Josh Cash | Green Card: An Irishman's Road to America | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 73

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 73 with Josh Cash.

Introduction

Josh Cash: But here, there's so much more opportunity for growth because America is so big. And when you think about Ireland, it's almost, now that I look back on it, it's more like a tourist country. Growing up, very lower class family. You know, my mom always worked in bars or in health care. My two sisters both work in a bar. My dad never worked, and no one in my family graduated high school. So I was the first to kind of go through high school, go through college, and then moving out here has been really unique and cool because I have a lot of nieces and nephews and cousins now, and it's a big part of me and a goal of mine to show them there's more options out there than what we're presented with at home. I'm Josh Cash, and this is the Tom Rowland Podcast.

Tom Rowland: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. We got a good one for you. Today is a little bit different than most of the other podcasts that we've done. This one is going to be with my friend Josh Cash, and Josh Cash is an Irishman. He is a true Irishman that has come to America, and he has married an American. And recently, he has gone through the process of getting his green card. Josh is somebody that I work out with a lot, somebody I train with, somebody I talk to a lot. He started telling me this story about getting his green card, and I just thought it was fascinating.

Tom Rowland: I'm not bringing this to the podcast for any sort of political statement about immigration or anything like that. I just thought it was a really interesting story about what someone from Ireland needs to do to come to this country and work and live. And it is a process that I didn't really know or understand at first. Immigration is in the news so much right now, and having someone that I know, like, and trust kind of understand it, and having them tell me the story of going through the immigration process, was incredibly interesting to me. I hope it'll be interesting to you as we talk to my friend, Josh Cash.

Hearing Loss and a Mystery Eye Condition

Tom Rowland: Alright, Josh. How's it going, man?

Josh Cash: It's going good. I'm glad to be here.

Tom Rowland: Good deal. You're just telling me that you're having trouble with the headset because you're deaf in one ear?

Josh Cash: Yeah. So I was born with, I don't really know the name of the disease, but basically it's fed by water. I was born with a hole in my eardrum, and it kind of fills up sometimes with gunk. And every now and then, when I was younger, I used to get a clear-out. But with a hole in the eardrum, I've got about seven percent hearing in my left ear.

Tom Rowland: In my right ear, I have about 7% hearing because of shotguns and outboard motors and the rest of an outdoor career and living outside. So we're about even, your left and my right.

Josh Cash: Sounds like a Southern America right there.

Tom Rowland: I think so. I think a lot of people have pretty significant hearing loss in their right ear. It's funny. I can hear certain things very well, and I can hear other things almost not at all. It's almost like it's a frequency thing. Like something walking through the woods, I can hear that really well. But sometimes people talking, I can't understand what they're saying. So I have to turn my other ear to them. But I know a lot of people that are a little bit hard of hearing in their right ear.

Josh Cash: That's the exact same. There's sometimes where someone would maybe be talking to me, and I haven't realized from my left side, and the words travel all the way around and hit my right ear. And then I turn to the right side, and the person's over there to the left. I haven't realized.

Tom Rowland: Was that a problem growing up?

Josh Cash: A little bit. I sat closer to the front of the class in school, just so that I could hear. When I got older, I had operations every six months. I think I had seven operations total.

Tom Rowland: Seven operations? Really?

Josh Cash: Yeah, on my left ear.

Tom Rowland: Like more so than tubes in your ears? Like more serious operations?

Josh Cash: Yeah. So they would cut open from the back, and there's a lot of gunk that would form up in there, and they would scrape out as much as they can until it got too close to the brain. I still get my ear cleared out sometimes, not operations, just kind of a suction process. But basically there was a chance to get an operation to try and clear out all of it and stop it. But there was also a chance of being paralyzed on the left-hand side of my face just from the risk of doing it. I just decided I didn't want to do that, and I just kind of go and get a clean-out every now and then. Other than that, it's pretty good. It also has its positives, you know.

Tom Rowland: It does.

Josh Cash: Yeah. Selective hearing. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't hear you. Didn't hear you. I should've washed the dishes. Missed that." My mom kind of figured that out when I was starting to grow up, and I kind of used that sometimes in the wrong ways. But it was all lighthearted. It was fun.

Tom Rowland: And then you said you went blind?

Josh Cash: Yeah. So that was crazy. I was a bit of a jogger growing up, in the classroom, whatnot. And one morning I woke up, and I couldn't see out of my right eye. I told my mom about it. She told me to stop messing around. Went to school, told my teacher. It took about four days for someone to actually believe me that I couldn't see out of my right eye because it was so unbelievable that this was actually happening. I was kind of telling people but laughing, like, I actually can't see out of my right eye. So I went to the optometrist, and they took one look and said, you need to go straight to the hospital.

Josh Cash: So I went up to the hospital, and long story short, what was happening was I was forming fluid behind my retina, and my retina was detaching. And with the fluid, it was being pushed up. This is the first time it happened. I spent about a month and a half in the hospital. We did every test under the sun with regards to blood tests, heart exams, anything that they could think of. Basically, they gave me steroids and stuff like that. And the eye itself, the retina, when the fluid died back down, the retina reattached itself.

Josh Cash: So there would be a period of about one and a half to three months where I just wouldn't see out of one eye, and then it would reattach itself. The second time it happened, it happened to my left eye. And it happened five times total, three in the right, two in the left. I have twenty-twenty vision right now.

Tom Rowland: And they couldn't ever figure out what was causing this?

Josh Cash: Never figured it out. My doctor actually came to America, to a conference, and she brought it over to seek any sort of advice or if there's anyone who'd researched anything like it. I went to Bristol. They had different doctors come and see it, and no one ever figured it out. The last time it happened, I was 20 years old, so it hasn't happened in six years.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Josh Cash: Yeah. It happened once a year for five or six years in either eye, and it never crossed paths. There was always only one eye that kind of went.

Tom Rowland: Well, I hope that's over.

Josh Cash: Yeah. It was really interesting. I still have all the photos and the doctor's notes and all the stuff I've kept with me. They came over from Ireland to here in case it ever does happen. I've got all these notes that I can take with me and show the doctor, hey, it's happened before, and this is what they've got so far.

Tom Rowland: Wow. You know, Turner, my son, had eye issues, and we went to this amazing doctor, Brian Boxer Wachler, out in California. I wonder if he would know anything about that.

Josh Cash: That'd be cool.

Tom Rowland: Well, we'll just hope it never comes back.

Josh Cash: Yeah. That's true. Let's do that.

Growing Up in Ireland and Coming to America

Tom Rowland: So tell me about where you grew up. You grew up in Ireland?

Josh Cash: Yeah. So I grew up in Ireland. I was there for nineteen years of my life, and then I moved to England for university. I went to Liverpool John Moores University. And then from there, I ended up moving out here about two and a half years ago.

Tom Rowland: And that was, you were at a camp?

Josh Cash: Yes. So I kind of started working at Camp Ozark in 2013 in my summers. I'd go to university, and I had a friend there who told me about this sports and adventure camp. Basically, you could go, you could work, and then in the aftermath, you could travel or keep your money and use it for college. So I'd come out here and I worked and did high adventure stuff or soccer program stuff at Camp Ozark and loved it. I kind of spent my three college summers doing that. And then when I graduated, Wade's wife, Debbie, who was my boss at the time, they basically hired me full time and helped me get a training visa, and I've been out here for eighteen months.

The Green Card Process Begins

Tom Rowland: So that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about today. You were telling me that you've just been through this green card process where you get your green card, and it has all of these, well, you basically have to go through the immigration process. Today, we hear a tremendous amount about immigration into America and how that's changing. And I was just really surprised to hear what you went through. I'm not trying to make any kind of political statement about immigration or anything else. I just found it really interesting, the story that you told, because you're married to a US citizen. Right? So your wife grew up here. And so when did you get married to her?

Josh Cash: So we got married in March 2017.

Tom Rowland: Okay. And you met her at that camp?

Josh Cash: Yes. So her name is Franny. She's awesome. We met at Camp Ozark in 2013 in my first summer. And then when I moved out here, she also got a job on the ministry side. So she worked for a middle school ministry in Houston, and we started dating up there. She's from Birmingham originally. And then we got married in March 2017.

Tom Rowland: Okay. And so when you get married as a non-citizen, you're a citizen of Ireland. Right? What does that look like? Is there any special thing that needs to happen?

Josh Cash: Yeah. So it's kind of a long process. It's also called a change of status. So at that time, I was on a training visa, which I think was a J-1, which Ozark could help me get. Basically they could hire me and say, we want to hire this guy because we can't find anyone else who can do this specific stuff, and we're gonna provide these training credentials. So they'd have to write out a training program in different phases of what I was gonna be doing at each step of that job. My visa was actually due to end in March 2017.

Tom Rowland: How long of a period is that where you get the training visa to when it expires?

Josh Cash: Yeah. So my specific one was eighteen months. I'm not sure if you can get different ones. I know a lot of J-1s are ninety days, three months. But this one was a different type of J-1, and it was eighteen months. Basically, going from the J-1, where mine expired in March, my wife and I had an option. At the time, we wanted to get married. We knew we wanted to get married, and it was a choice of, do we want to prolong it? If we do, then I'll leave in March, and then we need to figure out a marriage visa where you're engaged to be married to someone who's in America. But that could be anything from a year to a year and a half before I could come back to the country.

Tom Rowland: So you wouldn't even be able to return, like, on a vacation?

Josh Cash: I could come on a vacation, but it couldn't be any more than that vacation time, two or three weeks.

Tom Rowland: Two or three weeks.

Josh Cash: Unless I had a different type of visa, but visas take time.

Tom Rowland: So was there ever a thought about moving back to Ireland?

Josh Cash: There was a thought, but then we figured out that if I got married while on this training visa, then I was technically doing it legally. And then from there, it would be a change of status again, moving into getting the green card, which was a whole other process. But we thought about going back to Ireland.

Tom Rowland: Okay. For a little while. And then when you decide you're gonna stay in the States, what's the next step? How do you do that legally?

Josh Cash: So basically, I had a lawyer come in, and he was giving me advice on what's best to do, best practices. And we really figured out that the best thing to do was to get married on my current training visa, so that it wasn't expired, having to go home and then do a whole visa process, which could take a long time. So when you get married, you're basically transitioning into the green card process, which can be a long time depending on where you are going through. For me, it was the Houston office, which had a lot of immigration going on, and still does. So the process was gonna take a long time.

Josh Cash: How that looked was that you apply, you send in your application for your green card. And while you're waiting on that, you also apply for a work permit and a travel permit. The work permit and the travel permit took me six months to receive, so I went four or five months without work.

Tom Rowland: You could not work at all?

Josh Cash: No. It was illegal for me to work.

Tom Rowland: Okay.

Josh Cash: So once I got married in March, a week later my visa ended, and then I was in the application process. I was waiting on my work permit and my travel permit, so I couldn't leave the country. If I left the country, I wouldn't get back in. And I couldn't work legally because I didn't have a work permit to work in the United States. So I waited. We basically kind of hung out with her family until my work permit arrived in November 2017. And the work permit lasts a year, and the whole point of the work permit and travel permit is it provides you that window while you wait for the green card. My green card was still taking a lot longer. And then in July, I had to reapply for an extension on my work permit and travel permit, because that extension was needed since it was gonna expire in November. And while we had applied for that in July, we were still waiting for the paperwork to come in, which could have been January or February. I got the green card appointment for late November and then received my green card two weeks ago.

Two Years of Waiting

Tom Rowland: You told me earlier that you had been waiting for two years, right, to get the green card appointment?

Josh Cash: Yeah. Just under two years. So March 2019 would have been the two-year point. So like a year and eight months.

Tom Rowland: You basically file an application, and then they just say, well, we'll let you know?

Josh Cash: So, yeah, it's crazy. Basically, you file an application. I had a lawyer who helped me with all the paperwork and stuff, and I was in a very fortunate position in that sense because not a lot of people have that option. Basically, he sends me paperwork, I complete what he asks me. You have to go and get fingerprints taken. You have to go for medical examinations at different points. You have to submit evidence that you're actually a married couple, like photos of "here's me and my wife at Thanksgiving, and this is her mother, and this is her dad. And my parents came this year, and this is my mother. Her name is such and such."

Tom Rowland: And this is just to get the appointment, just to file the application to get the appointment?

Josh Cash: It really just helps for whenever you actually get the appointment. So it's to prepare you for when you go in and answer questions.

Tom Rowland: So they build a file on you.

Josh Cash: Yes.

Tom Rowland: That you have. This is who you're married to. This is her family. This is your family. This is what you're doing, who you are. And they build that file. So then, in this period of two years waiting for the green card appointment, you've got these different visas, and you finally are able to start working again. But you don't have any idea when this green card appointment's gonna happen?

Josh Cash: Zero idea.

Tom Rowland: So you're married and you're living here working, and your temporary work visa could expire. And then what would happen if that expired?

Josh Cash: So when that expires, there are different routes that you could possibly take. You're really just letting the government know that you're waiting on your interview. My lawyer would basically provide me different options, whether that's a different type of visa you can apply for. Maybe you have to go back for a little while, because if you can't work, then you need to make money somehow.

Tom Rowland: Or leave the country. Right? And if you leave the country, then you may not be able to get back in.

Josh Cash: Yeah. Even with a travel permit, this was the scary part. So when I did have a travel permit, my wife and I traveled. We'd go home at Christmas, and we also went to Jamaica at some point. Basically, with the travel permit, it's at the discretion of the border patrol officer. So when I come back in, if he feels there's something fishy, or he just doesn't believe it, or whatever it may be, he can at any point decline the entry.

Tom Rowland: And just so happened that Jamaica was a good idea instead of, like, Key West or California or someplace? I mean, we've got a lot of nice places in the country without having to take that risk. Right?

Josh Cash: That's right. But for our honeymoon originally, we had booked Jamaica, and my lawyer had given me the advice that I could go. And once it was all booked, about two weeks before we left, he was like, you cannot leave the country. So we postponed our honeymoon until a year later, and we went for an anniversary slash honeymoon. We explained it to the airlines and the resort, and they gave us a year to use up what we had paid. So once I got a travel permit, it was, yeah, you can travel, but it's still at your own risk.

What the Green Card Means

Tom Rowland: Okay. So what does it look like when you get this letter that you've got this appointment for your green card? And what exactly does the green card mean to you? After all of this, the green card gives you what kind of status?

Josh Cash: Oh, it's huge. So when my wife and I travel, we go to different lines. She goes to the US citizen line. I go to the immigration line. Especially with connecting flights and things like that, she could be waiting, you know, there's one time she was waiting up to two and a half hours just until I got through. Sometimes they may not like something. You get held up a little bit, and they just ask a couple of questions, I guess just making sure. Now with the green card, I can go straight through. We can always travel together. It just gives me a lot more privileges in the airports.

Tom Rowland: And then as far as work and living in the United States, was there a time period on the green card?

Josh Cash: So I think it's a three-year green card that gives you two or three years of, you're basically like a citizen. And what happens is, once you have been married for more than two or three years, you can apply for citizenship. And then citizenship is gonna be the angle, essentially, because once you get citizenship, you don't have to reapply for green cards. I think it's every seven years you apply for a new green card, and that process can be more expensive than just getting citizenship. It can add up.

Inside the Immigration Office

Tom Rowland: Right. So now you get this appointment, and where do you go to get the green card, and what does that whole process look like? What do you have to have prepared? You get this letter in the mail that says you've got this appointment. Does your stomach turn and say, oh boy, I need to have all this stuff prepared? Or is it super exciting? What is going on at that point in your mind?

Josh Cash: Well, it's a mix of emotions because you can get declined for a lot of different reasons. But also, it's exciting because this is what you've been waiting for, and this is kind of the angle that's just gonna make life a little more easy in terms of documentation and travel and just everyday life things. And even at work, it's always a question when you're applying for jobs: what's your status look like? Do you have a green card? Are we gonna have to sponsor you? And that kind of turns away employers.

Josh Cash: But basically, you get this letter. My wife's a little more emotional, so she was excited slash nervous, lots of questions. We'd been preparing, sending our lawyer all of these documents continuously for the last year and a half, two years. And he had built up a file that was sent off to USCIS immigration, and they literally just go through all the file. And what's going through my mind is, a lot of the reasons that you can get declined for are fair enough reasons. Like, you've committed a couple of crimes, we don't want you in America.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Josh Cash: If you have a health examination and you've got a disease, we don't want you in America. If you're coming here to entertain some sort of terrorist organization, you know, stuff that we all know is wrong that probably isn't gonna leave you in good time anywhere, not just trying to get a green card. But the other things that you can't control are things like delays and the judgment of the immigration officer. So, for example, I've been waiting this long, and with the medical examination, if the doctor had just forgotten to sign it, it goes to the back of the pile, and you could be waiting up to another year until you get another appointment because the immigration officer cannot allow that file to pass since it hasn't been fully completed. If the immigration officer sees something that he thinks just doesn't look right or thinks is fake, you can end up in immigration court, or they just decline you the green card, and then that's a whole other path that you've got to take. You can fight against it or basically concede. But being married to a US citizen makes the whole process a lot more likely than other routes that you can take to become a citizen.

Tom Rowland: Well, plus you have a few other advantages, I would imagine. First of all, you speak English.

Josh Cash: Yes.

Tom Rowland: Which has got to be a huge thing. I would imagine that these officers speak other languages as well, but the ability for you to be able to read these documents and not just rely on a lawyer, if you even were capable of getting a lawyer. In your case, you have this lawyer taking care of you. He's got your best interest at heart and is looking through these documents himself, probably making sure everything's signed, I would imagine. So you have a third set of eyes. Your wife's looking at them. You're looking at them. You've got somebody else. You actually speak English. What does it look like when you go into this facility? Where is this facility that you're getting your green card appointment?

Josh Cash: Yeah. So it was in Houston because my application was originally based out of Houston. And the big thing for me is, I don't feel like I'm emotionally high-strung. I feel like I'm pretty stable. But at the same time, I feel like I also became very numb to the whole process, and that's just the way I was. It was more so my attitude, like, this is just the way it is, and I'm nobody special. Everyone else is here just as I am, and we're all going through the same thing. But looking at my wife and seeing how infuriated she was at this point, this was the first time we kind of did it together, because it was usually a lot of things that I had to go and hand in for myself. Seeing how mind-blowing she found it and seeing the emotion that was going through her made me kind of realize, yeah, this is actually really crazy.

Tom Rowland: What was blowing her mind? What was she seeing that she wasn't expecting?

Josh Cash: So when you walk in there, basically, it's like walking into airport security. You walk in, and my wife and I are the only two white people in there. Everyone else, a different race. It's just a whole different culture going on, from different corners, different cultures. There are so many different people from around the world in this big massive room. And it's just noise. Just loud noise. And a lot of folks there don't speak English. I can't imagine what it would be like having English as a second language, or not knowing English at all, during this process, which made me really thankful for that.

Josh Cash: But you go in and these security officers are screaming. You can't speak for every facility, but this was just this specific day, and this was my experience. But there were Chinese folk there. I remember specifically there's a Chinese man who just didn't have a lick of English at all. And they're screaming, take your shoes off, take your belt off, and pointing. And he's looking down, no idea what they're talking about. He's pointing, trying to figure it out, and you could just see the anxiety going through his mind. And my wife has a high intensity of empathy for a lot of people, and that for her was just really upsetting.

Josh Cash: But then once you get in there, the desperation that you feel in the room. There's people who, you can tell, they're all suited and booted, and they're clutching onto their every last piece of paper that we all don't really know what they mean. We're just told, this is what you need to bring. So that's all these pieces of paper that you're clutching onto too tightly because one little mistake could be fatal in terms of getting your green card or whatever visa it is you're applying for. And I think for my wife and I, the big realization was, whether we get this or not, we are still in a very fortunate position, because there's a lot of folks in this room who do not want to go back to wherever it is they've just come from. This is it for them. This is the option. This is what they've been working towards. This is the only thing that they see as hope. And just being in that environment is one where you can have a lot of reflection. No matter what happens here today, we are in a very fortunate spot compared to what a lot of people are in this room, or in the world for that matter. It was just eye-opening to be able to see that, but also to feel that, and kind of being taken away from the numbness that I felt was there toward it all, and be able to think, you know what, it's okay to think that this is all crazy, because it is.

Tom Rowland: Well, absolutely. I've never been in that situation. That's one of the reasons why I'm fascinated by this story, because I don't know, I guess when I think of immigration, and you and I have been friends for a while, and you tell me that you're doing this, and it just didn't sink in, I guess, that this is what you were going to have to do. You were gonna have to go through this like anyone else from anywhere else in the world, friendly, non-friendly, allied nation, non-allied nation, whatever. English-speaking, non-English-speaking, everyone goes through this process, or everyone is supposed to go through this process. Do you see this process as so intimidating that people just avoid it and just go illegal immediately?

Understanding Immigration's Challenges

Josh Cash: Well, you think about it this way. So the position I'm in, my wife's uncle is a lawyer, so he was able to provide me with an immigration attorney that I didn't pay any money for. So already, I'm in a good spot. Secondly, the community that managers find here in America who are all willing to help, and my language is English first, that also puts me a step up in the sense that this is not gonna be as hard a process as it's gonna be for a lot of other people. When I picture myself coming from Central America or places like that, I almost understand why people just don't do it. It's a lot of money to get here, and then it's a lot of money to do the application process, especially if you're using a lawyer, which a lot of people will, because you make one silly mistake and the whole process is down the drain. So I think it is, I understand why it needs to happen, and I understand the importance of it in terms of protecting American citizens from just anyone and everyone entering the country that could be bringing anything or everything.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Josh Cash: But at the same time, if I picture myself as a refugee, there's no way in this world, after just doing it, would I ever want to do it as someone in their shoes.

Tom Rowland: What if you didn't have a choice? I mean, the refugees are coming, and they don't speak English, and they don't have attorneys, and, if they're a true refugee, they probably didn't bring anything other than maybe they have identification. Where does that process start for somebody like that? They're just told, here, fill all this out.

Josh Cash: Good luck. I'm not really sure from a refugee standpoint. I do know if you enter the country first off without a visa, then you've already entered the country illegally. So that alone warrants you not to get a green card. If you ever did anything illegal as far as entering or exiting America, from my understanding, you can't get a green card. So, for example, some of the questions whenever I was on visas were basically, did you ever abuse them? Did you ever stay longer than you were supposed to? And if those answers were yes, that would have been an issue for the application. And for someone who's a refugee, how overwhelming their life must already be. They're coming in here. I feel like the opportunity ahead of them is already greater without even having to go through a green card process. They have so much ahead of them that they didn't have before, that I don't even think that's a thought in a lot of their minds. I have a lot of friends here, and it's more so it's not really an option. It's just kind of, this is the way it is. I've got some friends whose parents were from Central America, and they moved here illegally. And basically, my friends are on visas continuously, but they can never leave the country.

Josh Cash: They can never go to a different country, because if they do, then they won't get back in to America.

Tom Rowland: Right. But they can get a driver's license.

Josh Cash: But they can get a driver's license. They can work here. There are different things that you could do, but there's also a lot of limitations to whatever status you have.

The Interview Day

Tom Rowland: Right. Well, so this place, this big room with all of these people and this noise, how did that end up for you? How long were you there on this day? You and your wife go to this thing. Just tell me about the process of going there and meeting with your officer. You're clutching your papers just like everybody else. And then what happens? He just goes through every single piece of that paper?

Josh Cash: So what was really refreshing and nice was, our experience overall was probably a good one. We get in there. We spend probably twenty minutes waiting, which for the whole time I've ever been doing any of this is pretty unheard of. And we get called in for our interview, and the guy who is interviewing us is so calm. So you're exiting this crazy building, this room where it's just filled with all of these people, and it's just like loud noise. You can hear different languages. You can just feel the tension in the room. And when he invites us into his room, it's like going from a crazy storm, and the storm's just stopped, and it's just super calm. It made me really thankful that we had that specific officer, because you never know who you're gonna get, and you don't know what kind of day they're having, and you don't know what impact that's gonna have on your application.

Josh Cash: And when we went in there, it also made me realize why this has been a long process. I step foot in there, and I see two files, and they're about six inches thick.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Josh Cash: And that's all just me. Filled with paper. Just different paper. And he's the only one who goes through it. He's the only one. And he has to check every single document. He has to sign to make sure it's been checked. He's going through both of my files. The Houston office a couple years ago was backed up a lot in terms of applications, so they were focusing a lot on back-end work and not doing enough interviews. So now it's got backed up by about two years, is what they're saying. And now they're doing a lot of interviews, but the stuff on the front end's being left, so now it's starting to pile up. So they're trying to find a balance on the best way to work that, and they're probably a little bit understaffed from what the officer was saying.

Josh Cash: But going in there, from that room to his room, his demeanor, his voice was calm. He never raised his voice. He was never harsh. He introduced himself. It's like, I'm here to help you guys today. Obviously, we're gonna go through this application. I'm gonna ask you some questions. You answer them. If you have any questions for me, let me know. And he went through the pages. He wasn't rushing through and rumbling through pages, because you're sitting there, and if there's something missing, that's gonna be an implication. He's flicking calmly, just looking for different stuff, and gets to talking to us a little bit. And after we started to feel comfortable, he asked us questions. He was like, it seems that you guys are prepared really well for this. If all goes well, if all the paperwork's right, I can tell that you guys are truly married and truly care about each other, and this isn't something that you guys are just going through to obtain a green card. So it's very much, if all goes well, if the paperwork's here, you guys should be good to go today. From that, obviously, it's a big relief, pressure kind of lifts off of your shoulders, and you kind of settle down a little bit.

Stories from the Officer

Josh Cash: And I got talking to him about his experiences, which was really cool that he was open to share about. He was telling me that people just go in there day after day and just lie to his face, just straight up lie. And again, it goes back to the desperation of how much people want to be here, but just lie to him about marriage or about whatever it is they're trying to do to obtain some sort of visa or green card. And he says it's so blatantly obvious.

Tom Rowland: What kind of stories did he tell you?

Josh Cash: So there's one that I remember specifically where this family had just staged photos. They had gone and gotten together and staged one family gathering, and he said it was just so blatantly painful. It was obvious and painful that they were really sticking to it. They'd tried to convince him, and he just wasn't having it. But the best thing about it was that with his demeanor and how much we'd seen going on out there, we just said to him, hey, we really appreciate your demeanor, and we think that this job for you is really perfect for a lot of people who are gonna come in here, because we want you to know you're really good at it, as far as calming people and making them feel comfortable. Have you always done this? And he said, no. This has only been my second year doing this. I actually normally work with refugees. Which in my mind was really cool, because I'm out there and I'm seeing all these people who can't speak English. And then I'm getting this peace of mind knowing that a lot of them are hopefully gonna come in and meet this guy who seemed to care, and he was fair. You've got to get your stuff done. This is the process. This is how it works. But also very understanding, very calm, collected, compared to what everyone else was in that room. So there were a lot of times where I was sitting there going, this process is terrible. I don't understand why they make it so difficult. And it was a bit of a slap in the face for me when I got in there and met him and realized how hard he's been working, and not seeing his end of things, and realizing that a lot of these people are gonna get the same, and that they actually do care.

Tom Rowland: I wonder how easy that would be to turn off. He works nine to five or whatever, and you're going in there and just having people lie to you all day, or you come across the one person like yourself where everything lines up, and they're missing a signature, and you know that you just gotta bump them back for a year or something. And you gotta toe the line, but you're also trying to be really thoughtful and caring about what you're doing. But somebody isn't doing something right. He definitely knows the implications of what that could mean. That could be a bad person coming into the country, and he could be responsible for it. But I wonder how easy that is just to turn off, and what kind of process you gotta do when you have a job like that to get prepared for the day. You walk in there, you have no idea what's coming up for the day. And then when you leave, do you think it's just as easy as he turns it off and takes off his uniform and sits down and watches TV or goes and works out?

Josh Cash: I think people have their different processes for how they process things, but it's gotta be really difficult. I think he's probably learned a lot working directly with refugees, and he obviously has a gift for being able to do that. But it's gotta be hard in the sense that you're making or breaking someone when the desperation to get into the country is so severe. To do that job, I feel like you've gotta have a good balance. It kind of reminds me of someone who's into social work, or someone who's a doctor and in surgery. You need to be able to not carry that stuff home with you. And I think for him, from what I picked up, it was very much so, like, he wanted, his demeanor and everything was basically, it was all fair. It was, I'm here to help you. I'm in no way here to make this process difficult for you. The only person who's gonna make it difficult is yourself. And I feel like as far as that goes on his conscience, it was like, I'm going to do everything that I can to make sure that this went good. But if you don't present me with what I need...

Tom Rowland: That's right. I mean, that's the thing. He's trying to help, but he can't help too much, because then he's not following protocol. And you've got all this, you're just missing these initials right here. I can't let it go through. I can't let you just take that pen and initial that.

Josh Cash: And that goes into everyday life. It's just a heightened process because of how important it is to people. But when you think of small decisions that people have to make, even yourself as a parent, you know the difference between right or wrong. However severe it's gonna be in someone else's life, it's a matter of right and wrong. So, I understand that this is gonna be difficult, but you were told to get this and you haven't. And because of that, just like anything else, there's gonna be a consequence. This is what the consequence is. If it had been the other way around where you were able to provide me with everything, then, yeah, there wouldn't be any issues.

A Fair Officer and a Passport Stamp

Josh Cash: What else was amazing with this guy was that he knew right away, after we talked for about thirty minutes, that he was gonna approve us. Depending on paperwork, we asked him, we have flights to go home for Christmas, and I was waiting on the extension for the travel and work permit. And I couldn't go anywhere without it. So we have flights, but if that didn't come in in time and the green card didn't arrive in time, basically I wouldn't be able to go. We would just spend Christmas here, which wasn't the end of the world, but just because we booked it and had set expectations, we were excited to go. So I said to him, what's this look like? And again, going back to him doing everything that he can to help me, he said, listen, your green card's supposed to take two to three weeks. If this process goes well and you've laid everything in front of me here and we're able to sign it off, I'll stamp a temporary green card into your passport, and you can use that up to a year until it arrives.

Josh Cash: So it kind of goes back to, oh, I hear your issue. That's tough. I'm sorry. That's what's going on. Here's the thing. I can't stamp that until I make sure that all of this is complete. So it was him saying, if you provided everything and all your paperwork's in here and I can sign it off, I would happily stamp your passport until you get your green card. Which just goes back to him again, just fair. Like, I've heard your issue. I want to help you with it. I just need to make sure on my end that you provided what I need. And if so, we'll give you the stamp for your passport.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Josh Cash: So a lot of the time, I felt like there were unjust, unfair phone call conversations with USCIS. At times we'd seen a lot of the faces up front dealing with security and things like that, and I'm thinking, these people suck. Why do they have to be the way that they are? And then going in and meeting this guy, and he's making the ultimate decision, and going through that experience made me realize, it's not all what I have in my head. It's just like everything else. It's fair and just, and this is just how it works. This is the way it is. So it was an interesting experience.

Fixing a Broken System

Tom Rowland: It would be challenging, and I know that a lot of people, immigration is such a hot topic in the news right now, and everybody has an opinion on it. And it would be challenging to come up with a better system, I think. There's just so many people that are trying to do this. What's a better system look like? It's one thing to talk about it and say, oh, we're gonna make this much easier or much more difficult, whichever it is. But then there's the other thing of just this massive volume of people and paperwork that has to be done. How do you make it easier? And then there are others that say, don't make it easier, make it harder. Make it way harder. And okay, either way, how do you change this process into whichever way you want it to be? Yeah, I could see that it could be way harder. You could have five more hoops to jump through than you already do. But I don't know, it just seems like such a big machine that it would be hard to turn, like a big ship to turn.

Josh Cash: Yeah. And part of it to me seemed like it was a business.

Tom Rowland: Oh, I'm sure it is.

Josh Cash: It's very much so, like, you gotta have the money to be able to do the process.

Tom Rowland: Well, I would imagine that there are some shady characters in this world, everybody from, you know, just like in the movies, the guy that runs the people across the border for cash or whatever. But then from there to even someone that's trying to do it completely legally, I bet there are just some attorneys, or people that call themselves attorneys, that say they're gonna help and just, I mean, dealing with people that don't speak the language, don't have any idea what's going on, and they just have a pocket full of money, and that's all they have to their name, and they're trusting these people. It just seems like that is an environment that is just ripe for bad people getting in there.

Josh Cash: Taking advantage of those to your advantage.

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

The Opportunity in America

Josh Cash: The thing is, I knew by doing this whole process, and the opportunity that you have in America is so great compared to even in Ireland, in terms of what your life can look like, how much you can make, what you can do to provide. Now, since I've been working here, I can provide in ways I never thought I could. And then on top of that, I'm able to provide for my sisters who aren't able to make the money that I make and also have kids, and my family. There's just so many more things that I can do.

Tom Rowland: Like what? What does the difference look like between Ireland and your life, if you were to say you and Fran are gonna move there, and you're gonna do a job that's similar? What is the difference?

Josh Cash: So basically, coming out of college, you're lucky to make between 18 and 20,000, and that's pounds. So about $25,000, $26,000, which isn't bad money. That's good money at home. But here, there's so much more opportunity for growth because America is so big. And when you think about Ireland, it's almost, now that I look back on it, it's more like a tourist country. Growing up, very lower class family. My mom always worked in bars or in health care. My two sisters both work in a bar. My dad never worked, and no one in my family graduated high school. So I was the first to kind of go through high school, go through college, and then moving out here has been really unique and cool because I have a lot of nieces and nephews and cousins now, and it's a big part of me and a goal of mine to show them there's more options out there than what we're presented with at home.

Josh Cash: So coming out here, now I work in a job where I make more than anyone in my family has ever made. I'm 26 years old, and it's just kind of the start of my career. There are choices that I've made specifically that have allowed me to get here, but also a lot of the influences I've had in my life to get me to this stage and be here in America just provides you with so much more. So it's interesting to think, the only real difference in me being so far up to where I am is kind of being here. The people I've met here, the opportunities that were presented, the jobs that you can achieve. The job I'm in now, it would be almost half at home in terms of money-wise, but then living here, your health care is paid for and things like that. But you can just get so much more here. And then with that, you're able to provide so much more when you go home. Now that we're at this phase in life, it's really exciting that hopefully that can be something I can do more for my family. And that's just something that my wife and I are excited about, and I'm thankful for. It's just a different world. Especially, I can just talk about Ireland, I don't know about other countries, but the opportunity for what you can do and achieve here is so much greater than what you can do at home.

Gratitude and Giving Back

Tom Rowland: How does it affect your day-to-day mindset that you're here and that you've achieved this green card status? Basically, now you're on the highway, you're headed down the road, and you can do anything right now. You always seem to be overwhelmingly thankful and grateful just in being around you, but we've never really talked in this depth about the difference between Ireland and the United States, and this whole process of getting the green card, and seeing what you've seen in this intense desperation. I just wonder how that affects you on a day-to-day level, as far as thankfulness or being happy with where you are, or the goals that you have set for yourself now. How does that change?

Josh Cash: Yeah. So especially now, where we're starting to see it more, gathering up. We bought a house recently. My family's never really had that opportunity. But it always just feels like a continual season of gratitude, of thankfulness, and bringing that into my daily life. There is nothing in this world, in terms of my current world, that is really gonna just upset me. As far as what I've got, I might have a bad day in the office. No one really wanted to talk to me in sales. I didn't make a sale this month. But when I reflect on going from growing up, where I personally came from, and then being in this situation of, even RRL, and getting to place myself in opportunities where I can meet guys who were able to go and do things that they set out to achieve, like yourself and Wade and Alan and all those guys that come from different backgrounds and went down different career paths.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Josh Cash: It's so unique to me that I even get to come and work out with these guys and be able to place myself in something where I can just learn more. Again, that just wouldn't be something I could get at home. So in my daily life, a lot of the time it's that I can give back toward my family specifically, and try not to get caught up in getting more, because you can get so much here. Trying not to get caught up in that aspect, but just slowing down a little bit and talking to my family and seeing where they're at, as far as, what can I help you with? I'm very fortunate to be in a position where it just so happens I fell in love with a girl from America, and now I'm here. It just so happens that this has now provided me things that I can provide you with. So what can I help you with?

Tom Rowland: What kind of things are you helping your family with?

Josh Cash: Financially is a big thing. Having my nieces and nephews being able to just fly over and hang out, something that we can hopefully begin to pay for, showing them that they can maybe come here, college maybe an opportunity for some of them. And just seeing my family being able to step outside of the small town that they grew up in and stayed in. Every one of my family lives in the town that we all grew up in. And stepping out of the habits that were formed and stepping into a new culture, and being able to just open their eyes a little bit to what else is out there, that in itself is just big for me, because I was fortunate to have a lot of role models and influencers in my life through sport. People who just cared about me, they provided me with opportunities to go different places, that planted the seed to where I just wanted to get more and more. Whereas your sisters don't have that opportunity when they have kids at 20 years old and they're a single parent. Or your mom and dad never got an education, so they had a couple of kids each and they're single parents and they have to try and figure it out. So it's just having those opportunities now, where they can just come and experience a little bit more, and knowing that that's something we can just totally provide, is gonna be really unique and just a different aspect for my family's trajectory.

Sport as a Pathway

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so a lot of these opportunities, the opportunity to come over here in the first place, that was through sport. Right? And soccer was your main sport. So what did that look like? You got good enough at soccer that you got on an international travel team?

Josh Cash: So soccer was basically, I mean, I was obsessed. It's all I did. I did every after-school sport there was, so I didn't go home. I would go shoot tennis balls for the girls' tennis teams. I would go stand in goal for floor hockey and the girls' sports, and I'd go down to rugby and be the smallest guy there and just hang out with the coach. I just loved sport. That's what I did. But soccer was my main sport, and I played from a young age, ended up playing semi-professional in Ireland. It's part-time football. You get paid a little bit. You play, you train a couple of times a week, but it was Irish League soccer. So it's kind of the highest you can go in terms of Northern Irish soccer. And then I played in university. And basically, with the sports and adventure camps, they hire people, counselors and clean staff, and one of the positions was instructor specialists. Specific for me was soccer and ropes course stuff. So I was doing a lot of rock climbing, canoeing, kayaking, and ropes was what I was more focused on. And then with soccer, I had a lot of experience coaching youth teams and things like that. That's how I eventually got out here in that position and was able to share my passion in those ways at camp. So sport was a big pathway for me coming here, for sure.

Tom Rowland: Is that a traditional pathway for people to get out? The people that you've seen move away or get out or do other things, is it typically first sport?

Josh Cash: Yeah. It seems that way. A lot of people I met were college athletes who came from the UK, and a lot of them, especially with soccer specifically, were in professional academies, so like Premier League soccer teams or just below that, where they maybe just didn't make it. And then the next goal was, well, I can get a full ride scholarship in America, because a lot of them still had a lot more experience and are a lot more talented because of the opportunities provided in England to be able to get to the high level of soccer that would be more than high enough to play here. So a lot of folks seem to come over on scholarships. And then from there, it's really just what happens when you're here.

Tom Rowland: So how would that be different in this whole immigration process if you're an athlete that comes over on a full ride scholarship? Is there an academic visa that you do? If you're enrolled in a school, and all of that, you can just go, and there's no problem being here for four years? Or is it one year at a time that you have to figure out?

Josh Cash: I'm not sure of the specifics on that because that was never my route, but I want to say it might be one year at a time. But also, once you get here, I met a girl the other day who's from Germany, and it seems like the only real route to stay here is marriage.

Tom Rowland: Is it really? But even then, in this conversation, that's what I would have thought before we had this conversation, that you get married and basically your road's paved for you. But that's not necessarily the case. You still had to go through a tremendous amount of paperwork and all of these appointments, and then you still could've screwed it up. Right? Like, not had all your paperwork or whatever. And just getting married is not enough at all.

Josh Cash: No. It's not. You still have a chance of not being able to stay here when you get married. I know a couple, when I worked at Ozark, he's around your age, and it's either his sister or brother. Anyway, one of them, they haven't seen their husband or wife in seven years.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Josh Cash: And they're married, but all this paperwork and trying to figure out their way around it, it's looking like ten years before they'll actually, so they got married, basically parted, and she hasn't been able to get back into the country. And it's looking like ten years is gonna be the length of time it'll take before they actually spend some time together in their marriage, which is just mind-blowing to me. So what I meant to say was, marriage is probably your best option in terms of getting a green card, but obviously I'm in no way encouraging marrying just to get a green card.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's the Hollywood movie. There's been a bunch of Hollywood movies like that. I think Gerard Depardieu had some movie about trying to marry somebody to get his green card.

Josh Cash: Someone was talking about, I forget it. I don't know if that was what they were talking about the other day. There's a really popular one. That one. Yeah, maybe.

Tom Rowland: But in the movie, they made it out like, if you get married and everything looks good, you go into the meeting and they look over everything, then you're good. But it still could look staged.

Josh Cash: Yeah. That sounds like Hollywood.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. It still could look staged to the officer even if they were real pictures.

Looking Ahead

Tom Rowland: So from here, where do you go from here? What are your goals? What are you trying to do?

Josh Cash: So it's an exciting time. Basically, trying to figure out now if citizenship's a possibility as far as Ireland goes. I'm not sure, coming from Northern Ireland, I need to figure out if we can do dual citizenship. A big part of me doesn't want to lose my Northern Irish citizenship. But long story short, if it is something that they don't agree with and you can be one or the other, I will just become an American citizen, because it'd be so much more difficult to go from this to having my wife go over there and then going through a process of getting her transitioned and everything. So the next goal will be citizenship, which should be a couple years down the road, and really just grasping any opportunity I can while I'm here and running with it and seeing where it leads down the road for my wife and I, but then also for my family. And what we can do there has become a big passion of ours. And hopefully we can provide in ways that we didn't think was imaginable before. So that's kind of the next steps. And figuring out what that looks like career-wise, I'm still unsure, but that's kind of the goal right now.

Tom Rowland: Well, I tell you what. This has been a really interesting conversation. And as always, I love to surround myself with people that are thankful and grateful and just happy. And that's what you always seem to me. You just seem like every day you're super happy to be wherever you are and being super thankful and grateful. So I'm glad to call you a friend, and I appreciate you coming on and telling us this story.

Josh Cash: Awesome. Thanks for having me. And I'm looking forward to a lot more RRL memories.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. We'll definitely be doing some big-time workouts. Thanks, man. Alright. See you, Josh.

Josh Cash: See you.

Closing Thoughts

Tom Rowland: Wow. Thank you, Josh, for being part of this and being willing to share your story with us. I really appreciate it. I learned a lot about the immigration process, a lot of stuff that I did not know. So I really appreciate Josh coming out and being part of this podcast. We have so much new stuff going on. More stuff on the website, TomRowlandPodcast.com. And so many of you have sent emails, which is awesome. Love to hear from you. Love to hear your suggestions on more guests for the show. Love to hear what you're doing, and I encourage you to send an email. Send an email to podcast@saltwaterexperience.com. Let me know what you're up to, what you think about the podcast, and if you have suggestions for guests. Also, you can follow me personally on Instagram. That's Tom underscore Rowland, R-O-W-L-A-N-D. Instagram is the social media platform that I'm the most active on. If you'd like to see what goes on on a regular basis, follow that account, and also follow saltwater underscore experience on Instagram. Those are the two social media platforms that I pay attention to most. So if you want to get in touch with me, podcast at saltwater experience, or the Instagram accounts. Alright. Until next week, I will see you on the water.