Help FT Stay Here...Or Start over

Short version first:

I’m an undocumented freelancer/gig worker with no health insurance and ongoing medical expenses. I’ve been in the US 18 years and I’d like to stay. Because of the political situation and because I already have one unsuccessful greencard effort on my record, staying requires an expensive lawyer. I found a lawyer that can handle my case, but he’s expensive.

Depending on the amount I can raise with this GFM, I will either pay the expensive lawyer his fee, in which case I won’t be keeping any of the money; or, if it stalls, I will use whatever money I can collect to pack up, ship my things, and start over somewhere else.

If I manage to hit the stretch goal and get this fully funded, the money will all be used to cover the lawyer’s retainer, the USCIS application fees, and various other expenses relating to my green card process so all the ducks are in a row when I show up for an interview.

So that’s the short version.

Now a few FAQs.

Who are you, again?

FT is a pseudonym, but I am a real person. I’m a philosopher, writer, and critic based in New York. I’ve written for respectable publications including the New York Review of Books, The Village Voice, Artforum, Bookforum, and The Nation. You can find a little interview with me here: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/08/19/the-decadent-life-of-the-mind-ft/

Why do you want to stay in the US?

I want to stay in the US because I’ve been here 18 years, my home is here, and my friends are here. Before New York, the longest I had ever lived in one place my whole life was six years. I’ve been in New York three times longer than I’ve been anywhere else in my life. This is my home. Even if it sucks right now it’s my home. I want to stay.

Why is this lawyer so expensive?

Most immigration law firms charge significantly less than the lawyer I want to hire. That’s because most immigration law firms are the legal equivalent of factory farming. 99% of their work is filling out forms for you and sending them in on your behalf. They take as many clients as they can get, and in terms of interaction, they are more like accountants than lawyers: you bring them all your papers and they process the information and send something to the government for you.

Unfortunately this means there’s also a lot of abuse and malpractice among immigration lawyers. Many of their clients don’t speak English; they take your fees, do very little work, and if you fail, well, you’re probably getting deported anyway. To my lasting regret, my first attempt at a greencard was with a law firm of that kind, and saving money on fees ended up costing me so much more in other ways. Since this is my second and final attempt, I cannot risk having that happen to me again.

But there’s another, much more grim reason I want to hire the expensive law firm: in the event that I am detained or imprisoned during my immigration process, I need to have a law firm that will actually send someone to find me, to file a habeas petition on my behalf, to call ICE every day until they know where I’m being kept. Most immigration firms simply do not do that kind of work. They’re paper pushers, immigration accountants. At the moment, literally any encounter with law enforcement of any kind could result in my detention.

Before making this decision, I called a number of immigration firms and asked them frankly what capacity they had to come find me or fight for me in the event that I am detained. Almost all of them told me that in such a situation they wouldn’t really be able to do anything for me. Maybe I’m a coward, but that scares me. If I’m going to try and stay I need a real lawyer that can bang on tables for me.

Do you work? Why don’t you have savings?

Finding work in the US right now is really hard. Finding work in the US right now as an immigrant is excruciating. In terms of hours, I basically work three jobs. I write as much as a full-time writer, which provides about 1/3 of my income. I also work 2-3 days a week in landscaping, in true immigrant fashion. Finally, I do every gig I can find, from tutoring to translating to editing to cleaning houses. Truly, it’s just never enough. I work so hard and I live very frugally, but trying to save $25,000 with $150-a-day gigs will take me years even assuming nothing else goes wrong.

Because I’ve been an immigrant so long and can’t work a real job, my ability to save money has always been limited, and it’s further impeded by two minor but persistent health issues, one which requires a few medical appointments a year to keep under control, and one which leads to emergency hospitalization every 12-18 months. As an immigrant I don’t qualify for Medicare or for most other assistance programs, so these expenses always come out of my pocket. These health problems don’t keep me from working, but they truly do keep me from saving money. If I run on the hamster wheel as fast as I can all year round, I can stay afloat. But saving $25,000 is just not feasible right now.

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These are brutal times, and so many people are in need. I feel a lot of guilt putting this fundraiser into the world asking for a big chunk of change when so many people can’t afford this month’s rent or food for the week.

But I want to stay in my home. I want to stay in my home so badly that I’m willing to try anything. I’ve been online long enough to know that crazy things can happen on the Internet. My friends have convinced me to try for the stretch goal. Why give up in advance when there’s still the chance of a miracle? So I’m putting this into the world to see if there’s a miracle out there for me. If not, I will accept my fate with as much dignity as I can muster. But if there’s a chance, I’m going to try.