Coming to America

Center: Victoria Hundhausen shows her "Alien" green card. Far Right: Victoria Hundhausen with Optimist President Terri Ellis

Optimist member, Victoria Hundhausen, is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city in Argentina with a population of 17 million people. Victoria grew up in the city, where approximately 3 million reside, being a resident for 30 years. She shared her personal immigration story, prefacing it by saying she is not an expert on immigration, nor is she a lawyer. She is an immigrant who has worked with other immigrants for 30 years.

Victoria began by saying "being an immigrant is not fun. You leave your home, family, friends, food, language, culture, traditions and your place in society." The main reasons most choose immigration is due to safety, economics, or other reasons. She fell in the "other" reason. Her family has a long history in Argentina. Both her father and mother's families, along with many ancestors, are a part of Argentina's culture. She lived with her family in Buenos Aires and after graduating, earned a degree to teach English where she taught elementary and high school students before starting her own company where she taught English to executives in companies. At that time, she never thought she would move to another country.

She met her husband, fellow Optimist member, Bob Hundhausen, in 1990 and they married five months later. They agreed that Bob would stay in Buenos Aires for one year to learn her language and immerse himself in the Argentinian culture. Victoria would then do the same in America. In 1991, they moved to Wisconsin. But before she could do that, she had to apply for a residency visa, which was a long and expensive process. To be eligible to begin the application process, you must have a family member that is a U.S. citizen, be adopted, be chosen in the lottery, or fall under "special cases." The immigrant also needs a U.S. sponsor that agrees to financially support the person when they arrive in the country.

Prior to the immigrant being granted approval, there is a long process with correlating fees including:

• Application form - $1,440 (to register for permanent residency and petition for an alien relative to sponsor you)

• Petition for sponsor - $535 (Bob's parents agreed to sponsor Victoria and support her which required the sponsor(s) to complete additional forms and share their personal financial and bank account information

• Medical exams - $250-650 (cost is dependent on vaccines, lab tests, x-rays, etc)

• Translation of documents fees

• Affidavit of support fee - $120

• Interview - where you bring your appointment letter, documents, receipt of fees paid, medical exam results, passport, translations, and in her case, her spouse

• Renewal fees - currently $200 (due semi-annually)

Even if all of the above are approved from the U.S. embassy and all fees are paid, the immigrant still may be denied entry at the border. Fortunately, Victoria was not and she finally became an alien and received her green card. In 1996, after five years of citizenship and paying her semi-annual renewal fees, she became a citizen. She shared that they applied for citizenship for her brother soon after, but after fifteen years of paying renewal fees and no further notification, they exhausted their efforts.

When Victoria moved to the United States, it was very expensive to communicate with her family in Argentina as there were no computers, no smart phones and no news from Argentina to be found in the newspapers. In the U.S., she initially taught Spanish at a high school but it wasn't the same as teaching English to adults. She didn't feel that her degree was understood in the United States. She chose to go back to school and graduated at the top of her class at UW-Whitewater with a Bachelors degree in Spanish and English. She later earned her Masters degree in Spanish Literature at UW-Madison. She also became a reading specialist. Victoria has worked at Madison Area Technical College (MATC) for 27 years and is currently the Director of the English as a Second Language program and teacher of English as a second language.

Victoria summed her immigration journey up as being emotionally hard, but she knows her story is much easier than the story of most immigrants. Today, it is virtually impossible to immigrate to the U.S. legally. Bob shared that in 2023, 99.4% of applicants to the states were rejected or declared ineligible. The United States currently has the lowest immigration rate in the world. He also stated some statistics that undocumented immigrants have contributed $29 billion to our social security system. These are benefits these individuals will never claim. In addition, they have reduced our national deficit by $14 trillion dollars.