I just read an article in the Canadian Express about the immigration woes of mixed couples, not necessarily inter-racial, but where one is an American citizen and the other is an 'illegal' immigrant. Contrary to popular opinion, marrying an American citizen is not the 'fast and cheap' way of obtaining American citizenship, especially if you are an 'illegal' immigrant without a 245-i (Fash can help document her experiences with U.S. Immigration regarding this). In order to process citizenship, the 'illegal' part of the family is sent home, and has to wait several long years for the approval of a waiver to come back to the United States. Naturally, most couples would rather stay together than go through this process of family separation that may well result in not reconciling under the law. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that we have over 2 million mixed families such as these in the United States.

Kecia Sales and Juan Marquez are one such couple that decided to undergo the long and tenous process of Marquez finally residing in the United States legally. Under the law, 'family values' like love and commitment are not enough to grant the couple the right to live together legally. Since Marquez entered the United States illegally, the law bars him from re-entering for another 10 years, and the government must approve a waiver from his wife proving extenuating hardship to her due to his absence. Sales' waiver request was denied two weeks ago and she has been given 30 days to collect evidence for an appeal to prove hardship.