Jan 28, 2026

God is making big moves in my life. I’ve been wrestling with Him this past month.

And boy, is He showing up!

Jacob wrestled with God and birthed Israel. King David wrestled with God and birthed the Book of Psalms: a heartfelt admiration of the Victor from the loser. Because, of course, you shall lose if you wrestle with God!

I wonder what’ll emerge from my own wrestling… a beachside horse ranch in Goa? A man can dream! A man should dream!

I don’t quite get the covenant of circumcision in the Old Testament. I have been really wrestling with the idea that God asked man to draw blood from the penises of eight-day-old male infants as an act of commitment to Him.

I find myself in quite the tussle between reason and obedience.

And boy, is He showing up!

Yesterday, my Green Card got denied. And I feel so… untethered.

There is a specific lightness that comes with being untethered. You can only feel untethered in a moment where a weak tether is swept away from your life.

Something you were trying to anchor yourself in, but that could never carry the glory God intends for your life, gets swept away. Leaving you untethered.

If you don’t yet know this, that untethered feeling can be quite scary.
If you do know this, the same brings life and adventure.

Weak tethers are the source of misery.

Yesterday, God swept away the weak tether that had kept me connected as an immigrant to the United States of America. The current stage in my Green Card application came back DENIED. After some initial panic, I felt the relief of surrender sweep through me!

Being an Indian immigrant in the US has been like being in a long-running, one-sided situationship where you really want to commit to the woman—the American Passport—but boy! She just keeps putting up one hurdle after another. Because, honestly, she is not really that into you but doesn’t yet know how to say a clear No to the thrill of being pursued. While your wife—the stable Indian citizenship—is waiting for you back at home.

Oh praise God! I just got out of a 15 year situationship!

I can’t even begin to describe the agony of having to deal with the American immigration system. The strongest vestige of colonization is the modern day immigration system. Dictating who gets easy access to what part of the Earth. What they evoke in the formerly colonized is this persistent desire to be in an abusive immigrant relationship with their former abusers.

You ask a 90s Indian boy if he wants to move to the US and if he has been sufficiently abused in his childhood, instantly you’ll get the answer: Yes, of course!

You ask why and you might get an incoherent babble of nonsense that people spout when they don’t know the answer to a question but don’t want to come across as not knowing the answer to the question.

Thankfully, things have been changing. The alliance of the White countries against what they call the developing world is dismantling. Canada is striking deals with China. Europe with India.

If you are an immigrant who clings to the US like a newborn clings onto their mother’s teat, now is the opportune time for you to address your wounding with your own motherland. The most unfortunate flavor of which makes your own countrymen feel dirty to you.

Isn’t it ridiculous that 15 years into this country, I still don’t have reliable permanent legal status? The ability to just be at a place and not have some authority ask me to leave! What is even more ridiculous is that I have willingly continued in this situationship!

No more! Oh, praise God!

In one of his speeches, President Trump addressed the question of immigrants and American education. “Come here to receive quality education, but then go back and take care of your home countries,” he said, in the context of redesigning American Student (F1) and Work (H1B) visas.

There’s a more glorified version of it floating around on social media.

It honestly doesn’t matter to me whether he actually said that or not. The message stands on its own.

As such, I’ve often seen a silver lining in what gets labeled anti-immigrant rhetoric in MAGA. Every time I heard “go back to your country,” there was a quieter voice in me that added, “and take care of it.”

MAGA woke me up to the heart of what I was seeking from my time in the US.

What I was seeking was a celebration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I now see that this is first an inner orientation, not simply an external condition. It becomes externalized in the culture when enough people have internalized it.

Now that I feel rooted in these values, no one can take away my celebration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is the real beauty of the founding values that this great nation chose! And I feel so utterly grateful that the idea of America exists in this world!

A 250 year old experiment in togetherness that has continually practiced choosing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness over its alternative: death, enslavement, and wallowing in misery.

And I am now permanently moulded by that experiment.

No one can take that away from me. So grateful 🥲 May God continue blessing the United States of America 🇺🇸 🦅

I had gotten a marriage-based Green Card in late 2020. I separated from my then partner in late 2021, as my repressed sexual trauma emerged suddenly. When you receive a marriage-based Green Card, you first get a temporary 2-year card, conditional on the continuance of your marriage. If you get divorced, you have the option to apply for Removal of Conditions so that you can receive a 10-year Green Card, after which you can apply for citizenship.

I applied to remove the conditions in May 2023. In September 2025, USCIS sent me a postal letter requiring additional evidence, but they sent it to an old address I had on file. They did not send me an email notification. I find that suspicious.

On Jan 27th, I received a notification letting me know that my Removal of Conditions application had been denied. This time I received an email notification. I am awaiting the postal letter to explore what options they are offering me. I feel complete, though, and have decided to step out of the long queue to gain the American Passport. I intend to pursue the fight only enough so that I don’t get rushed out of the country and have sufficient time to sell my belongings and say goodbye to friends.

There’s a part of me that does hold some panic about ICE, as I feel more in the immigration gray zone than before, but things are not as bad as they could be.