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dear republicans:
Feb. 9th, 2011 10:59 pmYou seem to - after carefully checking your territory to make sure that everyone presently in it is the same colour as you - take pleasure in making jokes about what colour your president is. It is heartening to know that you don't have any real political positions, or genuine complaints with the world at present, but are instead exactly like what you've been being caricatured as for the last howeverlong; a bunch of backward, hateful racists.
(I am sat here quietly learning about your culture. I'll absorb whatever you wish to tell me. And this is what you are choosing to tell me of yourselves? k.)
And at work two days ago, I spoke to a man whose card had lapsed; under the Orwellian auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, permanent residency remains a permanent status, but the documents that confirm it have a shelflife. His GA state ID was three years past its renewal date. He couldn't get a new one. He'd sent in the forms - late, I gathered, because he lost the original card (it's preferred that you stop using it as a form of identification once you have a state ID card, but getting one depends on having a residents card), and they hadn't sent him his new card yet. They were dragging their feet. I wondered if they were pressing him for more money. They always want money.
I checked up on how this workplace usually handled this issue; by entering fake expiry dates into our software. (The same goes for old-style residents cards; as they don't have expiry dates because permanent residency is fucking permanent, when presented with one as a form of ID one often has to invent a fictitious expiry date just to get all the boxes ticked.) Lacking documents, one is reliant on human decency. I think I indicated above, it's in fucking short supply around here.
We didn't share a common language, and were speaking via his citizen wife. Just a common situation; I showed him my card, which expires a few months. What do you do to get a new one? You pay. You pay almost $600 even if you do fill in all the right forms at the right time, because immigrants are supposed to fund USCIS's activities under the DHS, to make sure other people get paid 5x what we earn, to put pretty holograms on our new residents cards, to 'enforce', ie, deport others of our kind (the Obama administration has been deporting at a faster rate than any other ever - mostly people who've fallen victim to the war on drugs).
Our status as lawful permanent residents, our all-important-for-the-homophobes-told-us-so green-card marriages, our families, our ability to legally earn a living or drive a car both of which are also said to be important hereabouts - fuck that, what they want is the protection money. Fucking lol.
(I am sat here quietly learning about your culture. I'll absorb whatever you wish to tell me. And this is what you are choosing to tell me of yourselves? k.)
And at work two days ago, I spoke to a man whose card had lapsed; under the Orwellian auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, permanent residency remains a permanent status, but the documents that confirm it have a shelflife. His GA state ID was three years past its renewal date. He couldn't get a new one. He'd sent in the forms - late, I gathered, because he lost the original card (it's preferred that you stop using it as a form of identification once you have a state ID card, but getting one depends on having a residents card), and they hadn't sent him his new card yet. They were dragging their feet. I wondered if they were pressing him for more money. They always want money.
I checked up on how this workplace usually handled this issue; by entering fake expiry dates into our software. (The same goes for old-style residents cards; as they don't have expiry dates because permanent residency is fucking permanent, when presented with one as a form of ID one often has to invent a fictitious expiry date just to get all the boxes ticked.) Lacking documents, one is reliant on human decency. I think I indicated above, it's in fucking short supply around here.
We didn't share a common language, and were speaking via his citizen wife. Just a common situation; I showed him my card, which expires a few months. What do you do to get a new one? You pay. You pay almost $600 even if you do fill in all the right forms at the right time, because immigrants are supposed to fund USCIS's activities under the DHS, to make sure other people get paid 5x what we earn, to put pretty holograms on our new residents cards, to 'enforce', ie, deport others of our kind (the Obama administration has been deporting at a faster rate than any other ever - mostly people who've fallen victim to the war on drugs).
Our status as lawful permanent residents, our all-important-for-the-homophobes-told-us-so green-card marriages, our families, our ability to legally earn a living or drive a car both of which are also said to be important hereabouts - fuck that, what they want is the protection money. Fucking lol.
