Guest blogger: Leslie Beaudin, law student, University of San Francisco:

In 1970, my grandmother and grandfather made the decision to leave Fiji and start a new life in the United States where some of their family already successfully put down roots. The process began with my great-uncle sponsoring my grandparents while my grandparents began the application process in Fiji. At the time, there was no need for a lawyer because the process was simple to understand, and my family did not have any obstacles such as criminal convictions.

My grandfather found it important to note that, at that time, the only way for an application for U.S. immigrant status to move along smoothly or with priority status was for an applicant to either know someone working at the U.S. consulate/Fiji government, or to bribe an immigration official. At the time, applicants would pay up to $30,000 in bribes for priority status. Compared to now, this was a lot of money at the time! Luckily, my grandparents had connections with the Fiji government and with those working in the U.S. consulate as well as the fact they were educated because they were both school teachers, so it only took a matter of months for approval of their immigration applications.

Once the applications were approved, my grandparents had to interview at the U.S. consulate and were given a date on which they were allowed to leave Fiji (they could not leave Fiji before or after that date). My family moved to the U.S. in 1970 but took a circuitous route through Hawaii before ultimately landing in California. Just one year later, my grandfather applied for U.S. citizenship, and only two to three months later he was interviewed and asked questions such as “who is the President of the United States,” “what part of the country are you living in,” and “what political party do you identify with.” Ultimately, my grandfather was approved for citizenship and became a citizen in December 1975 while my grandmother became a citizen in August 1975, and finally my mom and siblings became citizens in May 1977 (my mom was 11 at the time).

Fast forward to about thirty years later, my uncle went to Fiji to find a wife after two divorces believing that a Fiji woman would make a better wife than his past two American wives. In 1999, my uncle married my aunt, Ambalika, and began the process of applying for her permanent resident status. Back in Fiji, Ambalika had to prove the validity of their marriage by showing the immigration official her wedding video, marriage certificate, and answer questions about my uncle’s past two marriage and his four kids from those marriages. Ambalika was given a temporary green card and she came to the U.S. in April 2001 to start a new life with her husband. Two years later she was provided a permanent green card which solidified her permanent resident status and was eligible to apply for citizenship in 2006. Instead of having to wait the required full five years, Ambalika could use the two years she lived in the U.S. with a temporary green card into the five year calculations. Despite this, Ambalika waited until 2008 (after the birth of her first child – my uncle’s fifth child) to apply for citizenship.

Similar to my grandfather, an immigration official interviewed Ambalika and asked her a couple of questions about the United States such as how many states there are and who the current President was. She was also asked to write a couple sentences in English about whatever she wanted. She was ultimately approved and was sworn in as a United States citizen in October 2008. From start to finish, the process of becoming a citizen after her citizenship application took less than six months.

Even though the citizenship processes within my family were thirty years apart, the process is basically the same, including the five-year period they each had to wait as a permanent resident before becoming a citizen. This is also despite changes made to immigration laws and processes in the thirty year gap, but looks like the only difference is my aunt did not have to worry about bribes or favoritism for her application to be timely processed…

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