Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic Request Your Moral Support

[ellen_datlow]

This one of the dumbest things our government has tried to do yet:

The "Exotic Enemies Do Get Married" Campaign


I've never actually seen the couple together (in fact, I hardly ever see Bruce at all these days) so I can't help, other than to spread the word to those who have met them. For anyone reading this who has met them as a couple, please write a letter as per the plea and send it on to them to use for immigration.
You'll be doing a good deed and it costs you nothing but time.

Comments

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

I haven't met them either, so I can't really help :(

That is a nasty situation, though! Hopefully one that US immigration will catch up with in a few years? It seems our government is now just getting used to the idea of the Intrawebz!

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I've kept telling Bruce to bring her around so I could meet her!!See? If he's only listened to me :-)

Yeah. One would like to think so.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Well, ring him and tell him to come by! :)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

He's in Italy.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Oh! That's kind of a problem, then. My mistake.

Go visit him in Italy? :p

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Would love to: if I had money and if I was invited :-).

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Hehehe! :)

[n5red.livejournal.com]

There were some interesting comments about this problem from a young lady from Eastern Europe. Basically, they totally screwed up in dealing with Immigration. The rules and requirements are very well documented and they just blew them off.

Yeah, it's not fair, but it shouldn't be a surprise to them.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Where are there comments?

[n5red.livejournal.com]

http://unless-spring.livejournal.com/171688.html

I will also comment that I knew Bruce before he became so famous. Fame has certainly gone to his head, the last few times I've seen him, he has not been nearly as nice to be around. Such is life.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I've found him the same as he's always been when I see him. Sorry to hear your experience is different. But that's really irrelevant to the problem he and Jasmina are having.

[n5red.livejournal.com]

Actually, it is relevant. Being so famous may have given him an exaggerated sense of entitlement. INS rules really are well known and ignoring them can cause exactly this sort of issue. Over the past couple of decades I have corresponded with a number of folks who have gone through this process. Sometimes it goes extremely smoothly, particularly if the couple are very well prepared. Sometimes it doesn't go well. And sometimes the paperwork gets lost (oops!).

Yeah, INS rules are probably unfair a lot of the time, but they are the folks in control.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Or he and his wife don't see any reason for them to buy a house together, have a joint bank account, etc. It's an imposition on them by the government (any government) to be required to do such things.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I don't see it as a sense of "entitlement" but a basic citizen's right. There are plenty of other ways to "prove" a marriage.

[n5red.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not fair, but that's the way the INS works. For her to get American citizenship, certain hoops must be jumped through. They can both continue with their respective citizenships or they can follow the process. American citizenship is considered a privilege. And there have been enough "Green Card marriages" that the INS has put the current rules in place.

I've looked at a lot of immigration and emigration issues over the years, many of them are quite an imposition.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I don't believe she wants American citizenship. She merely wants to be able to travel back and forth with her husband.

[fishsanwitt]

Unfortunately, I can't help in any way, but I wanted to say that not *all* couples have joint accounts, etc. My husband and I don't.

I hope Bruce and Jasmina are able to get the support they need.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

Me too.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

I just had to write a letter to the INS testifying why I KNOW the marriage of one of my oldest friends to his Haitian wife is a genuine marriage. It infuriated me that I had to do this -- that THEY have to do this, go begging to their friends to witness that they have a 'real' marriage. Especially when I have witnessed so many 'real' marriages that are no marriages at all.

Can't help Bruce though as I haven't seen him the flesh either lo these many years.

Love, C.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

I do feel I should add re the speculation that Bruce and his wife didn't play by INS rules and should have known better -- um, my friends, who I wrote a letter for? They obeyed all the rules to the letter, and then the INS suddenly determined there was another rule which they hadn't bothered to inform anyone of, as to how, in the letters already written by friends, the Haitian wife's name was to be written out!

The rules are all subject to the individual whims of the staff of the local INS agency you are dealing with.

Love, C.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

This is so true.

[inf-matrix.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this, Ellen. John and I can each write something for Bruce and Jasmina.

Constanza, you're right, as usual.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Thank YOU, Eileen.

[docbrite.livejournal.com]

Would Jasmina have been with Bruce at a 2004 SF con (can't remember the name of it right now) in Nantes, France? Because I hung out with Bruce there, and I seem to remember him introducing me to a lady who looked something like the one in the picture on his blog, but so many of my pre-8/29/05 memories are kinda hazy these days. I've lost Bruce's e-mail and cannot ask him myself, but if that was Jasmina, I'll be more than happy to write a letter for them.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I'll bet. They've been together quite awhile now. I'll email you his email address.
thank you.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

Done.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

I've seen Bruce and Jasmina together a few times, and I've written a letter on their behalf.

As I understand it, the idea is to keep Jasmina from being deported from the US; there was no mention of anything about a green card or citizenship. As a US citizen who married a citizen of another country, I am familiar with some of the problems you can have with the government. Sometimes, it's smooth going. But sometimes, you run into a bureaucrat who decides there just isn't enough being done to investigate these marriages properly--that too many green card marriages are sliding by unnoticed. Especially if one of the people in question is from some country "we" don't like--e.g., Serbia.

Some of these bureaucrats can't imagine why married people don't own property, have joint bank accounts, or do any of the other standard middle-class things that "normal" people do.

I think Bruce and Jasmina just ran into one of these bloody-minded by-the-book people who thinks that one writer is just doing another writer a favour by "rescuing" her from Serbia. My opinion.