great article lady! it really touched on the heart of this core issue that is such a pain in the ass for so many. ini and i are both privileged white folk and we still had a multi year thing with incredibly inconvenient visits to get him to be able to live her (he's from canada)... as it is, i've never made above the poverty level and as it stands, you must have over 30-40$ k a yr to be able to bring someone over. that person cannot work for the year to 2 years while they are getting their permanent residency, so you must support them... my mom vouched for us and she had to have all of her tax returns for like the last 10 years. (good thing shes an accountant!).... after all of that plus around $2k and going hours away for 8 am appointments with the probing officers where we had to show pictures and shared bills, etc... after a few years, it expired and we had to pay more money and show up for another inconvenient meeting. holy cow! really if you are poor and don't have anyone with means to lean on, you cannot do it... no wonder people live subverting the system. the thing about the person immigrating not being able to work really got me. so what's the person supposed to do for that YEAR TO 2 YEARS? twiddle their thumbs and volunteer while the spouse holds down the income? WTF?!