Certificate of Citizenship

I had several difficulties after getting our Certificate of Citizenship notice last week. The first was that we were supposed to be at the Immigration Office on the afternoon of my last day of work. The "clean-up" day for teachers. It seemed like a very suspicious afternoon to take "sick time" and I couldn't afford to take the time non-paid. The second difficulty arose the night before the appointment when I could not find Lissi's Alien Registration Card, which was to be surrended at the appointment.

After learning that many other friends were getting their COCs at the same time... I begged my principal to let me off for a few hours on the last day of work. She let me go on the priviso that I make up the time. Since my room had been cleaned and my paperwork finished already, she was essentially asking me to make up the time surfing the internet and making things for Cal's birthday party.

We arrived at the Immigration Office and were told to go straight up to the desk because they had just called for "everyone who doesn't have a green card". We brought Lissi's Korean passport, adoption paperwork, US passport application proof, and everything else we could find. The person at the table looked at them quizically wondering why we were presenting all this paperwork. She didn't want any of it. We said that we didn't have a green card because we sent it in to the passport office 3 months ago when applying for her passport. The employee doubted that we would get the green card back from the passport office. She had us sign the Certificate of Citizenship and we were finished! Immediately after, everyone else was asked to line up. So even though we didn't have the important Alien Registration Card, we lucked out and got served first!

The entire process from leaving work to returning to work was less than one hour and forty-five minutes. Had I said nothing to my principal, she probably would have never even known that I was gone!

At the Immigration Office. Our family of US citizens!


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