In this letter I want to share our story of how PP10014 has ruined us. It´s been about two years now, that we were selected for further process of the diversity visa lottery. And I must admit that this last two years were an emotional roller-coaster.
We have been selected for further process, and of course it was time to prepare for the interview. We had one of the bigger numbers but not that far in the back. It´s important to know, that we´re a family of 4 members. Two adults, our son who was 18 (19 currently) and our 9-year-old (now 10) daughter. As I was writing, we were preparing for the interview, which meant we need a doctor´s appointment at a special hospital, which does checkup´s for this particular situation. Finally, it was time for our interview, so our son called the hospital got an appointment for 4 persons. Then the chain of unfortunate events started. As we know the Covid-19 virus has affected us all, the first lockdown in Germany where we lived came exactly right before our interview. We had also to cancel the doctor´s appointment, because they are only valid for a short time span. That already hit us hard, but only little did we know that it can go worse. We tried to keep us up to date every single day. We had only six months for the interview, or else we would lose our chance.
President Trump stopped the immigration process two times, first time for 3 months already we had only 3 months left, then again but that time for six months. That was the time we lost all our hopes, the immigration lawyers told us that there is nothing to do for the ones who had not the chance for an interview. This had shattered us, and we were ready to move on with our lifes. Luckily there was a court decision, which allowed us to make the interview, and we made it two days before the deadline.
As the consulate opened again, we had to do our doctor´s appointment within two days and go to the interview, which is near to impossible. This already cost us our nerves to get that doctors appointment, out of 4-5 hospitals only one decided to help us out and scheduled us in. We went to the interview it went great, and just to be save we´ve asked the interviewer if it will be possible to travel to the USA after we receive our visas, and he stated us that there would be no problem. As soon as we received our visas, we sold our cars and our furniture, moved out of the house and took my daughter from school. We drove to Bulgaria because of the Schengen ban, stayed for 14 days, went to Turkey by coach, bought tickets for more than 2000€, only to be refused from the flight because of PP10014 and to go back to Bulgaria.
I´m writing this story six months later now, and we still fight for our rights as immigrants. This roller-coaster has broken us mentally emotionally and financially. We left our past behind us, just to be able to travel to this country. Things that we couldn’t sell we gave it away or threw it away. We sacrificed everything for a better future. I cannot believe that this journey ends here, I refuse the idea of giving up after what we have done. We paid all the fees, we paid the doctor, we paid the travel from country to country, we paid a flight which we didn’t took and we even paid the immigrant taxes.
Our son is traveling back and forth to Germany and Bulgaria for his school, even our daughter asks us every day when will we go to our new home. We hoped that with the new president, the PP10014 would be lifted but it did not. We feel cheated and we´re frustrated. We don’t know what to do. I will be very disappointed, if this ban doesn’t get lifted because this is one in a lifetime opportunity and we´re about to lose it for no reason.
Yudaim – from Bulgaria