Thursday, May 22, 2014

This US immigration application is amazing

Thanks to Internet communicant LSUcaligrl I have been alerted to the existence of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Form I-485, "Application to Become a Real American And Quit Living in This Filthy Hellhole I Call a Country" oh wait no it's actually "Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status" but same diff really.  This is what you fill out to live here.

Obviously, we only want the Good and True to hang out with, so the questions on this form are CAREFULLY DESIGNED  to weed out Bad People and Undesirables.  How do we do that?  With the HONOR SYSTEM.

Page 3:


It's the world's worst game of "I Never"!  In the past 10 years, have you ever been a prostitute or procured anyone for prostitution?  DRINK!  Apparently, if you did a little hooking 11 years ago, we're cool, but that $50 BJ in '05 will keep you right the fuck out of USA.

Page 4 gets even weirder:


Do you intend to engage in a little espionage or maybe overthrow the government?  BZZZZT SORRY NOT THE COUNTRY FOR YOU.  There is something so wholesome and aw shucks gee whiz about these questions.  I know it's a formality and they probably use it to also charge you with perjury if you say "no" and then later espionage against the US, but I love the unspoken assumption that some chucklehead applying to live here will go "Shit, I DO intend to do a little espionaging," and check "YES."

Also, this form clearly hasn't been updated since 1955 what with the "Are you a Communist" question instead of "Are you whatever the Westboro Baptist Church people are."  Also, were you a Nazi?

Question 13: Do you plan to practice polygamy? If so, do you have contacts in the reality show production industry?

So let this be a lesson to you Communists, Nazis, weapon traffickers, people who have "called for" "severely injuring any person," labor camp servers, and people who have gotten weapons training: MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

8 comments:

Lisa said...

The communist thing kills me. Didn't we decide a long time ago that that's just a political affiliation?

The phrasing in 15(a) also bothers me. If you're a member of FARC, the Taliban, or the RCMP, they're treated the same. Wut?

Also note that a yes answer won't necessarily bar you from entry. Welcome, Congolese warlord!

And finally: this is just one of many steps. The instruction page for this form is longer, and has more requirements, than this sheet. And this is expensive. I honestly don't know how people with limited understanding of our language do this.

GG said...

I want to know if anyone has ever gotten this far in the process and then admitted to committing genocide by checking a box on this form.

TK said...

Lisa - It's actually probably designed to keep people with limited language skills out.

GG - C'mon, who hasn't done a little genociding? We were all kids once.

Tamagosan said...

Having been an alien in a few countries (France, where they take paperwork to an art form, and Germany, where they have to let Amercians in because WWII), what I hear from folks trying to come to the US takes the cake. We are SO good at making people jump through hoops for no reason.

Here at Ye Olde Translation Agency, I see some cool language stuff, like ancient Afghan birth certificates with approximate birth dates and classifications of eyebrow separation along with hair and eye colors, the entire gamut of overly ornate Soviet booklet diplomas, and so on. USCIS loves to ask people to translate certificates that are clearly in English, too. Those people all get a steep discount because I'm a bleeding heart...

TK said...

Tam - I have always maintained that eyebrow separation should be on our birth certificates too. I mean, how is it not already?

velouria said...

Just went through this myself (I'm Canadian, my husband is a US citizen). In addition to being completely fucking baffled by both of these pages when I filled them out, our immigration officer also repeated a smattering of questions at our in person interview. My husband, who hadn't seen the questions before, was so startled by some of them that he paused before answering "no" - causing suspicion. When she asked why he hesitated he said it was because the question sounded like the plot of a juicy Michael Bay thriller, not an application to adjust immigration status.

velouria said...

Also, PINK and MAROON are options for eye colour on one of the forms: http://cl.ly/image/0s250U0F081J/Photo_by_parnissia.jpg

Rachel said...

Making me laugh at work, thanks a bunch, TK.