Bonjhola

EP 66: Rebecca is STILL trying to renew her VISA, Thoughts on the Sticky Issue of Immigration

• Rebecca West

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Welcome to Bonjhola, a podcast about two women, Aimee and Rebecca, who each move from the United States to Europe to become expats. Aimee to Spain and Rebecca to France. We're here to share the highs, the lows, and the logistics of this adventure. Encourage you to follow your own, move abroad dreams, and remind you that you're not alone when the going gets tough. Enjoy.

Aimee Delamore:

Bonjhola, Rebecca,

Rebecca West:

Bonjhola Aimee.

Aimee Delamore:

so it's been a week and you are fast approaching. Your Visa deadline, uh, for application. So what's like, what's the status on that?

Rebecca West:

Yeah, so last time we talked, um, I thought I was gonna be able to get the free mobile. Uh, cellular account bill. I had been, I had, I had made a French phone call, and they said that they would be able to produce one for me on Friday. It is now Monday, since we're talking about this, obviously no bill emerged. So I put on my grownup panties again and I called again and I got somebody much less patient with their French. Um. We talked about this together, right? How they weren't allowed to speak in English, but yeah. Okay. This lady didn't speak in English at all. Here's what I think I understood today. No, they can't generate a bill, it's just impossible. Um, and what I need to do is write a letter to this address that she gave me saying I need an attest. And I was like, but there's only seven days before I actually need to submit everything. And she's like, oh, you'll have an answer in three days. And at this point, Aimee, I know enough

Aimee Delamore:

I would so doubtful what? Nothing happens in three days in Europe.

Rebecca West:

no. And in this particular case, she's telling me that I can put a letter in the mail today and that somehow I will have an answer both by email and post in three days. And I'm like. No, that's not true. I don't have enough French to say that this isn't true, but I know this isn't true, and either she's making up answers or she's wishful thinking, or she's trying to get me off the phone

Aimee Delamore:

For all three.

Rebecca West:

all three.'cause I kept like, she would start out speaking French slowly enough that I could understand it. But then just like all of us, she would speed it up. So the answer to the question is, in seven days from this recording, I am supposed to submit my Visa renewal paperwork. Um, or the final steps, right?'cause they asked me for these extra bits. I do not know that I will have anything that they're asking for, and I don't know what that means. Worst case scenario that I can come up with so far is that it means that the 90 day clock on my. Status would start'cause you can technically be someplace on your

Aimee Delamore:

Your rin. Yeah, your sherin. 90 days would begin.

Rebecca West:

Is that true? I haven't done the research to figure that out because maybe the rules are different if you're coming off of a visa. I don't know. So in that scenario, do I go back to, do I have to go back to the United States to apply for a new visa? Could I do that from outside the Sheen zone like England? There are so many questions that I have that I have not put the effort into looking up because. They may never be the questions I need answered, and that's the game, you know? Go ahead.

Aimee Delamore:

lawyer?

Rebecca West:

Technically I do, and these days I've been asking myself if the money I'm paying him is worth it.

Aimee Delamore:

Hmm.

Rebecca West:

I think it still is because he has known what paperwork to file. His office can communicate with the authorities and understand what they're asking for. But what it doesn't seem to do is necessarily advocate for me in any way.

Aimee Delamore:

Right. Right.

Rebecca West:

Um, which it felt like with your Spanish experience that the lawyer was actively helping you. Was that, is that more true? Is.

Aimee Delamore:

Um. In a sense it was, I mean, like the, uh, they made the appointment for us to go to the police station to get the fingerprints, to submit the paperwork, to get the residency card. They were updating us in a. Not completely timely, but not untimely manner about the changes that were happening to the visa. I don't know that that was necessarily them having good, actually, no, I'm in Spain. That was them having good customer service because I think there were probably plenty of lawyers who were not keeping abreast on the weekly changes that were happening with that process as it was unfolding. Um. Yeah, I, I guess, I guess I would say that, yeah, I, I do feel like they advocated for us, you know, when I think initially think of that phrase, advocating, I think of someone fighting for you, right. To help you get what you need. And in that sense, no, I don't feel like they fought for us, but there wasn't much fighting to be done. It was just a this is the next step. This is the next step. Okay, this has expired, so this is what you have to do. Again, this is, you know, and it was sort of the, they did a great job handholding, handholding us through all of the tiny steps that we didn't know we would need in an evolving situation. Um,

Rebecca West:

It's hard when you have never done something before to know what you should expect. You know, what is good or bad advocacy and handholding in these processes. You know, I had a CPA ages and ages ago that I'm now working with. Again, I left him because I got a surprise bill that made me mad. Then I have now worked with half a dozen other CPAs, and now through that process, I realize my CPA, yeah, he didn't communicate well on that bill, and I'm still legitimately annoyed about that, but he's very good at his job. Now that I'm back with him, I'm like, well, this is nice, but when you first hire a professional service, and in our case, in another language, in another country for a process we've never been through before. It's hard to judge,

Aimee Delamore:

It is.

Rebecca West:

if there's no way to advocate for somebody because the French bureaucracy is simply set up the way it is, then this is what advocacy looks like. But I will say, and this is coming from me as a business coach, because in interior design we have a similar problem. Every single designer works differently. The outcomes and the projects are always different. The code varies not just by country and state, but by city. When you're getting involved in hiring a contractor and a designer and an architect, you also don't know what to look for or what to ask, what it should, what it could look like. And on the designer side, which is what I'm talking from, you forget sometimes how to really counsel your client. Through things like you have to pay attention for the moments where they're gonna lose their shit because it's scary. And then ideally, you proactively say, Hey, this part's scary. Don't worry, this is normal and I don't feel like I'm getting that from this lawyer. No bedside manner going, you are, you're okay. You can breathe. They're not gonna kick you outta the country. In, in seven days like I feel with, with my renewal coming in seven days, a little bit of bedside handholding of going, Hey, if this doesn't go through, here's what you should expect. Would be really nice given the fact that I'm paying more than a thousand euros for this guidance and help. Again, am I overpaying? Am I underpaying? I have no idea. And that's part of where so much of the expat anxiety comes from, is feeling so clueless.

Aimee Delamore:

I do think, I do think, um, that is definitely an American expectation. You're, you're wanting customer service from your service provider. Um, and yeah, bedside manner is a very American expectation. We're so used to that being. Part and parcel for what we get, whether it's medical or a restaurant or you know, any, any kind of service, any kind of human to human interaction that we are paying for, we expect to be treated well, which is kind of funny because. I find that that's not an expectation here in Europe, but human to human interaction is more, has better bedside manner than in the us. Like you get, you get good customer service when you pay for it, but people don't treat each other well unless there's a transaction

Rebecca West:

Oh yeah, I can

Aimee Delamore:

here, if there's a transaction happening, they are just like, what do you need? Okay. Here, but in the streets, people are much kinder to each other than my experience in the us.

Rebecca West:

I do think that that might be a Spanish versus French thing on the streets. We're pretty abrupt with each other here in France

Aimee Delamore:

Oh, okay. Okay.

Rebecca West:

But what I do, um, definitely identify with is. In America, we expect that, you know, I'm paying good money, therefore I should be treated well, is definitely part of the mentality. But at the same time here, things are such, there's so much more matter of fact, here's your form, fill it out. Right? And it will work. And I don't know if it's a Rebecca thing or an America thing to go. Even if I follow all the rules, I don't know that it will work. Like is there a more of an expectation that it will or more of a resign that it might, it might not, but you know, like it's such a different vibe.

Aimee Delamore:

it is. It is. When we were going through the, the sort of last minute time crunch situation with the visa and the lawyer was saying, Hey, this document expires before your plane trip and you're gonna like, you know, we need you to like fix this. And they sent us this email on a Friday. So by time we got it, they were closed. And then it was a holiday on Monday in Spain. It was just like, it was, you know, oh my gosh. It was insane. And so, you know, we wanted like a, like quick meeting, what's going on? How do we fix this? And, and her attitude was like, ah, no Pasana, everything's fine. It'll work out. No big deal. You know, oh, it's gonna cost you that much to change your plane ticket in order to be here before this thing expires. Well, that's not worth it. I was like, oh, you know, so my bowels went into a panic for nothing, but, but it very much here, here in Spain, there is definitely an expectation that. The system doesn't work well for anybody and things don't like, things aren't as smooth for sure as the U, as in the us and it's just the way it is and everybody knows it, so nobody really panics about it because again, nothing bad happens, right? it's not like the French, I don't think the French version of ICE is gonna show up in your apartment. In the middle of the night, like a SWAT team and take you directly to the airport in an unmarked vehicle, tinted windows. Um, you don't need to worry about that for sure.

Rebecca West:

and I, and I don't, um, and

Aimee Delamore:

Good.

Rebecca West:

And as Damien points out, he's like, people overstay visas all the time. But I think the reason this is causing me more anxiety than it would otherwise, in addition to the fact that my husband is literally having surgery tomorrow, and you know, there's a lot going on beyond just this visa renewal and the fact that I can't so far get on the French healthcare system because of the stupid address problems. There's a lot right now, but in addition, I know how. Sadly, I want a European citizenship and a European lifestyle. I'm pursuing it through Portugal, but that, you know, it's been

Aimee Delamore:

Three

Rebecca West:

two years. Yeah, it's been at least, I think it's two years now since I started that process. I have every expectation that it's gonna come through, but I have no knowledge that it will. So I know that I want this long-term ability to retire in, in Europe, and so I just don't wanna do anything along the path that, that will make that impossible later. So I'm building anxiety where there doesn't need to be any, but that's why it's there because this is so important to me, you know?

Aimee Delamore:

I like the fact that you acknowledge that you're building anxiety that doesn't need to be there. And I'm wondering, I'm wondering like, can you hold space for something to be important, but important's, not necessitating anxiety to go along with it.

Rebecca West:

I haven't been able to find that I. Superpower yet. Um, I don't know if you or anybody listening has seen the movie Inside Out With Being, is that the one with being, oh no, I'm lying. It's not inside out. It was a raunchy cartoon called Human Resources and they have, it's very like inside out, but for grownups and everybody has these anxiety mosquitoes. I am an anxiety mosquito apparently. I would have to change my nature in order to be like, here's this thing that's important to me, but I'm not gonna worry about it. I don't even know how to do.

Aimee Delamore:

What I started doing was reminding myself that everything that I ever worried about in the past usually didn't come to pass the way that I thought it would. And for things that happened that were not good in my life, I'm still here. So,

Rebecca West:

And they led us to where we are.

Aimee Delamore:

and they led us to where Exactly. Exactly. And then, you know, with, with things like, I think I've, I know I, I know we've talked about this privately. I don't know that we've talked about it on the podcast, but you know, we have a couple, actually, we, we've talked about Dead in a ditch on the podcast, I

Rebecca West:

Yeah. Yeah. We have

Aimee Delamore:

Like, if I'm not dead in a ditch, then I'm okay. It's gonna be okay. When you're dead in a ditch, that is when things are officially not okay. Right. And then the other saying we have is, uh, you know, if you don't dump a rental car in a river full of crocodiles, you're doing great. Like you're.

Rebecca West:

and Aimee, I'm not sure you have shared that story, so we're gonna need to make sure to share that story in a feature episode because that's a good one.

Aimee Delamore:

It is a good one.

Rebecca West:

What I have to give myself some credit and the thing I need to use is, the thing I can do is what is the best possible outcome? So for example, let's say I have to go back to the United, the unlikely scenario where I have to go back to the United States and reapply for a French visa. Very unlikely outcome, but it's a possible

Aimee Delamore:

Extreme. It's extremely unlikely given the fact that most people applying for a French visa don't likely have the monetary ability to go back to their country of origin to reapply.

Rebecca West:

I am not sure that would stop the French government from requiring that. But that aside, the point is the best outcome is I get to go back to the United States and spend some time with family, and I'm trying to come up with other. Silver linings. I'll have to work on that. But there are silver linings to every single scenario

Aimee Delamore:

Think of how many bottles of Pepto Bimo you could buy and drink. You could do Pepto cocktails every night.

Rebecca West:

what I was really thinking is it might make teaching and doing a a book tour a little bit easier,

Aimee Delamore:

Oh, there's that too.

Rebecca West:

but Pepto cocktails sound amazing. All right, well enough about that. We have eight minutes left on our 25 minute timer, and we were going to talk about how we feel about immigration having now experienced life as immigrants. So in our eight minutes, I'm gonna say this as my umbrella statement. I think it is absolutely 100% perfectly reasonable for a country to decide who is and who isn't going to come in, and to make it really hard for people. To come in and to make it illegal for people to come in not following that path. It's being really hard for me to get my visa here in France, but maybe that's okay. Maybe that is the bottom line.

Aimee Delamore:

I think, I think that is okay. Um, you know, people wait a decade or more to get their. Green card in the US here in Spain. It is a, I think about five to 10 years normal as well. If you want to become a Spanish citizen. I think if you are going to immigrate to a country, you probably actually need at least five years to integrate into that country and be in a place where you really already to adopt that country as your homeland, right?

Rebecca West:

but I'm not just talking about actually getting citizenship. Even just getting to come and stay here for a year, getting to renew for the second year. I am jumping through some serious hoops and I don't know what those hoops feel like for an American. Immigrant, but just broadly, I'm like, now that I'm experiencing it, it sucks, but it feels like the right answer.

Aimee Delamore:

It does suck and it does suck for people trying to immigrate to the US as well. I mean, there are so many stories, um, about how our system has treated immigrants. When I, when I say that I'm, I'm referring specifically to Latin American immigrants, um, that I think I certainly carried with me into Spain, assuming. That Spain would treat people coming to immigrate into Spain like the US treats Latin Americans, and I had to do a lot of talking to myself about, no, you, you have an American passport that buys you some credibility and some ease that. Someone from, from Guatemala or Mexico trying to get into the US is not going to have, it's not gonna look the same for you, even though you feel if you make one false move, they're gonna throw you out. Um, and I do think that having, there is a way to be strict without being inhumane. And I think that is something that perhaps. We have not been very good at in the United States with regards to how we approach immigration for some people from some nations. I do think having strict immigration policy though, is, I think that is important because what we've seen in the last five or 10 years with, with very, with much more fluid borders in Europe and in the states. Is a degree of disruption and chaos on a cultural level, on an economic level, on a resource availability level that has people who were born there or people in, in the case of the United States and illegals coming over and getting access to resources that people who worked their ass off to get a legitimate residency had to fight for, and then someone can come across and get that for free. Like that's, I, this is why, this is why many of the Latin population don't like the immigration policies that were happening before. Because it used to be really fricking hard for them to get what they get. And now there's people coming across that are basically competing for the same, for, for resources. Um,

Rebecca West:

You just touched on two really important points there. So you touched on one is the flood, right? So in. Where you live. There's a lot of anti-tourism vibe, right? It's not that people just hate tourists, but if there's too many of anything, it's a bad thing. So one, as you say, there's this flood and flow, and with that, I think a little bit of a cavalier attitude of like, eh, immigration policy. Immigration, right? But then you also talked about. The fact that there's a generation that followed the rules and worked, as you say, their asses off to get in and get established, and they're not gonna appreciate somebody getting a free ride that isn't even following the current established rules. Right? Am I getting that right?

Aimee Delamore:

Exactly. Yeah. And I know that's some of what has been going on in the United States, in Europe. There's been, you know, there's been a, a significant influx from, I believe the, the Middle East as well as Africa up into Northern Europe that has, um, created, you know, some, a bit of culture clash and also resource strain because the nations here are much more. Generous with giving people who live in their country access to basic necessities of life, like free healthcare and social security that is meaningful and things like that. And then when you have a whole bunch of people come in from another country and, um, they are not a significant contributor to the financial procurement for that country because many of them are working extremely low paying jobs. If they are even legal to work in the nation that they've immigrated to. That creates a significant financial strain on the nation and puts the people who are born and raised, they're in a bit of a pickle, right? Like.

Rebecca West:

But I'd like to bring up a counterpoint because whenever I think about this, I think about when I was in the Peace Corps. Nicaragua and one of the things, it was real eyeopener for me, you know, what was I 22? And one of the things I realized was. The US policies in the eighties had stripped these central American countries of their natural resources and, and their entire social system. So, you know, and now I'm here and we were just in Amsterdam and I was remembering how many places were Dutch colonies, for example, right? And all these French colonies. So all of these African and Indian peoples. There's a, there's a lot of history there, and that history is getting more and more and more distant, but the ripple effects of these choices, they don't just disappear just because we've gone into a new generation. So I do wonder, what, what responsibility do we have to countries that are in desperate straits, and when does that responsibility end? If you can tie it back to, in this case, a decade in which I lived, I'm not that old.

Aimee Delamore:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That is, that is a problem. That is way, way, way above my pay grade. I'm not smart enough to determine whether there is a statute of limitations on reparations for, you know, for things like that or not. Uh, but fun fact, before I forget, New York was a Dutch colony

Rebecca West:

Yes it was. It was new Amsterdam. Yes.

Aimee Delamore:

and they turned out okay, Rebecca, so.

Rebecca West:

These are the questions, what we were talking about earlier, silver linings, bad situations. You know what leads to what? There's no, there's no easy way to untangle it, especially'cause we've met our 25 minute limit on this podcast recording,

Aimee Delamore:

Yes, we're trying really, really hard to keep it at a short and sweet length. And so we've set a timer for ourselves to re us in.

Rebecca West:

We could talk about it ad nauseum for three hours and we wouldn't get any further. But I do think these are important things to ask ourselves. And if you're going to be an expat. Start asking yourself these questions. Be ready to not be special and be ready to have a lot of questions that you can't answer and you have no control over, and you may get shipped back to your country. I could in fact get shipped back to my country. I have no right to stay here and I need to recognize that as simply a fact

Aimee Delamore:

Yeah, exactly. Honestly, I think if if more of us approached more situations in our lives as though just because I'm alive doesn't mean I deserve. Anything. Life is not fair. Life is not always kind. And if you walk around thinking that life should be treating you some kind of way, you're setting yourself up for quite a bit of self-induced misery.

Rebecca West:

And that is such an American trait. As global and worldly and culturally sensitive as I do like to think I am and I try to be. I know I came here with a lot of that, like the lack of French that I moved here with, the fact that I didn't think I would need a permanent address. There's quite a bit of hubris in that when you really look back at it, and I, I'm gonna go ahead and own it, wish I'd known better, but the only way we can learn better is by being willing to go be a jerk in somebody else's country and figure it out, or listen to our podcast because we can figure out some of these things for you.

Aimee Delamore:

We will be jerks so you don't have to.

Rebecca West:

There you go. Well, friends, I hope I have news to share with you in our next recordings, and I hope I get to stay in France.

Aimee Delamore:

Until next time, folks, ASTO.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Bonjhola. If you did, the best thing you can do is share it with another person, brave enough to move abroad. See you next time.