2001 – signed with VIVA Records as a recording artist, did some radio tours & invited to the Grammy awards & got my US tourist visa with annotation “attending the Grammy awards”

2002 – Feb 2002, at age 24, i arrived in LA during winter!!! 1st week of Feb, while i was sightseeing, i couldn’t breath & went to the hospital & the xray tech told me my left lung is collapsed(spontaneous pneumothorax). i was so scared. the doctor put a portable chest tube on my left chest. i was discharged but night time came & i still couldn’t breath. i went back to the hospital that night & was confined. waited for the specialist the next day & that’s when they intubated me with a larger tube connected to the pleurovac machine to re-inflate my lungs. i stayed in the hospital for almost 3 weeks, strapped to my bed due to the pleurovac machine. sadly, i missed the Grammies. i came here w/ my gown, shoes, etc. hoping for wonderful memories of my one month vacation & to de-stress. the doctor told me that due to my medical condition, i should stay for a year bec. spontaneous pneumothorax patients cannot ride an airplane.

June 2002 – i rented an apartment with what little money i had left. started looking for a job to petition me for a work visa because i didn’t want to be an illegal. i have a degree in Mass Communications and i self-studied web design while in college. i found a staffing agency & paid their required $500 to send me to job interviews with companies that might petition for a work visa. nothing came out of it. then someone referred me to a Fil-Am newspaper who said will petition my work visa. i went for an interview & was told that they only petition if i work on commission til i get my visa. i was to work as account executive. i saw other Filipinos there so i thought it was legit. i knew nothing about immigration law then. i paid almost $5,000 to their preferred immigration firm of Korenberg, Abramowitz & Feldun and was told my petition for work visa would come through around 3 months. the Fil-Am newspaper employer made me work right away while the petition is pending. i didn’t know you’re not supposed to work while you don’t have your work visa yet. then, the petition didn’t come out after 2 years! so for 2 years, the employer made me work for free, on commission basis, as account executive gathering adverts for the newspaper & required us to be at the office all the time without getting paid at all! it was so hard bec. they never provided bus pass or food allowance, knowing we are just new immigrants. i paid my rent with the little savings i had until it was all gone. i went into deep depression since my life was in limbo until my visa comes out & i saw the real colors of my other officemates who were jealous & wanted me out of the company.

2003 – my employer threatened to pull out my visa & in the end, when he sold the company, the new owners(also Fil-Am) said they will fire me out because I am demanding so much while the other workers who are still waiting for their visas agreed to work for free til they get their greencards which could last for 5 years until u get your greencard. these people are struggling to get by. i cannot allow myself to be abused via involuntary servitude with this company anymore. they threatened me and already stepped on me many times knowing my visa depended on their company. in exchange for the visa and greencard, they wanted free manual labor. i had enough of their threats when they said my petition will be revoked. so i called the FBI, DOL & ICE & reported their abuse.

June 2003 – got married with my Pinoy bf who was into IT & aquaculture.

late 2003 – i got calls from different US government agencies. it turns out, the immigration law firm which has been in this business for over a decade is being investigated already for mass immigration fraud & violations of immigration law. i was interviewed by the FBI. ICE said I will be one of the federal witnesses & i agreed. i was given a work permit & social security number & driver’s license by the US government. i was able to finally live legit here in the US but still no visa.

2004 – got pregnant & started our own IT firm. my husband got his L-1 visa by opening a sister company of his Philippine company here in the US. sued my employer in Labor Court and i won a huge settlement(labor lawyer’s fees contingent to my settlement amount so i only got half of the settlement amount) for almost 2 years of fulltime unpaid work. we could’ve gone to court longer with bigger settlement win but i just wanted it to be over because i was pregnant. the stress of the regular meetings and arbitration out of court was starting to take its toll on me. i was finally glad it was over when my employer decided to settle.

2005 – gave birth to my son

2006 – got pregnant again but husband’s L1 visa renewal denied

2007 – gave birth to my 2nd son

2008 – still waiting for word on what will happen to me since the case is now over & the immigration lawyers have been disbarred. those who got their greencards via fraud will be revoked.

now, i’m just gonna let my new immigration lawyer work my case out for me. by law, i qualify for an S visa as a federal witness. we’re also waiting for an amnesty. whatever comes first is fine with me. there is also the threat of deportation right now, but our focus are on our health & our children. they now go to school and i am grateful that they are thriving and healthy and happy.

i could’ve chosen to be the victim & wallow in self-pity but i emerged the victor. i never wavered in my faith in God though in my first year here after what my employer did to me, i almost lost my mind, i was so stressed out because i lost all my lifesavings. i packed my bags & was ready to go until the US government came to the rescue. thank God i wasn’t like the others who just left quietly, battered & bruised by their sad immigrant experience in America. i somehow was able to redeem my self-esteem and came out floating amidst the storm that came through in my life, knowing that those who duped me were my fellow Filipinos here in the United States.

i will still hold on for the sake of my boys. i can’t make up for the lost time and the lost opportunities for myself. but i can only hope & pray for a better America. prior to this case of the US vs. Philip Abramowitz, the US  has been lenient on visas. but now, immigration officials thoroughly scrutinizes every application and matches what the employees tax returns to their declared per hour salary to their immigration application. now there’s little chance for fraud. and enforcement is swift and immigration laws are strictly enforced.

those who wanna migrate must think a thousand times before leaving their lives behind because it’s not easy to start life all over again in a foreign land & we don’t know what the future holds. but if you migrate legally, to countries that are open to immigration, like New Zealand, Canada and London via points system, then there’s less chance that you will be abused by unscrupulous immigration lawyers and employers.

looking back, i don’t regret about everything that has happened to me. if i continued my music career, maybe i would be successful or maybe not. who’s to know? one thing’s for sure – it’s a very demanding & stressful profession. i am happy now being here in the US taking care of my 2 boys being a hands-on mom. they are living a happy & quiet life with both parents present in their lives to nurture them and love them. and here in the US, they can be anything they want to be. even if we are not rich here, they can still pursue medicine and become doctors one day because of student loans or college grants. i guess God has a different plan for me than what I wanted for myself. just looking at my 2 boys eases all the pain, heartache & sorrow that i’ve experienced during the past 10 years of my life. and i am blessed that my husband & i were able to quickly shift to a new profession, we are now working as IT professionals here in the US which is far from what we were doing when we were still in the Philippines, him being into aquaculture, breeding tilapias in his tilapia farm, while i was a recording artist.

Life indeed is full of surprises.