GG70: A Consummating Professional

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:01 Clip: All rise. Court is now in session. Court is reconvened. I may be seated. Maintain order. The federal rise to face the jury and harken to its verdicts.

0:00:25 Thomas: Gavel Gavel heads. How you doing? I'm Thomas. That over there is Lydia. How are you doing

0:00:29 Lydia: I am doing pretty well. I will say, when you asked the gavelheads how they were doing first, at first I thought you were going to ask me. Yeah, exactly. I was like, I opened my mouth to respond and I was Like, he's not talking to me. I have to wait my turn.

0:00:33 Thomas: There? We're co -hosts. Yeah. I'm opening up our marriage to the gavelheads. Yeah, you know, we're just the gavelheads are in this marriage too. So yeah, that's, I mean, it's going to get me kicked out of the country, but it's the truth.

0:00:48 Lydia: Yeah. Okay. I'll allow it. Yeah? I don't think USCIS will allow it, but I'll Allow it.

0:00:58 Thomas: What does that cop show have to do with

0:01:00 Lydia: USCIS, isn't that the name? That's the acronym.

0:01:00 Thomas: This? It probably is. I'm making a joke because I don't know what that is, but you should never think that you got something wrong and I got something.

0:01:08 Lydia: Customs and Immigration. Okay, fair.

0:01:13 Thomas: It's the one with the glasses. I don' t know why. And he goes, wow.

0:01:15 Lydia: CSI. Nope.

0:01:16 Thomas: Yeah. That's what you said.

0:01:20 Lydia: It's not. Oh, boy.

0:01:20 Thomas: This is why our interview didn't go. Sorry. I say our. This is why my interview didn' t go well. But what did go really well was this part three about, about consummating marriages and other things. A lot of fun.

0:01:33 Lydia: You know yeah depressing creepy but also so interesting so absolutely interesting and and really like I don't know I yeah I walked away from this one feeling like I learned a lot feeling emboldened in some ways also to like areas of justice

0:01:50 Thomas: Oh, just rub it in that you've heard it and they haven't. You're just so superior right now.

0:01:52 Lydia: Well you know maybe maybe I am and you you know who else has heard this early

0:01:58 Thomas: Okay, that's true. They already heard us do this ahead of when we did it. I also am excited for a new thing to enter the lexicon that I'll hopefully see as a patron name someday. I'm not going to say what. We'll see. That could be so many things. Lydia is not a fan. Man. Um, anyway, uh, we're going, so we left off and Matt was telling us about some bad agents, you know, is that what they're, whoever does the thing, the immigration agents that do the thing. We're also going to talk about, I asked him about some good ones. I'm about to ask him about some kind of where we leftoff and we're gonna hear more stories of how that goes and then get into the, the other things we've been talking about, the consummation and other stuff. So lots of fun. We'll have the talk with y 'all. It's about time that we had that time. So lots Lots of fun. Thanks so much, patrons.

0:02:02 Lydia: Patrons oh yeah I don't remember what it is yes the sex talk yeah the birds and the bees yep we've waited too long

0:02:46 Thomas: We love you. Avoid the ads. patreon.com/seriouspod. Everybody else, you would have gotten this early and no ads. And now we give you part three. The final part of this one. Don't worry. It's not stretching to a million. We took a nice little fun break and I liked it. I enjoyed it. I needed it.

0:03:00 Lydia: Yes well back to our

0:03:00 Thomas: And then we'll be back to sandwich throwing. Be back to finishing each other's sandwich trials.

0:03:12 Thomas: And I'm sure you get the odd one that's like, great, right?

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0:03:16 Thomas: Some like good people that do this job and must be nice.

0:03:18 Matt: And some of them, they're coming from backgrounds where they're already pretty good at reading people. Most of them are not lawyers, but they're generally pretty good with people. And I really appreciate it when they can just sit down with somebody and be comfortable and warm, and you can get so much more out of people when you're just like, hey, how'd you meet? And then just kind of laughing along with their stories and genuinely enjoying doing it like an interview, actually like a podcast interview. Of view.

0:03:31 Thomas: Mm -hm. Mm -hum. Yeah. But you're going to be a self -selected thing, because like you say, you're not in there scamming McScamerson trying to do. So I have to imagine there's like an evil universe, Matt, or not even evil, but like just somebody who's like maybe taking more questionable clients. Maybe they have a different experience, I guess.

0:03:51 Matt: Or people don't have lawyers. I mean, I've heard it can get pretty rough without a lawyer in the room, even for good cases. And there are all kinds of ways that things can start to go off the rails if the officer starts to get on to like an inkling of something that maybe you're trying to cover up.

0:03:52 Lydia: Sandwiches oh yeah

0:04:04 Matt: And I had originally proposed as a fact here as a secret fact that you'd worked for Lydia's cousin at some point and didn't want, neither of you wanted to mention this because you didn't wanna get him in trouble.

0:04:11 Thomas: You did do that one. There was a different one you left out, I think.

0:04:13 Matt: I did eventually ask you, but I didn't make a thing of it.

0:04:16 Thomas: Oh, maybe you didn't ask Lydia it or something. Oh, OK.

0:04:19 Matt: Yeah, I was just kind of flagging that as the kind of thing, right? Of like it's, it's good intentioned. It's well -meaning. You don't want to get your cousin in trouble, but nobody cares. Like nobody's actually going to go prosecute your cousin for that. They just want to know where you're, where you were working and it's all excused. So you can just say, but I've had people get into real problems when they start to, for good reasons, start to cover something up or don't Want to talk about something embarrassing or, you know, you don't, your, your wife doesn't know that you actually were picked up for soliciting a sex worker 10 years ago. Right. I mean, these things happen and I try to make sure that there's no surprises at the interview, but I often have to take people at their word if they've lived in a we're not going to do background checks on all of them necessarily but if I think somebody's been arrested more than once I'll always just do an fbi background check that doesn't catch necessarily everything oh it's pretty easy to do just through the post office you can just do the same one that the fbi does um with their signed permission you can um yeah you can run one for them and then if they've only lived in massachusetts I'll just run a state check here you know people are often for plenty of reasons that we can understand not very honest about their records or they genuinely think I don't have to tell my lawyer about that because because it was dismissed.

0:04:39 Thomas: How do you do an FBI background check? You're allowed to do that?

0:05:06 Thomas: Wait, you can as a lawyer or anyone can do this? Okay so

0:05:22 Matt: And you do, because, you know, if you've had a bunch of the same kinds of cases dismissed, they do care. They're not supposed to care, but you have to account for every contact you've Had with the system at all, no matter what happened. And I understand why people think you don't, if it's been dismissed, but You do. So these are things that trip people up. There's also the fact that, uh, I was going to try to set this up a little bit more because I had kind of a strange thing this morning, but I was on my mind, but this doesn't really apply because in this scenario, you're coming on a student visa, but if you were just coming and going over the Canadian border, which is very easy for Canadians to do because of NAFTA, but you still have to check at the border, obviously. And if you were coming and going and you were living in Canada and you're coming to visit Lydia, at some point, there'd be a question of what is your intent here?

0:05:30 Lydia: Yeah that

0:05:59 Matt: Are you at some time, if you do overstay the 90 days you're supposed to be here, did you come to the United States intending to remain and get married and become an immigrant? And as a student, it doesn't matter because you're a dual intent immigrant, non -immigrant and immigrant at the same time. You're allowed to change status because we assume assume that people will come here and get jobs and get married potentially. We want to keep that option open for them. But if you come on a tourist visa, you're just supposed to be visiting. So that's different. And we want to ask a lot of questions about what your intentions were when you came in. That's another big thing that comes up a lot. Also, unfortunately, people on their visa applications will be told to put things down or other people fill them out. And a lot of times to get a tourist Visa, people will be tell them that you are married because then you have a reason to come back. Because for a tourist visit, you have to be able to show that you you are going to come back to the country that you're in. So you want to make sure, especially if it's a country that has a high denial rate.

0:06:48 Thomas: Tell your previous country that you're married

0:06:49 Matt: Do you tell the US consulate when you're going in for your interview for the tourist visa? Right. Right. Exactly.

0:06:52 Lydia: Married so there's a reason that youre going to leave to return to your spouse yeah yeah

0:06:54 Thomas: Oh yeah yeah yeah sorry yeah yeah yep

0:06:54 Matt: And also that maybe you have a good paying job, but you can show that you have reason to come back. You're just on leave for a couple of weeks or whatever. So there's all kinds of things that come up.

0:07:03 Thomas: And so they do that not thinking one day they you

0:07:08 Lydia: Might fall in love with somebody actually in america yeah

0:07:08 Matt: Yes. Yeah. Right, and have to be confronted by that. And then honestly, it gets really bad when they're trying to cover up the fact they're coming to visit the person they're going to marry.

0:07:08 Thomas: Know yeah yeah

0:07:18 Matt: So they don't put that person as their contact or whatever. So there's just a lot of different ways that things that happened 15 years ago can trip you up. There are waivers available potentially for those kinds of things, but it's case by case.

0:07:18 Thomas: Oh

0:07:29 Matt: So you really got to try to tell the system the truth at all times. It is very important.

0:07:29 Thomas: Wow this just seems like so much wasted energy you know like I know that we need we need some level of immigration of course like some level of enforcement of stuff but like man it's a lot of effort you know

0:07:36 Matt: A lot of it. It isn't. And the longest marriage interview I've had was five hours.

0:07:47 Thomas: Five hours this this felt like five hours

0:07:49 Matt: Yep. Did not stop for lunch. Yeah. You Yeah. You just want to get out of there. Yeah. No. And honestly, I mean, we were also role -playing a white Canadian, right?

0:07:51 Lydia: Wow I felt like I could keep going I don't know for me I was like yeah keep asking me questions matt yeah no no 100 yeah

0:07:54 Thomas: Well yeah I mean but imagine if you were actually stressed about it I think it would be pretty bad yeah

0:08:06 Matt: So that's as easy as it gets. It's a different system than somebody from Nigeria, Kenya, right, who they can't even get immigrant visas for the most part. They still can through marriage. But right now, there's a visa pause in a lot of countries because of racism. A lot of companies don't want people from. That was pretty accurate length of time, I think, for white Canadian. It would have been a lot shorter in this real scenario because you have such established bona fides and you've been together for so long. If this is a green card marriage, you just forgot to do it. You forgot to get around to filing for them because it's pretty weird.

0:08:35 Thomas: Yeah because that's the main purpose of this one is just like if the marriage is real but then also So if there's other weird stuff, Hmm.

0:08:46 Matt: So I should have mentioned before, it's always two interviews combined. You're doing the visa interview first and then we moved on to the residency interview and that's when you get all those weird questions. And that's what we try to determine your fitness as an immigrant, your admissibility. The first part is often no trouble, but then there's all all kinds of other issues. One other thing that comes up a lot is if you previously engaged in anything that looks like marriage fraud. If you had a bad interview when you were a teenager, you got married and came in with somebody, and it happens sometimes. Yeah, that's happened.

0:09:13 Thomas: Like it didn't take, they're like, ah, I wonder if you quit them. Hey, uh, this marriage isn't going to work out because we couldn't pass our marriage interview. You're just like, guess we're getting, not getting together. Wow. Jeez. Yeah. Actually you should have married the immigration attorney there. It's a, it's a rom -com, you know, that's, that's who you really hit it off with. Yeah, they

0:09:23 Matt: It might be a sign. Maybe you shouldn't be together. Yeah.

0:09:33 Lydia: Yeah. The next Hallmark Channel movie.

0:09:38 Thomas: Start taking your side in all the the arguments that like you know like your spouse doesn't know something how do you not know you know I would know I wouldn't know if this bombshell if this knockout went to the grand canyon with me I would have remembered forever yeah and

0:09:54 Matt: You break up My partners a while back actually told me she's from another country and she went through the marriage visa process and her lawyer hit on her within five minutes of their first meeting in front of her husband.

0:10:05 Lydia: Wow. Wow. That's crazy.

0:10:06 Matt: Yeah, no, that wasn't me, but it is somebody I'm aware of. And I just thought that was quite a story. She thought it was funny. I don't think that's funny, but you know, might as well laugh. But yeah, if you engage in anything that looks like marriage fraud, and again, that could be that there was a finding at some point that it's more likely than not that you got married for immigration purposes. That has become very strict. And that one is a lifetime permanent bar from any immigrant visa, which means that your child can't sponsor you in the future if there's ever been a finding. And those are my least favorite cases. Those are really tough because you can imagine desperate situations where people don't want to go back. They don't really have enough for an asylum claim, but there's a good reason they don't wanna go back

0:10:04 Thomas: It was matt the

0:10:42 Matt: And somebody offers and they pay the money or they get arranged to a church group or whatever, some crooked pastor will do it and it happens.

0:10:49 Lydia: And then it gets found out.

0:10:51 Matt: And the system's very aware of, especially the the rings that are doing this. They kind of track them. And they have histories that they'll use the same medical exam. They'll use same doctor to do the medical exam, they'll use the same notario to do that translations, a notary rather. So they can start to flag fake cases.

0:11:06 Thomas: And what's the medical exam what is that

0:11:07 Matt: Or, you know, if you clearly, oh yeah, we didn't talk about it. Now, I didn't raise anything that would be an issue in your medical exam, but you have to make sure you don't have a Class A medical condition, you don't an active case of tuberculosis, a mental health condition, like psychosis, schizophrenia.

0:11:16 Thomas: Uh you can't have cooties I'm just trying to think what the marriage one is

0:11:23 Lydia: You can't have a mental health condition.

0:11:25 Matt: Not a really serious untreated one. If you're in treatment, it's okay. You can't have a current substance abuse addiction problem. It has to be rehabilitated or in treatment. I have an explanation. So it's really the doctor is going to ask you at the interview, at the medical exam, if you are currently. But the thing is, if you've had three drunk driving cases in the last year, then they can certainly ask a lot of questions about your alcohol use. And maybe it's because your mom just died and you're going through a really bad time. Maybe it's because you're actually an alcoholic. It could really go either way.

0:11:34 Thomas: How do they define that hmm sure yeah I mean fair enough yeah I wouldn't want I mean I'm not a huge on immigration restrictions but yeah drunk driving is bad and I'm that upset if we don't let drunk drivers in the country yeah yeah whereas like some other dumb shit is inadmissible right yeah oh but dui isn't come

0:11:58 Matt: Yeah. But it's not inadmissible. It's not admissible. Like, there's no... Yep. Right. Like I said, cocaine possession, permanent lifetime ban. Possession. Nope. Not

0:12:10 Thomas: On like again it's like we can agree or disagree on like the level of scrutiny we should be putting on stuff but like the priority is where you're like are you crazy like a DUI is so much more harmful than

0:12:11 Lydia: That's crazy. Yeah.

0:12:11 Matt: Even anything. Not even a waiver. Yeah. Yeah? Yep.

0:12:23 Thomas: Just recreational yeah wow that's crazy

0:12:24 Lydia: To your existing citizenship. Right. Like, I mean, yeah.

0:12:27 Matt: Yeah, and it's a choice that you make. And I mean, I know what you're saying. I don't think there's always explanations. Things happen. Sometimes there just isn't an explanation. But, you know, it's just amazing to me that I've got... I've worked with people that have a blood alcohol content of like 0 .25 or whatever, right? Just like ridiculous amounts of alcohol in their blood. And that doesn't... Yeah, right. No, just in the police report.

0:12:44 Thomas: Just like day -to -day you're working with yeah oh gotcha

0:12:50 Matt: And they chose to drive in that state. And somebody who's convicted for cocaine possession, which means you probably had a problem. There's a good chance if you're convicted of a drug possession offense, you probably at some point were suffering from addiction. So we're going to punish you for that even if you've been rehabilitated with no waiver. You can get a waiver for domestic violence.

0:13:07 Matt: I mean, that's the state of things, right? I mean...

0:13:07 Thomas: My god you're totally right I mean you really the theme is you really can tell a lot about the country and its priorities in different times too like throughout history that that's a fascinating that'd be cool to do a whole like history class on that like you're saying yeah that's that's so interesting

0:13:11 Matt: So messed up. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love teaching the history of this. Yeah. There's plenty more to talk about. Yeah it's great. I mean, it's awful, but it's, I think people need to know that we have a system in which we're going to punish you for the rest of your life for an addiction, which you've sensory habilitated, but we can take a look at you maybe if you've had multiple relationships where you've actually physically abused your partner.

0:13:40 Matt: I mean, you're probably not going to get that waiver if there's proof that you've done it to different people more than once.

0:13:43 Thomas: Well forgive you for beating your wife but are you chinese yeah

0:13:47 Matt: Right. Yeah did you do it while Chinese? Yeah. You know, if you're just like a regular white rich guy beating his wife, then you know, maybe we can look the other way, but yeah, yeah, exactly.

0:13:52 Thomas: Yeah of course right this way senator yeah I know that's

0:13:57 Matt: A couple of legal issues that we haven't talked about yet that came up in your interview. So we had put together this fact pattern about your divorce not quite being final at the time that you remarried. There is a requirement in immigration.

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0:14:08 Thomas: The marriage police least jesus what is that hold on we gotta wow maybe wait that one out like you guys gotta get back to work

0:14:11 Matt: They're coming for us. Wow. You know, the construction had just stopped and this is what happens. That is just, yeah.

0:14:22 Matt: So there's a requirement under immigration law that you have to be free to marry. And the thing that is really obnoxious about this is that you would think the people who would determine whether or not you're free to marriage would be, you know, the clerk when you go to get married. USCIS knows better.

0:14:32 Thomas: Yeah are you does this mean like in a jasmine from aladdin sense or like what's I don't know who's what's free to marry

0:14:43 Matt: If your divorce is not final in a way that they like at the time that you got remarried. So basically, and you know it's true that the clerks often don't ask a lot of questions if you're presenting a divorce certificate. Or sometimes people don't even mention they were married before. Some clerks are pretty lax about this. But you know obviously it's bigamy if you get married while you're still married.

0:14:47 Thomas: Me oh god

0:14:59 Lydia: I'm trying to remember were we asked about that as part probably it was probably a question in

0:15:05 Thomas: I have no memory I remember the room but I don'T remember

0:15:05 Matt: I would think.

0:15:05 Lydia: Like the paperwork that we did yeah I remember the

0:15:08 Thomas: Remember anything. What our name?

0:15:08 Lydia: Room and I remember like typing out what our name was gonna be that's all I remember yeah yeah exactly

0:15:13 Thomas: We have one name.

0:15:12 Matt: I mean, they ask you which marriage it is, right?

0:15:19 Thomas: Oh yeah.

0:15:19 Matt: And they rely on you to self -report. Because obviously, if you were married in Alaska, there's no way they could know that. There's no national marriage registry. So people, I'm sure, have lied about it all the time.

0:15:24 Thomas: Wow. We'll probably have that before we have a gun registry though.

0:15:31 Lydia: And you know What's funny is who's probably going to be behind a national marriage registry is going to be like the Mormons, right? Because they're the ones that track everybody after they've died. Yeah.

0:15:37 Matt: Yeah totally. The care. That's right.

0:15:39 Thomas: Or it'll be the Christians that are like making sure everyone's not being a Christian, you know,

0:15:44 Matt: Yeah yeah. So it gets messy because if you didn't realize it, if he got married during what they call the Nisi period here. I think it's called something else in many other places, but essentially the temporary period that has to expire before it's a final divorce, they will actually make you get divorced and get remarried. It's really messy. And if they decide that your divorce in Brazil or the Dominican Republic or whatever is against public policy and it's too easy to get divorced, because there's famously, there used to be something called a Dominican divorce.

0:15:50 Thomas: Against public policy. The country needs you to be married. Yeah.

0:16:11 Matt: It feels very overbearing, very paternalistic. And honestly, in many cases, racist of like your country's divorce wasn't good enough.

0:16:15 Thomas: Lydia, close your ears. I don't even care about my marriage this much. Why do they care about my marriage so much? Anyway, Lydia, you can listen now.

0:16:25 Matt: It's a great way to deny a visa. Yeah.

0:16:27 Lydia: Thank you. Yeah, you said there's like, they call it a Dominican marriage, like a phrase for it?

0:16:33 Matt: Dominican divorce.

0:16:34 Lydia: Dominican divorce. Okay.

0:16:34 Matt: Yeah, that used to be a thing where, so, you know, under family law, you have to have jurisdiction, proper jurisdiction for a divorce to be recognized, right? And if you have lived, for example, in Massachusetts for more than six months in marital union, and the cause for divorce happened in Massachusetts, you're supposed to get divorced in Massachusetts even if you got married in brazil that is not something that most people think

0:16:35 Thomas: What? Oh, man. There should be a comedy that is, like, instead of the classic thing they did with the police where the criminal's, like on the other side of the state lines, you know, well, we can't do anything. He's right there. You know, do somebody who doesn't want to get a divorce be like, can't divorce me over here. We're at the, we went to that four corners thing, whatever those states are. And then it's like jumping around the corner.

0:17:07 Lydia: Yeah. It's not your jurisdiction. Yeah. Was it Arizona?

0:17:14 Thomas: Not in the same state, not in the same state.

0:17:17 Lydia: Arizona, New Mexico? Colorado?

0:17:19 Thomas: Yeah, Texas, Australia. I don't know.

0:17:09 Matt: Of that's right yeah that's right

0:17:20 Lydia: No, it's not Texas.

0:17:23 Thomas: Tennessee.

0:17:21 Matt: A really common fact pattern I've seen is that you know people would assume you know I got married in Brazil I'll get divorced in Brazil right you would think you wouldn't think you'd have to do it in Massachusetts but so they'll hire Brazilian lawyers

0:17:33 Lydia: I don't know. That seems like a pain, though. I feel like I wouldn't want to have to get on a plane to go get divorced. Let me just do it wherever I'm at.

0:17:35 Matt: It is well

0:17:39 Thomas: If you need a divorce, you need to divorce in every state and jurisdiction. There's not like, well, we're pretty happy when we're over here, but like just we got to go back to where we're unhappy because that's where the divorce will take.

0:17:43 Matt: It yeah just right that's it the cause for divorce yes when you isolate the exact metaphysical moment when you were divorced in your mind. Yeah. Oh, USCIS officers do. Let me tell you. It is so obnoxious because again, as far as I'm concerned, these people don't want to be married anymore. They got divorced in Brazil. Who cares, right? But the argument actually mentioned Lydia jumping on a plane. You can in Brazil, you can't do this in a lot of other places, but you can get divorced without being in the country. So you can hire lawyers and have them do it in absentia basically, as long as you both get notarized statements. And that's part of the problem for USCIS is like, like, well, I see you have a Brazilian divorce. That's against our public policy because we don't think that people should get divorced when they're not in the same place. And who cares, USCIS?

0:17:58 Lydia: Yeah. Wow yeah oh wow

0:17:59 Thomas: This is weird. Who has time to think of all this huh I

0:18:36 Lydia: Weird more

0:18:36 Matt: Like, it's good enough for Brazil. It's an entire country that does it that way.

0:18:40 Thomas: Get that you can't get married in different places because then you're supposed to be together but I would say being in differentplaces is even more divorced like that yeah that's like if you're you guys got together to get divorced I don't even believe it why would you

0:18:47 Lydia: Evidence that you actually are divorced yeah

0:18:52 Thomas: Get together you know ah

0:18:54 Matt: Well, actually, it is funny you say that because getting married to different places is our next topic. We'll get there in a minute. But the divorce thing, though, I mean, it just kills me because the amount of effort that you're now talking about because of some paperwork, essentially, that you thought was fine from your country, right? Now, I get it under Sharia law, you can say, I divorce you three times and you're divorced. That's the law.

0:19:11 Thomas: Oh we got married under sharia law shit we shouldn't have done that but you know it's a different time they're talking about like oh sharia laws taking taken over and we're like what's the sharia law thing yeah that seems cool we like being the woke nightmare that everybody that the the right thinks we

0:19:19 Lydia: Just get ahead of the curve yeah yeah trendsetters like beetlejuice

0:19:20 Matt: Right. That is against public

0:19:31 Thomas: Are oh wow yeah

0:19:38 Matt: Policy because generally in every state in America, you have to write it down. I get that. And it's way too easy to just say, yeah, well, I said those things, right? So now we're divorced.

0:19:43 Lydia: Beetlejuicetelejuice

0:19:39 Thomas: To be fair I'd have to write it down otherwise I'd forget we were divorced

0:19:48 Lydia: Yeah there would be a paper trail for thomas for

0:19:49 Thomas: Like shit weren't we were we no okay I guess we were still together

0:19:53 Matt: The idea though, that we just don't like the way that your country handles divorce on paper and there's no federal policy for what marriage is supposed to look like.

0:19:59 Thomas: What is the what needs to be handled I don't like

0:20:02 Lydia: I don't want to be with them

0:20:04 Thomas: We are two people who don't want to be together there's not a lot of science to that like what geez

0:20:06 Matt: Yeah, exactly. Right, right. It's not that complicated. I know. I know. And it's like, you can't get married federally. So what do they care? Like there's no standard for it. Obviously there was the other thing I want to talk about very quickly as we move on here is same sex marriages, obviously not a factor here, but a fun I've I've ever had in my career was the year that Windsor came down. In 2013 was the year that the Defense of Marriage Act was finally struck down because for years and years, I'd been working with couples, with people that had been together forever, like decades, and could not get married. And it's really frustrating to watch kids who just met in college after a semester getting married, right? And then these people who've been living together, sharing their lives, have kids and houses together, can't get married and sponsor the other person. You've got people married, right? It's just, it's ridiculous. So I had so much fun. We had such a good time. I love working with the queer community and I always have. And we just had the best time for a whole summer, like the summer of love, basically, of all these couples coming in and doing their marriage visas after all this time. Just so rewarding.

0:20:17 Lydia: Anymore yeah

0:20:35 Thomas: Yeah ridiculous huh

0:20:35 Lydia: Okay that's yeah

0:21:06 Matt: As it is, I will say that I think USCIS has handled same -sex marriage very well. I know someone who was in the room when they're having these conversations and someone actually raised their hand and was like, well, how are we supposed to know if two gay people are married? And the supervisor looked at him and was Like, how do do you usually do it?

0:21:23 Matt: How do you know that two straight people are married?

0:21:23 Thomas: That's yeah you make them one be the boy and one be the girl right in front of you I don't know what

0:21:26 Matt: I mean,

0:21:25 Lydia: Copulate you like you would do with every relationship yeah weird

0:21:32 Thomas: They're standing next to each other. I don't know. What, what do you even need?

0:21:36 Matt: All the questions.

0:21:36 Lydia: Are they holding hands like interlacing fingers or are they holding hands, like cupping them. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:21:39 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah. The more, yeah. The more platonic version. That's a big tell.

0:21:45 Matt: Presumably all the questions I asked you guys could be asked of two men or two women together or two people of any gender. So yeah, that's an interesting little detail that doesn't apply here. The other thing I want to talk about was, so Thomas mentioned proxy marriage is essentially a marriage where you have somebody standing in for the other person who is usually into proxy marriage is going to be for someone who's deployed overseas. And you can imagine this circumstance. And this is, there was a really unfortunate case that it worked out in the end, but there was, I remember this from 2002, Hataru Fershki, I just looked her up. This man was just finding out he was going to being deployed to a combat zone in Iraq. And so he married his longtime girlfriend with whom he had a child and she's from Japan. And they did a proxy marriage, which is pretty normal in the military. And he, cause he wanted to be sure that she would get the benefits.

0:21:59 Thomas: I did. Oh. Okay. It turns out you accidentally marry whoever the proxy person was like, wait, no.

0:22:30 Matt: Yeah, that's right. I'm gay married now. Yeah.

0:22:35 Thomas: Oh no. That would be the way that you get out of it in this comedy. It'd be like, ah, and then it's like, Wait a minute. Same sex. They won't let us be married. You know, like that's, we use the bigotry against them.

0:22:44 Matt: It's invalid. That's right, that.

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0:22:53 Matt: But yeah, I mean, obviously, proxy marriages are a long standing tradition in the military for the very obvious reason that you want your family to get taken care of if it's somebody that you've been with for a while. And you just didn't get around to actually marrying them. You want you don't want to go into combat wondering if they're gonna get the benefits? So she unfortunately he did.

0:23:05 Lydia: Oh, geez.

0:23:10 Matt: He was killed in action pretty quickly after deploying. And so she's left with a one year old old child, his child, and they can't get a marriage visa because they have not consummated the marriage. Think about that, about the absurdity. This is like a bad joke. Well, I mean, they hadn't consummating the marriage because they hadn'T been in the same place. They'd been in different sides of the world. Yep. Since marriage. Nope.

0:23:19 Lydia: No way. Wow. Well, since since Since they were married. Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:21 Thomas: That is who, who, how would you know? And whose business is it? Oh, they'd never be. Oh. Cause you have to have been when you were, uh, cyber doesn't. Okay.

0:23:36 Lydia: Wow. When was this?

0:23:37 Matt: There's no exceptions. And I mean it's so stupid. So it was fixed in 2010. This all happened during the Iraq war, so presumably beginning of the the century here. But yeah, I mean, it really brought out the absurdity of it because she's literally holding his child in her arms while she's talking about this. And you're going to say they didn't consummate the marriage, right? I mean it's just so stupid. Yeah, yeah, right.

0:23:50 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. Cause I'm dumb. Yeah? No. Where do you think this thing came from? I mean, we weren't married, but like, fine, whatever.

0:23:52 Lydia: Yeah. Unbelievable. We consummated our relationship at that point, I guess. Yeah.

0:24:06 Thomas: Yeah What meaning does that have? If you do, okay. I don't know.

0:24:11 Matt: Well, you may not be surprised.

0:24:11 Lydia: All the timing about when you have sex. Yeah. That's such like an outdated sort of idea of like what actually constitutes like a real relationship.

0:24:18 Thomas: If anything, if you have sex and have a kid and then make the decision to get married after that, you should be more married. That counts more than if you do the stupid stereotypical Christian thing of like, you're a virgin and then you get married. You're not married. If you're virgin and you get married, sorry, this is me. This is my rules, Thomas world. If U2 are virgins, when you get married, you are not married yet until you have had sex. That's my new regime because you don't don't even know about each other but these people had a baby before they got married come on oh

0:24:26 Matt: That's right. That' right. Bigger commitment.

0:24:47 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:48 Matt: Yeah, no. But you won't be surprised to learn the origin, like pretty much everything we're talking about, the origin is 19th century racism, because there was this concept of picture brides that men, Japanese and Chinese laborers would, because they weren't allowed to bring women and because basically they already excluded almost all Chinese women because they assumed they were sex workers.

0:25:10 Matt: And sex work, as we discussed before, was one of the original bars to coming to the country. And so they would have this sort of picture bride system, which is actually very much like what a lot of American men do today, where they find a woman online and like her her picture and invite her to come marry him, right? So they basically, they said, if you're going to do this and have a proxy marriage, because it was possible that they could do that at the time, you're going to have to make it real. It's not real until you get here. And so, yeah, right, exactly. It is.

0:25:32 Thomas: Right in front of me right now you guys are gonna have to make it real well so you're saying they had to be so it was like you couldn't get them to the country without having consummated and that was a way to make sure people weren't doing mail order bride stuff or am I not getting it okay so okay I think that's kind of what I'm saying

0:25:34 Lydia: God, that's so gross. That's honestly like the creepiest thing.

0:25:48 Matt: Since the proxy marriage is not the basis for a visa until you've actually met, until you, until we've been in the same room and consummated, right. Even if you've met before. Yeah. Yeah. At the port. A trailer.

0:25:55 Lydia: Do they have rooms available like like right when you get there that you can just go have sex real fast? Yeah, it's like like in prison, right? They have like those special visitation rooms.

0:25:57 Thomas: Yeah yeah probably yeah yeah

0:26:09 Matt: The consummation thing, I mean, it's kind of fun to talk about, but I mean think about Griswold v. Connecticut, right? The case where we get this idea of the right to privacy, which is about marriage, right. It was about contraception and the idea that the government shouldn't be interfering with your marriage and your decisions. And this idea that government gets to come in and say whether or not you have properly consummated your marriage can get pretty weird, as you can

0:26:28 Lydia: And I'm sorry. Like, yeah, I mean, in.

0:26:28 Thomas: Well there's the federal couch rule that they do have to sit that's why every hotel room has one actually that's you didn't know that that's where it it comes from. Federal couch law. Yeah. Yeah, it's old time. You're supposed to read the Bible while you're in the federal couch, but nobody does that anymore, like for the most part. Yeah that's right. No one even really remembers that that's where it came from, but it is. It is. Look it up.

0:26:35 Lydia: But like in this day and age, it's honestly. Yeah, every hotel room has a Gideon's Bible and the couch. Yep. Yep, standard.

0:26:52 Lydia: Yeah. It's like a weird self -flagellation sort of situation. Okay.

0:27:00 Lydia: So this is also like infuriating because, you know, the year is 2026 and sexual orientation exists on a wide spectrum. Right. So all of our asexual friends, you know, which is also a spectrum itself, there are some people who do not engage in sex. And so you are saying that that their marriage is not real because they won't do the the thing that's actually like part of their identity which is so offensive

0:27:22 Thomas: And I feel like the ultimate goal of all these white Christians is to eventually be a sexless marriage anyway. Like they should, you know, the ideal

0:27:33 Matt: Just fast forwarding to that. Yeah. Right.

0:27:34 Thomas: Is you have sex exactly the number of times that you have kids and then you never talk to each other again. That's their version of marriage. So what the hell? They're just, they should be cool with it.

0:27:38 Matt: I've always said that USCIS definition of marriage is very, it's like the most 50s white picket fence, two and a half kids, two cars. They expect it to line up with their heteronormative ideas of what marriage is. And there are a lot of ways to be married and a lot different things you can do within a marriage. And it's interesting, there's a 1968 case called Matter of Peterson that I went it back in red. And I have to wonder how these facts would be received today. But it was an 80 -year -old man who married a 53 -year old woman. And their agreement was, I need a housekeeper. And she wanted a place to live. And that was the marriage. That was the basis for the marriage,

0:27:43 Lydia: So weird yeah Oh, it's just like super transactional and stuff

0:28:15 Matt: Yeah. And the agreement was that they would not be having sex, they would be sleeping in separate places, and they would just not have a sexual relationship.

0:28:18 Thomas: So You have an employment agreement. That's not really. Oh, okay. Well, well, some, some employers and employees like each other. I don't know why this is even a marriage thing.

0:28:21 Matt: But they actually really liked each other. Yeah, basically. Well, in the 50s, that's what marriage is, right?

0:28:29 Matt: So sure. They concluded the case by saying, essentially, the reasons for the the marriage appear to be far sounder than exists for most marriages. Which, I mean, literally, you know, he's out of work and has an illness and she's taking care of him as his housekeeper. And it sounds like, you know. They actually like each other. But they said, we regard the fact that parties sleep in separate rooms that have not had sexual intercourse insignificant in view of the evidence showing that there was an intended, a valid, and lasting marital relationship, which has continued for over two years. It's very progressive of the board in 1968, actually.

0:29:00 Thomas: Great. But why is that even in a document? No, that shouldn't be anywhere near here I die we've got the court has considered whether or not they've boned and it's like what are you doing it's so funny

0:29:10 Lydia: Yeah it's honestly yeah incredibly invasive incredibly invasive like okay you're having sex what kind of sex are you having like how many times have you had yeah oh Oh,

0:29:19 Matt: Right? When is the last time? Yeah, no, no. Totally. And I will say, this has only ever come up once in a marriage interview. I'll tell you this during a moment. But generally speaking, yeah, I mean, the reason it was coming up to an appeal is because they had decided, even though there's no strict requirement for consummation, if we're not talking about a proxy marriage, this person had decided it wasn't a marriage because they both said they weren't having sex. And the Board of Immigration Appeals in 1968 disagreed with that. And I think a lot of immigration attorneys have it in their head that the marriages have to be consummated. It's not exactly true. But obviously, they do see sex as something that is in a normal relationship as they see it. And it is in the majority of marriages when they're getting started. But I will say that the one time it came up for me was there was an older man and a younger woman. There was a pretty big age gap. And, you know, it was kind of, I think, potentially a a similar arrangement where she was looking after the house and, you know, he didn't want a company. And we had two interviewers for this one. And ostensibly it was because there was a trainee and there was supervisor, but I think it was really a good cop, bad cop because the supervisor really looked like an FBI agent. Like you would think he was an FBI agency on the street. And he started doing like FBI interrogation of my client. And at one point, and my client is like a very sort of traditional macho Latino man. And, you Know, I think he's in his late seventies. And And at one point, the interviewer asks him, when did you first have sex with your wife? And the guy just, without even a pause, just shoots back, I don't know, when was the last time you fucked your wife. And it's the first time in my entire, it's my only crime that I can think of in my entire career that I actually reached over and touched my client.

0:30:54 Matt: I put my hand on his shoulder, I pulled him back a little, and I said, just take a breath. I said officer, sorry about that, can we rephrase? Because they wanted to establish that at some point, they'd actually had relations. And I had to object and say, this isn't really relevant to the fact that they're testifying about this marriage. They live together. It's not required. And I don't think that my client should have to sit here and testify about their sex lives. And they basically backed off and accepted that. I'd never had it come up before. People are always worried they're going to get asked about it. And officers have told me before that people will volunteer amateur porn just to prove it if you want to see some.

0:30:51 Thomas: What

0:31:27 Lydia: What?

0:31:27 Thomas: Oh

0:31:27 Matt: Them yeah yeah and and people I I swear people have I know more than one uscis officer and they've told me that in the packages they review sometimes people will include things they really should not be including yeah just to prove it because if they're filing without a lawyer you know they just to get creative send

0:31:39 Thomas: My god how

0:31:43 Lydia: Oh my God, what? Yeah. Let me ask these questions from my cuck chair in the hotel room. Okay, so yeah, what what in the world is the policy for like, Like, do they destroy that? Does it get filed? Like, what? I'm in shock right now.

0:31:57 Thomas: Creative these are the important questions

0:32:04 Lydia: Well, like, do they look at it? Do they, like... Like, the second they recognize what it is, do they close... Like, why? What do they do? What do you do?

0:32:02 Matt: The record I

0:32:04 Thomas: Just to get filed these are hr questions I don't know if these are like questions for matt

0:32:15 Matt: Mean

0:32:14 Lydia: I want to know if Matt knows. Yeah.

0:32:17 Matt: I don't want to pierce the veil of uscis officers office especially under these circumstances but But I will say that when you file something with USCIS, it's going to go in the record. As far as I know, they're not going to censor it or cut it out just because it's amateur porn, but it can't be FOIAed. Like nobody else is ever going to see it.

0:32:32 Lydia: That's still crazy, though.

0:32:32 Matt: So, you know, I guess there's that. Yeah.

0:32:34 Thomas: That ruins my substitute pornhub idea like if everybody just submits they're like they have to take it rule say and then it's like on a government website and we turn government them into pornhut like it's not like pornhup .gov yeah Yeah.

0:32:42 Lydia: And then we just, like have to, yeah, foia it once every month to have things released

0:32:51 Matt: Wow. That's very creative. But generally, like you should not be concerned that you're going to be asked about your sex life in a marriage interview. And of course, when you walk in with multiple birth certificates that have you listed as the parents, you're just not going be asked at all. They're going assume that that is for real and that you have consummated the marriage at least a couple of times. That's how that works. So that is just an interesting little wrinkle I think that people are often very concerned about and I get it I mean it's the government you don't want them asking about your private life I will mention too in the course of a marriage interview they have the right to ask to see your phone if they just want to look at your phone and I definitely had a situation in which I had a very attractive female client and the officer asked to look her phone and she was very uncomfortable giving it up and he was looking through her text with her boyfriend and she told me after that she was

0:32:59 Thomas: What? Wow.

0:33:33 Matt: Really uncomfortable with that given what was in their photos and text it's

0:33:35 Thomas: Why do they have the right to do that?

0:33:38 Matt: Your benefit right right? You're the one applying for it. They can use it against you if you don't want to give up your phone. And certainly she could have. And I should have, I didn't expect this because it hadn't happened in a long time. And it was really out of nowhere. It was very quick. I did kind of look at her and say, you don'T have to, but you know, she just wanted to get over with. And there was like a really uncomfortable long time where he sat there. It Was very unprofessional.

0:33:55 Matt: He definitely saw things he wasn't supposed to see. And It was just current interest. Like there couldn't have been anything else, but that's fair. That's very rare. Typically when that happens, it's they'll look at the text and it'll be the kinds of texts you would expect back and forth of like, can you grab some eggs on the way home or whatever? And obviously not every couple texts all the time, but most people do at least check in with each other by text. So you'd expect that in a regular marriage. But because you're applying for the benefit, it's not like you have to get a search warrant. They can voluntarily hand over your phone and they can take a look to see if you communicate the way couples are supposed to communicate.

0:33:57 Lydia: My god gross uh -huh

0:34:21 Thomas: So they're looking for like, if it turns out, I'm like, okay, Lydia, here's the payment for pretending to be married to me this whole time. They're expecting to find that or something.

0:34:33 Matt: Or yeah, you're texting her parents and being like, where's this payment this month? What's going on? Yeah. Honestly, every time that I've had that happen, the officer will take a moment and ask, is there anything on your phone that you don't want me to see? Or if I'm going to look at your text, will I see things that are inappropriate or that you don't want me to see or whatever.

0:34:48 Matt: And honestly, if you say yes, that's more evidence of the marriage. Yeah.

0:34:47 Thomas: I'd be like, yeah, like quite a bit.

0:34:51 Matt: My whole phone. Thanks.

0:34:51 Thomas: Most of it. Yeah. What do you guys use your phones for?

0:34:58 Matt: But to me, that's just evidence of marriage, right? Like if you are sending sexy stuff back and forth, you're probably married. But disappearing messages and signal are my recommendation. You should always use disappearing messages on signal anyway. But anyway, that is the fun stuff with consummation. We should talk about a few more things before we close out here. I mentioned, I think in passing, I mentioned the polygamy bar. And that is kind of an interesting one because that one, yeah, Yeah. As we've been talking about, the origins of pretty much everything, the worst parts of immigration law and the stuff that is the most pernicious and the step that punishes people the worst are almost all 19th century anti -Chinese racism. And this is no exception. They were obsessed with the idea that Chinese people didn't practice monogamy because they didn't really the way that Christians understand monogomy and that the laborers were going to bring over concubines as it was where they use. And that was more of like a place in Chinese society of like women who weren't your wife. And like, they're just a little more open about sexuality. As I understand it, I'm not an expert in 19th century Chinese culture, but there's this obsession with the idea that Chinese people could not conform themselves to Christian conduct. And this was one of those things that they were going to be polygamous. So the polygamy bar still exists. There's no real definition of it, but the real understanding is that it really only applies if you're coming from a country or culture where polygmy is practiced, especially if it's legal, right? There's lots of countries in the world where you can marry more than one person. And so if you are are married to more than one person, you have to pick one. Essentially, I think they basically make you go with the first one. The polygamy bar is interesting because it is really, it's outdated in some ways, but it's also current in many countries because there are lots of places where you can marry more than once. So it's interesting that you can legally on your marriage certificate indicate that you intend to marry another person or that you are married to another person because their law permits them. You know, I've seen in lots of countries, you can actually specify upfront whether or not you intend this to be a monogamous marriage. Marriage. Yeah.

0:35:16 Thomas: I love going there. My favorite hang. Mixed for some awkward moments. Felt filling up. Oh, uh, you just, you're just reading off. Uh, yeah, yeah. We're definitely putting you here. You're new. I know that's what I was thinking too.

0:36:45 Lydia: What'd you put kind of a kind of tricky questionnaire don't you

0:36:57 Matt: And the other thing is too, when people are talking about Windsor and Obergefell being a slippery slope, they're not wrong. It is true that we could redefine marriage to be any number of consenting adults. There's no reason at this point it can't be that way. So if this ever happens, if the Supreme Court is going to reconsider monogamy as a requirement for marriage, we're going to have a very interesting situation with marriage visas because suddenly you'll be able to bring over five wives from Saudi Arabia. And I don't think the system's going to want that or like that. If you look at the map of countries where polygamy is legal, it's not places that the U .S. likes to receive immigrants from.

0:37:25 Lydia: Think right

0:37:25 Thomas: That doesn't sound great. I'm sure there's some way to be chill about that, but also chill about other things. I don't, I just love how, you

0:37:29 Lydia: Like yeah some sort of middle ground or

0:37:30 Matt: Yeah, I've been wondering.

0:37:32 Thomas: Know, a lot of what we've talked about is how arcane the system is and how left over from like racisms that truly I don't even understand anymore.

0:37:37 Lydia: Something

0:37:39 Matt: Yes. Or remember where they came from. Yeah.

0:37:41 Thomas: Like, I'm sure there's some avid racists somewhere who keep up, you Know, with like bigotry monthly or whatever. And they're, they're really, they like, they have the archive of like, oh yes, the Chinese of 18. And it's like, I don'T even know what you're talking about, but that's still in like codified. Right. So it's Like, is it just because we never reform these things or if we do, it's sort of just adding on. On. I know we've kind of already touched on that, but don't we need like a comprehensive rehaul of this system to get all this dumb garbage out of there?

0:38:09 Matt: Yeah. I mean, you think about something called a crime involving moral turpitude, to change gears for a second, like nobody knows what moral turptude is, right? And that's, right. That's the law.

0:38:14 Thomas: Yeah. Nobody knows what turpitude is, let

0:38:18 Matt: And that'S been the law since 1868. Right, exactly. Most people think but

0:38:19 Thomas: Alone moral turpitute. Yes, exactly. And it's like, we're still asking whether people worked in the, we were part of the Nazi regime, right? Isn't that one of them?

0:38:23 Matt: Yeah right it's still in there yeah still a question you have to answer

0:38:31 Thomas: Like, yep. I don't think we need to ask that anymore. That'd be, that'd be.

0:38:34 Matt: Could have been a five -year -old concentration camp guard I guess but could have

0:38:35 Lydia: Interesting

0:38:38 Thomas: And that was really cute.

0:38:42 Matt: Happened but you know the polygamy bar serves a purpose in the sense that as a matter of public policy we don't recognize people who are legally married to more than one person in any state and the federal government doesn't recognize them either and there are people that are legally married to you more than the world so we need you to swear that you're going to remain married to this person that you are marrying that you aren't trying to bring other people over and you don't intend to practice polygamy in the United States. And that gets a little hairy when we're talking of potentially, and this has not really been litigated. And I would be happy to take the test case, but nobody really seems to want to do it because technically kind of a gray area, but the polygmy bar probably also applies to anybody who intends to live in marital union with more than one person, which is a lot of us at this point. So I think that that could get messy right now. It is understood in a very racist way to mean that the polygamist bar really only applies to people coming from countries and cultures where polygomy is traditionally practiced. That's weird. I mean, if you're talking about the fact that people might have the intent who are from Canada, where it's not traditionally practiced.

0:39:35 Lydia: So you're saying that you you think it'll be like spill over into polyamory just because it's like like even if there's no legal benefit on the marital side you think

0:39:45 Matt: But at the moment, if they find out that you have a girlfriend, you know, as a man, and you're going through this process, then they'll assume you're not really married, right? They'll assume that, right, but I'm also talking about the grounds of inadmissibility that apply after they find that you are legally married, so they could find that this is a lawful marriage, and then it turns out you're actually polygamous. But yeah, at the same time, if you're just at that stage where they're looking at the validity of the marriage, or even that you don't have to be sexually monogamous, that can still be used hard against you, and it can still be the basis of a denial, even if there's no doubt that it's a consensual understanding that you have between you. And that's a real problem.

0:39:47 Lydia: It'll in addition to yeah oh interesting

0:39:53 Thomas: And then well just to reset this is all for trying to get a marriage visa thingy right or whatever is that what he's calling look this is a sacred bond between one man one woman and one federal cuck chair and if I see you with a different man or woman while I'm in my federal cuckchair I don't know what I'm gonna do

0:40:29 Matt: Yeah, that's right. That's right, yeah, that that's the shape of it. It's messy, and we should at least update that part to make it clear that people don't have to hide, you know, if they're in polyamorous relationships. But that's not going to happen. That never going to happen. No, I shouldn't say never. The Supreme Court's going to hear about it at some point, I think. And I think it'll eventually have to be modified. But yeah, yeah. Because people should be able to consensually engage in the relationships they want to engage in.

0:40:50 Lydia: Yeah it feels like it's a matter of time right like

0:41:01 Thomas: I mean they should be pretty familiar with it since they They fucked every American at once. Ba -dum -tsh!

0:41:07 Matt: Very good, very good. I just think that the law of marriage is particularly fascinating around this stuff. And like I said, the ways the government gets to get involved and that they never would otherwise in any other situation, it's not great, but it's fun to talk about.

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0:41:27 Matt: This was fairly typical. There was, like I Said, a lot of stuff we didn't touch on that I didn't really want to bring out in a public podcast scenario, but I think you got a very good idea. And anybody listening can basically expect that kind of thing. Also, I really like it when they jump around the way that I was. You might've noticed the complete randomness of interrogation tactics. Some of the trickier ones will do that. They generally are working from an internal list that they're working down.

0:41:42 Thomas: Yeah, it makes it kind of trickier. Yeah.

0:41:52 Thomas: Now, I was going to ask in the same way that I never had to do the deposition, but I was, you know, sort of getting my mind set for that. And there's a whole strategy to that, I think, or I'm making it up based on how many we've kind of covered. Like, it does seem like there's ways to kind of filibuster in a way that, like, is more constructive. Now, that's a different scenario. Scenario I was almost considering asking you that like is it useful to waste time and provide non -answers or is it just going to be the kind of thing where it's like they need to know this and they're going to Be Mad at You

0:42:21 Matt: If they feel like you're trying to evade a question, they will start to get pretty irritated. Or if you're giving really long -winded answers, which some people just can't help themselves yeah that's

0:42:27 Thomas: I was going to say well what about the opposite like if you were just giving super short answers you know is that okay and it's just kind of is that like to a certain extent is that what you want to do to not volunteer too much yeah

0:42:37 Matt: What I'd recommend yeah very much like testimony answer the question being asked like when I asked you about when your relationship became official and you told a nice story about you know and it was it basically to remember I got it

0:42:46 Thomas: Yeah part of that is I have to tell a story to be able to remember yeah no although otherwise I could sit there in silence for, you know, 10 minutes and be like, go into, go to a fugue state while they're like, hold on, I'm getting there.

0:42:49 Matt: Yeah yeah and work it

0:42:50 Lydia: Just like talking about

0:42:59 Thomas: The date was, oh

0:42:59 Lydia: Stuff yeah

0:43:01 Matt: Out it's funny I actually I was thinking about my experience while I was asking you these questions because like I I'm so used to not being rude to you so like I would have actually like because I I could have easily jumped in and be like, sir, the question was, when did your relationship become official, right? When you're going on this whole story.

0:43:15 Thomas: Yeah. You're not cut out for this work, Matt.

0:43:17 Matt: Yeah, well, not with you guys, because I actually enjoy hearing your stories. So, you know, genuinely, I didn't factor in the fact that I'd actually enjoy hearing about how you got together. Didn't know any of that. So that was fun. Their position is, you Know, unlike a deposition where you're being dragged in because you're being sued or suing, in this case, you're the one who applied for the benefit.

0:43:22 Thomas: Turns out Matt's a total asshole in other situations.

0:43:36 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, you're trying to, yeah, that's fair.

0:43:38 Matt: So you're coming in, it's your story to tell. And if you don't want to answer really critical stuff or you say you can't remember or don't want to for whatever reason talk about it, that will be used against you.

0:43:47 Thomas: Yeah that is a whole different story where you're trying to get something versus you're being dragged into court that's fair yeah

0:43:52 Matt: And you have paid $690 for the visa. You've paid $1 ,440. No, hold on. I can't keep numbers in my head. That's not the current number.

0:44:01 Thomas: You started going into the like world trade center height that they didn't know I'm just kidding 1776 the feet no I don't know what it would be funny if they made it like a number like a trump or a or a u .s number for the fee like 1776 dollars oh sure

0:44:16 Matt: Yeah, right, right. Well, the reason I'm hesitating is because there has been an inflation, like the stupid big bill authorized inflation raises, but it is actually still 1440. Yes. So it's super annoying.

0:44:27 Thomas: Of the fees oh wow yeah

0:44:31 Matt: Some of them are going up by a couple of dollars at a time, which means you can get it rejected if it's the wrong amount. It's very annoying by a few dollars. Oh yeah. There's so many ways to get it projected. If you applied for employment authorization, the marriage visa, the residency authorization, and then also travel authorization, because you can't leave the country unless they give you permission while this case is pending.

0:44:34 Thomas: Oh my god that's ridiculous

0:44:35 Lydia: Oh that's such a

0:44:48 Matt: And if you do, you abandon the whole thing. So all of that alone, loan together is more than $3 ,000. So you've already paid that much.

0:44:48 Thomas: Oh wow oh so was it bad that we had traveled out of the country would that have been a no

0:44:58 Matt: That's a great question. For purposes of this, I was assuming that you filed maybe after you got back in November, whatever. Because actually, I got to say, we're getting interviews within, yeah, the one I did today was filed not that long ago, December or whatever.

0:45:01 Lydia: Pain

0:45:02 Thomas: -no okay yeah it's probably unrealistic isn't it the time frame was it pretty quick oh weird oh okay I thought it was all bogged down or whatever

0:45:12 Matt: It is really strange. Like recently, I think they cleared a backlog because they've really been speeding along. And this is per office, obviously. And I go to Boston and Lawrence and New Hampshire.

0:45:19 Thomas: Well and it matters what it is so this isn't like asylum or whatever where that's still backed up a lot or doesn't exist yeah

0:45:23 Matt: Those are massively backlogged. Yeah, yeah. It really depends on the field office, as I understand it. And they were kind of shipping some of these cases around to different field offices. During the pandemic, they actually stopped doing initial marriage interviews for a lot of cases like yours, where it's just immediately obvious when you look at the papers. So you could have skipped that. But they are bringing people in for the second round for the, if you only had a two -year card, you have to remove the conditions I was telling you about up front. So that's been happening more and more.

0:45:36 Thomas: Oh my gosh yeah yeah

0:45:48 Matt: But I did think, honestly, it was good that they waived the marriage interviews, especially because I was very concerned about going in public with the people around me potentially being exposed. And then they kept doing it through the Biden administration.

0:45:48 Thomas: Wow oh like like to covid you're saying sorry I'm trying to catch up with your thought process

0:46:02 Matt: But they kept waiving these interviews during the Biden ministration, which is kind of a little known fact that a lot of cases where if you documented them well enough, they just wouldn't have a marriage interview. I still can't believe that happened, but it did. Yeah, they'd just send you a green card.

0:46:11 Thomas: Here huh and I took that to mean they just shit out of luck but you're seeing they wouldn't even bother with the the part where they're trying to grill you about whether or not it's real huh

0:46:20 Matt: There was a period there. But for those two -year cases, they're still going to bring you in two years later to see how it's going. And even if you've separated, you can explain that. Yeah.

0:46:26 Thomas: Oh really oh that's got to be fun man now I want to write like a play or a movie that just takes place with within these interviews you know it's like two years later it's like marriage story but yeah

0:46:32 Lydia: Oh I like that yeah

0:46:33 Matt: Oh, yeah. Oh, you could do that. And then naturalization. Because there's three interviews you have to go to. So that would be a three -act play. Yes.

0:46:42 Lydia: A three -act play yeah Yeah.

0:46:40 Thomas: Yeah but what's the arc though you know we'll work on it yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:46:45 Matt: Because if you worked in some... Oh, man, there's a story here. Yeah, you're onto something. Because you could really get into some of the weird convoluted things that can happen in immigration stuff.

0:46:49 Thomas: But are we trying to do, yeah. Are we trying, yeah, are we trying to a law movie or a rom -com or a, you know, a romcom? Okay. But so then if it's a rom com, you gotta, you can't end up with the person you went in with, you know, you got to, there's got to

0:46:53 Lydia: With all of our time, you guys, this is a great idea.

0:46:57 Matt: No, it'd be a rom -com. Or a drama. Could be a drama, um, dramcom. Right.

0:47:06 Thomas: Be a, a switching of, like, like I said, there is the, there is the interviewers on your side of all the arguments, I think, is where we go with it. Okay. We'll work on it, everybody.

0:47:12 Matt: Yeah. Right, right. I could definitely see a three act play with three interviews. That would be pretty sweet actually. And incidentally, in the course of it, you're telling the entire story of your, his, your relationship history and all the weird stuff that happened intertwined with your immigration history.

0:47:26 Lydia: If you guys write this play, then and then we're the rights holder and people could actually produce this play around around the country. Yeah.

0:47:34 Thomas: Here we we go get the word out about the immigration system

0:47:35 Lydia: Here we go. Yep.

0:47:37 Matt: Yeah, I think it's good for people to know. And I like to try to demystify as much as possible what you're looking at when you go in. And, and I will say I have had the odd interviewer once in a while, this doesn't happen anymore, but sometimes they will just bring them them in together, talk to them for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, whatever, and just be like, yeah, you guys seem married. That has happened before.

0:47:54 Thomas: Oh okay I bet you're gonna tell me the opposite they're like yeah no go oh good

0:47:57 Matt: Yeah, no, no. I never had anything denied that quickly. And they hold their cards pretty close, but you can tell if an interview did not go well and if you're going to get a request for evidence. So the request for evidences is a written follow -up that comes in saying, here's some discrepancies we noticed. Can you explain these? And excuse me, a notice of intent to deny. A request for evident would be if you left out some important evidence like your criminal records, but the notice of intend to deny takes you through the issues they had. And I've seen these go like 15 pages single -spaced. Of like, here's everything that went wrong. And sometimes it's very explainable. You can imagine, so Thanksgiving dinner, turns out they have both a traditional Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving dinner featuring the food from where they're from. So they answered the question about their food and the other person answered that they had turkey. And that sounds really weird, right? But you can explain it if you sit down and take people through it and you can do a follow -up sworn statement. That's true. They do have, I don't know if it's the same name, but right, right. But it is amazing all the different ways that the same people can tell the story differently,

0:48:37 Thomas: Oh plus there's a different thanksgiving in canada right it's a uh week yeah it could have been all kinds of I don't know what they do for it but sure

0:48:53 Matt: Who were there, right? And just can emphasize different things, like the Grand Canyon, or when was the last time your wife went to church, but you don't realize because there's one day that you overslept and she went to Church without you and came back and she never even told you, right? That kind of stuff.

0:49:05 Thomas: Never uh you're out yeah

0:49:05 Matt: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's just a lot of room for misunderstanding, but the good ones can usually tell the difference between people who are nervous and maybe just not quite getting things right and people who were just unable to explain themselves that have just

0:49:19 Thomas: Okay I think the play should be actually we because there's so much more political we need to get into.

0:49:19 Matt: Weird stuff that can't to be edited.

0:49:25 Thomas: I think maybe the play is more about these agents and then just the couples and the marriage interviews are part of the sprinkling in of the fun. You could have the one that's the total bogus one.

0:49:25 Lydia: The drama. Oh interesting.

0:49:35 Thomas: You could add, you know, for comedy purposes. Yeah, yeah. So you can sprinkle those in different interviews. I think that's probably the better way to go. We'll workshop it.

0:49:43 Matt: I have always wondered if it's possible to do like a serialized TV show about the immigration system, you know, like they do with all the cop shows.

0:49:48 Thomas: There's, God, there really needs to be.

0:49:50 Lydia: Like a workplace comedy.

0:49:50 Thomas: It's the show that needs to happen. Like when you say plausible, there's, you you know, good writers could make anything amazing, good actors, good directors, but it's just, it's like the interest, you know? Nobody does it. It's like, nobody thinks it's worth it, but it's, like, with how many misconceptions there are, we talk about legal misconceptions, but, I mean, the immigration system, as, as I've learned, you know, doing the show with you and stuff, it's like, people are just so wrong about what it is, you know?

0:50:00 Matt: Yeah, right.

0:50:14 Lydia: Mm -huh.

0:50:14 Thomas: And it's just, I wish there was a popular outlet for that, and we'll have to be the change we want to see in the world. Oh, yeah, no, because I'm not, if, if he he wrote one I'm not even counting it yeah

0:50:19 Lydia: Nobody tell Aaron Sorkin. Because then you won't touch it. Yeah, yeah.

0:50:25 Matt: No, I have Always thought there has to be a way to do because so much of this job is just very boring, to be honest, like on paper, objectively, it's important to me and it matters to me. And like, I know it matters to them. But a lot of it is just making sure that details are correct and that everything matches up and adds up and is a good filing. But it's kind of like that expression about war, about how it's like weeks of boredom punctuated by 90 seconds of terror or whatever, right?

0:50:48 Lydia: Oh, good.

0:50:48 Matt: There are really amazing dramatic stories in here and things that happen, but you can't do a TV show about immigration court. That just isn't going to be a good TV show.

0:50:55 Thomas: Yeah no we'll do a

0:50:57 Matt: Yeah. There's got to be a way.

0:50:58 Thomas: Play for audience of 12 people who actually have the patience to learn something yeah you know well this was fun yeah

0:51:05 Matt: Yeah I'm going to say I'm gonna approve this case. I'm recommending for approval. We'll see what the supervisor says. Says. Yeah. I still have some questions about your...

0:51:07 Thomas: Yes awesome haha suck it nickelback sucks woo I'm out of here I like blow my load too soon he's like I haven't stamped it yet oh I I mean they're like they're pretty they're good there's parts of it that I like did you stamp. Oh, Nickelback sucks.

0:51:17 Matt: You've made it through. And I could have made that more stressful, but I wasn't going to go too nuts on you. And that was pretty much how it goes. If it's going to be a little difficult, sometimes it doesn't get that much worse. So there you go. Good job.

0:51:37 Thomas: All right. Well, Matt, thanks so much. That was so much fun. We are extremely married.

0:51:39 Matt: You're extremely married.

0:51:42 Lydia: Extremely married.

0:51:42 Thomas: They always say that. All Right. Thanks so much listeners. Thanks, Matt. Thanks Lydia for extremely marrying me.

0:51:42 Matt: Congratulations.

0:51:48 Lydia: Of course.

0:51:49 Matt: Congrats again.

0:51:49 Lydia: Here's to 11 more.

0:51:51 Thomas: See everyone next time. Well forgive you for beating your wife, but are you Chinese?

0:52:19 Matt: I don't know. When was the last time you fucked your wife?