From Our "In" Box

We get a lot of e-mails about Katie's hair, makeup, clothes, lighting, shoes and the way she sits on the desk. So imagine our surprise when we got one that wasn't about any of those things. It's a lengthy comment on last night's freeSpeech. Take a look. – Ed.

I also heard the freeSpeech segment on your show and I have read all the comments made. Honestly, I am one of those undocumented here in the U.S.

My story is a bit similar to his but with a twist.

My family came here under a visitor's visa and we tried to see if we can get an employer to sponsor us for work which we did and immediately filed for a work permit - we also have an ITIN so we can pay our taxes.

Immigration asked me to submit more documents before they can approve my request to change status which I did. They denied me and I appealed to them to reconsider since I know that I am qualified and I met all their requirements. It took years for them to give me an answer, this is when I became out of status, which was a denial me again. I filed an appeal with the court and last year the judge ruled in favor of me stating that the immigration was abusive. The immigration office could have given me my papers then but they did not. They played with time until I have to file a motion to compel. They finally sent me the notice of approval to work this April 2006 but the sad thing was that the work permit was valid until September of last year.

I have done everything the right way, my papers are now back with the immigration office since I filed for an extension of the work permit. I do not know whether they will grant it or not.

By the way, I do not have my child in public school, I am not wasting the American's money since we are doing everything we can to afford private school for them. We try to take odd jobs just to meet our needs. We are paying personal health insurance.

There was a comment on the site saying that we should file for citizenship prior to coming in this country - but please inform that person that you cannot apply for citizenship if you are not in this country. You have to be a resident for years before you can apply for citizenship.

As for the person saying that this is a nation of laws and that there is a correct way of doing it - I did it that way, my application was by the book but they did not grant me what I requested just because they felt like it. It was not me who did not do it correctly, the judge stated that the immigration office was wrong and they abused their authority! They did not even follow their own rules in the book that they created. This is not fair to me. If they have given me what I applied for in the first place then me and my family would not be one of the undocumented people here. They also said to change the law, how can we if we are not legal here? We would gladly help change the laws and let our voices be heard if we are allowed to.

As for the person saying that we should wait in our country to get residency, sorry, that will not happen because we can only get residency if we are HERE in this country and residing. How can we get residency when we are in another country? The only way we can get residency waiting in another country if we have immediate family who will petition us to be residents here. The thing is we are doing it the hard way, we are starting from scratch, no one can do that for us.