[civilitty]

This sort of situation can have tragic consequences too. In high school, a friend of mine was in the same situation: Mother and kids in the US while the father is stuck in Iran. They were wealthy so they didn't go through the added stresses of poverty in the US and my friend seemed to everyone to be a happy go lucky guy. He was popular, involved in the community, and did very well at academics but we found out too late that the stresses in the family over the separation had developed into a drinking problem. A few days before his father finally managed to get a Visa and arrive in the US, he got too drunk at a party and stopped breathing. The psychological toll on the entire family is hard to understate, even when life is otherwise good.

This kind of separation happens quite a bit within immigrant communities, especially nationalities that have long waiting lists for green cards, let alone undocumented immigrants. Due to some quirks in the Visa system, you have to leave the country in order to change your status which runs the risk of delays or outright rejection. When the parents are on separate visas, one can get let through with the kids while the other is stuck indefinitely. Often times that means that the parent not granted a visa becomes an undocumented immigrant in the host nation and the other is forced to return home because all of their stuff and financial obligation/jobs are in the US. If they can't find a job in the host nation, the stuck parent often moves back to their support network in their birth country, further complicating things.

[tesin]

I'm an Australian, originally here on E3, then H1-B, now green card. I got stuck on just such a trip, to Barcelona. The local US embassy called the wrong number to notify me of my updated passport (which was delivered to a post office only a couple of blocks away, which I wouldn't find out for weeks), and never tried again.

I was stuck for a month, with no possible way of getting back to the US. It's a truly sickening, horrifying feeling, that the only solution is to blow up your life and go back where you came from.

I was extremely lucky that my employers lawyers cajoled them into communication before my money completely ran out.

[mc32]

The requirement to go to a third country to update status seems pretty routine. When I was on a foreign visa in east Asia, I knew of many Canadians who flew to Hong Kong for a week in order to get a new visa.