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I can’t imagine what ICE is like now, with their dictatorial powers.

Believe it or not, for some things it is better. Much will depend on your local office. I could write a book on my experience with my Canadian wife. I will give a synopsis.

11/97: Submit paperwork, including the question about whether you belonged to terrorist groups.

12/97: Paperwork returned, claiming that marriage certificate was missing. Marriage certificate was included in returned packet.

12/97: Hand delivered paperwork, only to be told that the rules changed and we had to start over. An appeal to the supervisor over-ruled the window lady, who seemed to derive great pleasure from making people start over, based on what we observed over the two hours we waited. It turned out the stamped date of the original trumps all.

05/98: The Sivanas decide to move to northern Illinois. We follow procedures for informing them of move in 07/98.

09/98: Sivanas get letter forwarded from old address informing us of a hearing the next day in Hartford, CT. Miss the meeting, and process is cancelled. Do not pass GO, Do NOT collect $200.

10/98: IL Rep. Don Manzullo (conservative Republican) showed he could do constituent service, too. His local office had our case reinstated in toto, and moved to Chicago.

Some time in 1999: Chicago's office was huge, the wait was long, but we were bumped up in line because of what we had already processed. We felt like royalty going passed the teeming throngs at the escalator.

After the 90 minute wait, we had a nice conversation to confirm what we submitted. We passed, and Mrs. Sivana got a temp green card. We went to Greektown to celebrate.

Counterintuitively, the Chicago folks were pros, and the CT folks were wretched caricatures of bureaucrats (except for the supervisor, who rightly corrected the underling).

The final Green Card would not arrive until late 2002. Five years from beginning to end. But hey, a U.S. citizen at birth marrting a nice, well-behaved Canadian girl, ya gotta expect trouble.

Fast forward to today. Some things really tightened up, some things loosened. But my Canadian sister-in-law was able to get all of it taken care of ahead of time with a new version of the fiancee visa, and was good from the get go.