A word or two about my intervention for AZLD4

[DFW]

Last edited Sun Sep 19, 2021, 04:05 AM - Edit history (1)

First of all, thanks to all for the kind words. Many of them were undeserved, I fear. I'm no hero. I saw a situation that struck home (married to a woman from another country who has been harassed in the past by US immigration), and couldn't stay silent.

I've known Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords for over ten years, and figured a phone call couldn't make matters any worse. Senators are bombarded with legitimate requests, such as that of AZLD4, but also by requests to make tickets for running a stop sign go away. They have staff who fields inquiries from the public, and they are the ones who filter what goes up the chain, and what doesn't. Often they make the wrong choice. There are professional whiners out there who are skilled in making their traffic violations seem like unjustly handed out death sentences, and congressional staffers sometimes lose their patience, their cool, and their capacity for weeding out the serious pleas for help from the professional whiners.

I've known plenty of U.S. Senators. Some are complete phonies, some are assholes, and some are genuinely good people. Mark Kelly happens to be among the latter. I knew he could never have been made aware of AZLZ4's case by his staff, because he never would have ignored it. Proof: once he was made aware of it (that's where I came in), he didn't ignore it. He moved it to the front burner, and one of his best people (I happen to know him slightly as well) is on it and giving us both updates--even gave AZLD4 his cell phone! Mark called me Friday and we spent 20 minutes on the phone discussing the case, which he has thoroughly researched. Obviously, a Senator can't do this for every constituent with a problem, even one this severe. This is as much a favor to me as it is to a constituent in need, and I'm very appreciative of it. As a Texan living in Germany, it's not like there are a lot of favors I could return to him in Arizona. It's just the right thing to do, and Mark is the kind of man who WANTS to do the right thing.

The sobering truth is that all I did is get a ball rolling, and there are no guarantees there will be a happy ending. There are some hoops to jump through, some obstacles to overcome, and a few things will just have to fall into place that might not. As a veteran of bureaucratic wars, I have already warned AZLD4 that when dealing with bureaucrats, the ones most deserving of your anger and scorn are often the ones who can do you the most harm if you show it. "Telling it like it is" isn't always the best way to get somewhere when there is a jerk with a "REJECTED" stamp standing in your way in the middle of the road.

So, this story is far from over. Things are now moving in a positive direction--that is the major change to where things stood five days ago. I almost never use personal connections like this. At this level, they are SO easy to abuse, and all members of Congress (not to mention the White House) have finely tuned antennae set to detect this. This was an exception because this IS an exceptional case, and luckily, Mark saw it my way.

Maybe it will work out. We have to be prepared for the eventuality that, despite all efforts, maybe it won't. Murphy's law hasn't been repealed yet, don't forget. It was certainly no big sacrifice on my part to make some phone calls to people I knew would take them, and send some emails to people I knew would read them. The one thing we all now have that we didn't have before is hope. Before, AZLD4 had no reason to hope for an improvement in his dilemma. Now, he does. Some powerful people in a position to set things in motion are now doing just that.

Until something really happens, though, all I can take credit for at this point is some hope. It's not much, and AZLD4's wife is not one millimeter closer to Arizona than she was a week ago. The difference is that now there is reason to hope that she soon will be. If that lifts some weight from a few shoulders, that is the best I can take credit for until someone is on a plane for Phoenix. It will have to do. It's a start, anyway.