Is it safe to come out?
This is a rather long story and I think it’s time for me to come forward and tell it. I’ll try hard to give you a very short summary here. Future blog posts will be more detailed. I intend this blog to be fun, entertaining and educational. Although I will tell my story, I have no intention of turning this into a hate blog. I am not holding any grudges.
I was born behind the iron curtain in East Germany. I was very young when I realized what a messed up political system that was and were glad to hear the news that my parents were pursuing applications to leave the country. So at the age of 15 I turned in my ID card and signed a document stating that I give up my East German citizenship and left with my parents and brother and sister to West Germany. All we had was what we could cram into our car. Everything we left behind was lost forever. A few months later the wall came down and the West German government told us we were no longer considered refugees. But there was nothing to go back to, we had given up everything to leave.
West Germany had its own issues and I never felt like at home again. I had no French and my English was basically non-existing. So they put me back two grades in school. After 10th grade I did a year (1992/93) in California to learn English. I lived with a host family and attended a high school in Santa Rosa. This was a life changing event for me. I fell in love with the American way of life. My host family was fantastic.
I had to go back to Germany to finish up high school. The Army started bugging me about military service (1 year required for German males). And I had to fight in court for my right to opt for civil service as a conscientious objector. Due to problems re-adjusting to life in Germany I quit school, but later continued high school through an accredited correspondence school. Then the Civil Service Office wanted me to start civil service. I was more or less forced to start civil service despite still attending high school. There are laws that state you can postpone your civil service if you are still in school which includes accredited correspondence schools. However, the court failed me this time and with the threat of jail time I started civil service at a hospital outside Munich while continuing my correspondence school.
I finished school, but I was sick a lot. The civil service office stopped payments and demanded I redo my whole service year. I thought hat was a bit too much. I had been accepted to Arkansas Tech University to study computer science and just left Germany in 1997. My education was more important to me than what the German system demanded from me.
Arkansas was great! I loved it there a lot. I changed to thinking and dreaming in English and have never changed back since. School was going well and I met a girl and we got married. We filed for a change of status for me. I had a student visa and now wanted residency. Nothing happened with my paperwork and there was no place we could talk to anyone about my status. In 2001 our son Jeffery was born. I started my own business and had many good experiences with employees and some bad experiences with corrupt politicians and shady companies.
On a trip through Texas I was stopped by border patrol and they detained me for a month and wanted to deport me. Thanks to my former host parents I was released on bond and then had to go to court hearings in Memphis. There was no progress at those hearings. Immigration was even unable to bring my file to a hearing. They told me they would deport me. So I left Arkansas totally discouraged in December 2003. I gave up my desire for residency status. I gave up my home in Arkansas.
At that time I was technically a deserter of my civil service in Germany. Instead of going back there and being abused by the system I decided to find a new home and I went to Belize, a small country in Central America. You might know it as the former British Honduras. My wife and son followed me a month later. Belize was wonderful and to this day I think I should have never left! But for several reasons we did decide to go back and claim what I thought I was owed: US residency. So a bit over a year later we went back to Arkansas. I had no problems flying in! I did this on the advice of an immigration attorney. I had already re-started my immigration paperwork and we actually made progress this time and received replies from immigration.
Things were going well and I started new hobbies like beekeeping and really felt like back at home. It was 2007 and I was as Arkansan as you can get. I had a beat-up truck, lived in a trailer, went catfishing all the time. My German accent was almost gone and my wife kept saying I sound like a hick. I was happy! People would notice my Arkansas accent before they asked if I was originally from somewhere else.
But in October 2007, all that came to an end when ICE (ICE is doing deportations, Immigration is supposed to do your paperwork) stormed my property with guns drawn and all. This time they played a different game. No court hearing, no rights, no nothing, just threats of filing bogus criminal charges and intimidation. Immigration had not done my paperwork, but they blamed me for that. On December 15th they put me on a plane to Germany without a jacket, without any luggage. I was not allowed to take anything. They said I can continue my paperwork from Germany and then come back, but they slapped me with a 10 year re-entry block. I am working on getting that waived.
My wife and son came to Germany, but that was no place to live. So we went to Canada where we discovered WWOOFing. We stayed on two of the Gulf Islands in British Columbia and must have met the two best WWOOFing hosts and the best neighbors we ever had!
Six month later we applied for an extension of our visitor visa. But instead of being allowed to stay longer, immigration showed up. Canadian immigration is much nicer than the US, but they have copied too many bad things from the US already, mainly the separation of the people doing your paperwork and the people kicking you out of the country. We were fortunate enough not to be arrested and deported. But eventually we were told to leave or else. We tried to apply to stay on humanitarian grounds, but although they acknowledged we had humanitarian reasons, they still wanted us to leave. A pleading appeal to the Minister of Immigration went unanswered. They made my wife and son go back to the US while I had to go to Germany.
So we were back in Germany in March 2009. We stayed a bit longer this time, but with the start of the new school year approaching we decided it was best to leave Germany. Following an old Nazi law, Germany does not allow home schooling. And with the crap they teach in public school, it’s best not to put your kids through that. So we found another great WWOOF host in France and that’s were we still are. Life is OK here, France is nice, but it’s not home.
So what now? Well, I have lost so much back in Arkansas. I was breeding exotic animals and oh well. It’s all gone. And someone probably stole my boat and John Deere lawn tractor by now. We lost friends and family over this deportation issue. And there was only so much my wife could put into storage on her own. Someone had broken into our home while we were in Belize and I am sure the same thing is going on right now. Still, I have lived there for nearly 10 years and do consider that place home. I miss catfishing and all my little projects around the house and I miss my animals.
I am continuing my paperwork with immigration. The latest things they wanted were police certificates from Belize, Canada, Arkansas and Germany. All clear! But everything costs money to get and takes months to get back to them. In the meantime, I am away from home and my main source of income and I am supposed to provide for my family.
I just don’t understand why any government would split a family apart and mess up the lives of two of their citizens (my wife and son) and deport someone with a legal claim to residency. It seems like no matter where I go, I get hung up in the system (Only Belize treated me well!). How is a family supposed to function and survive when they aren’t allowed to go home together?
So my latest dream is to sail around the world until I can go back home to Arkansas or until I find a new place I can call home. I might have more success starting my own country instead of just trying to live in someone else’s.
Short update: I have decided not to clutter my blog with more negative memories. I will put this all in a book which will be available some time in the future. I will blog about some nice parts of my journey though.
Photo credit: photo by me, Daniel
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