without a country...
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Oregonian
John James speaks with an American accent. And he thinks like a red-white-and-blue American patriot: "This is an amazing country. I have always loved living here."
John spent most of his childhood in Texas, the son of a career U.S. military man. He moved to Lake Oswego when he was a teen, in 1972, and has lived there ever since. He's 52 now.
John feels like an American. He pays taxes like other Americans.
But the U.S. government says John is not an American. Which has left him in a strange situation: John is a citizen of nowhere. He can't get a passport from any country. He can't vote anywhere on Earth.
"I'm literally stateless," he says.
How did he get in this mess?
John's father, John James Sr., was born in Michigan in 1931. His parents had recently immigrated to this country from England. But when John Sr. was a year old, his parents took him back to England to wait out the Depression. Then came World War II.
John Sr. was a native-born U.S. citizen, without question. But he went through school in England. "He met my mom there, when they were in high school," John says.
John Sr. got his first U.S. passport when he joined the U.S. Air Force in 1952. Clearly the U.S. government considered him a citizen -- he received a draft notice and had to tell the government he was already in the military, John says.
John Sr. married his high school sweetheart in England, and a year later their first child, a girl, was born there. She's a British citizen. After her birth, she and her mother moved to France to live with John Sr. on the U.S. Air Force base in Chateauroux.
John Jr. was born in the base hospital Nov. 27, 1956. His birth certificate, in English, is signed by the Air Force base surgeon. He also has a French birth certificate, stating he was born on the base.
Right from the start, John's parents had problems establishing John's citizenship.
"England said I couldn't be a British citizen because my dad was an American and I was born on a U.S. military base in France," John says.
"France said I couldn't be French, because I was born on a U.S. base to an American father and a British mother.
"And the U.S. told my parents I couldn't be a U.S. citizen because my father had not lived in the U.S. for 10 years before joining the military."
John says his parents spent years trying to negotiate with the U.S. government over his citizenship.
"When my dad got orders to come to the U.S., my sister had a passport, my mom had one, my dad had one, but I didn't." The military arranged for 2-year-old John to travel under his mother's passport.
The family arrived in the U.S. in April 1958. John was given an immigration card, a child's equivalent of a green card, or a permanent visa.
The family settled into military housing in Texas, where John Sr. was stationed.
From 1965 to 1966, John Sr. served a year in Vietnam, then was stationed on a base in Arizona. Six years later, when John was 15, his father retired from the Air Force and the James family moved to Lake Oswego.
John enrolled in Lakeridge High School. He applied for, and was given, a U.S. Social Security card. His citizenship problem didn't hit until he was 18 and learned he couldn't vote. "That's when my parents told me all the horror stories."
John decided to just live his life as the American he knew he was. He traveled back and forth to Canada, using his birth certificate to cross the border. He married an American woman, then got divorced after six years.
He worked, paid taxes, loved his country.
And then, three years ago, he fell in love with a Canadian woman. He was working in a local call center, in support services. The woman called "with interesting issues. We started talking."
Since John can no longer go to Canada, she came here to visit. In February, John proposed.
His company has an office in Canada, and he has been offered a job there. John wants to take the job, marry his fiancee and live in Canada as an American citizen. (His fiancee's divorce decree does not allow her to move her children to the U.S. And she would not be marrying a U.S. citizen, so she would not qualify to move here.)
But the U.S. won't give John a passport. "They told me I have to go through Immigration," John says. "I can't even get an appointment to talk to them until March 27."
Just as his parents did when he was young, John has hit a brick wall, everywhere he turns. The passport office. The State Department. Oregon senators and representatives. Immigration Services.
"Since I have no citizenship, I can't apply for citizenship anywhere," John says. "I grew up here. I spent almost my entire life here. I love this country.
"This is just ridiculous."
Margie Boule: 503-221-8450; marboule@aol.com
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