Our Broken Immigration System – Penalizing Those who Follow the Rules

It’s common knowledge that our immigration system is broken. What follows is an example of how broken it is.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about the case of 41-year-old Anatolie Vartosu. Born and raised in Moldova, Vartosu was required to serve for two years in the former Soviet army. He went on to graduate from Romania’s Sport University with a Master in Sport and went on to teach physical education, ballet and track.

Anatolie Vartosu

A former Olympic marathon qualifier, Vartosu was invited to the US in 2003 to compete in a marathon in Clearwater, Florida and arrived on a six-month tourist visa. Later that same year he ended up in Stamford, Connecticut, where he received immigration sponsorship and a job working for Jack Rabbits Gym in nearby Greenwich. Fellow Romanian immigrant Nicolae Piperea and his business partner, John Schwartz, the owners of Jack Rabbits, were looking to build their gymnastics program to an elite level, making the addition of Vartosu to the staff a natural fit. He received a three-year H1B working visa and his wife, Maria (also from Romania) opened in 2007 what has become a very successful day care program with a business partner.

In March 2006, when he and his employers went to renew his visa, Vartosu was told that he had to wait until October, when he would have to file additional documentation to justify the renewal, which he did. At that point, the 60 days he was told he’d have to wait turned into six months. After placing a call to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in April 2007, he was instructed to further file the I-29 (an internal status query) and told to wait another 60 days, which turned into yet another filing of the I-29 and a further 60 day wait.

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