By Ilya Magid

The Most Importent Item for America


We decided to emigrate a lot of years ago. But only when Gorbachev became leader did it become possible.

The entire process continued maybe two years. We had to prepare a lot of documents. Many of the documents as I understand right now were useless.

But one document was important. Maybe 3 months before we had come to USA we received application and date of appointment from the USA embassy in Moscow.

We had to explain why we hadn't been able to live decently and what disturbed my life in the Soviet Union. For that question there was given only 3 lines, but very important lines. The embassy gave us the status: refugee, poroll, and emigrant. It was important to have received the status refugee. That status gave us the best benefits.

We decided if they would not give us status of refugee, we would not emigrate to my daughter to America but we would emigrate to Israel. (She had a small income.) We received the status refugee.

That was the most important item which enabled us to come to America.
After that I learned to write briefly.

Editor Steven Siegel

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