CHANGING AND REFORM
I am hoping that there will be changes or reforms in the German system soon.
I have already read in a legal journal that recently there have been some bureaucratic alignments made across the EU (including Germany) in the area of visa regulations for EU citizens and their spouses in late 2008 and early 2009.
However, the fact remains that Germany is just an example of how governments and bureaucracies around the globe fail to look after not only the greater good of their own citizens but fail to encourage common good amongst citizens of other nations at a time when tolerance and integration across race, religion, and nationality are supposed to be being promoted.
This need for more tolerance and fairness in awarding marriage licenses and in providing access to visas for spouses is particularly aggravating the situation in the majority of EU nations where population growth is around 1.5 per couple on average.
The situation in Germany appears to be particularly dire because (in 2008) for the first time in many decades, less foreigners have moved to live in Germany than the year before.
Already in the German state of Hessen, where I live, up to 1/3 of the children under 16 are from at least one parent who was born in other nations.
This means that by themselves the Germans are not keeping up demographically and their unhelpful bureaucracy of integration and marriage are keeping the incoming and integrating populations lower than they need to be.
TO BE FAIR
To be fair, Germany is definitely not the only country in Europe or the world that has such a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde approach to marriage and integration of international couples. Similarly, I have met numerous Americans who have married someone from abroad, especially USA servicemen.
From these American couples, I have heard horror tales of them spending several months to years with their spouses hanging out in the Philippines and in other corners of the globe before they were finally allowed to bring their wives across borders to the USA.
I bring this up because I married a beautiful Filipina this past year.
The USA Consulate in Frankfurt has since notified me that it refuses to help process any visas for non-Americans in Germany until these non-Americans have lived in Germany for at least 6 months.
That means that even while I am still currently waiting in Germany for the German leadership at the Integration Office in Wiesbaden, Hessen to process my wife's visa to come and join me at work in Germany (from Kuwait), I will have to expect to wait automatically six more months after my wife's visa approval and arrival in German occurs before I can go to apply at the Consulate in Frankfurt to get a visa to go to the states and visit my family (while accompanied by my bride).
Don't forget America! Eight years ago, there was no such mammoth bureaucracy like the Department of Homeland Security existing on the planet. Now it is the largest and most out-of-control part of the American Bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, Germany and other countries will copy its every paperwork and delaying tactics. This sort of copying is called alignment or realignment of bureaucratic procedure. Now this monster bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security, even controls (my) our own spouses´ destiny.
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