Immigration Office

I went for my interview with the Immigration Officials. Several people at work assured me it is no big deal, and mostly a formality, but perhaps unconscious bias left over from a Cold War childhood had me nervous about dealing with a German bureaucracy.

Fortunately most of my transition to Germany has been shepherded by Relocation Agency, hired by my school, and they have overall done a very good job of taking care of me. My agent, Cathy, met my wife and me at West Banhof Station, and drove us to the Immigration Office in downtown Frankfurt. Frankfurt is not really that big a city, but it seemed to take a long time to get there. Maybe there were one way roads the forced a circuitous route. Although I usually have a very good sense of direction, I lost track of the turns until we pulled alongside a long building that had the feel of "government offices."

As we pulled into a parking spot I noted a long line of people waiting to get into the building. We exited the car and joined the line. The line did not move at all. I assumed we were all there for appointments with an immigration official, although the building itself seemed to be a generic government office building, with a variety of departments.

At some point the guard began letting people in. He'd check their proof of having an appointment, and let them in by ones or twos. I didn't worry about it at the time, but I suppose we were the only trio in line.

When we got to the guard, our Relocation Agent showed the letter confirming our appointment and told the guard, "we have an appointment." He indicated she can go ahead, and my wife an I tried to follow. He stopped us. I tried to pantomime that I'm with her, pointing at the Relo Agent, and he seemed to accept that. But he wouldn't let my wife through. It was as though he couldn't conceive that there might be a grouping of three. We stopped, tried to explain, the Relo Agent noticed and came back, waved the appointment letter. The guard wasn't buying it.

Finally he let us through, but as his parting shot, scolded my wife for having her mask a bit too low on her nose.

Into the building. Down a hallway. Up a stairway. And from that point on, all frames of reference disappeared. It was a loooooong hallway, uniformly grey, with doors on both sides. The only markings were generic office numbers -- 1.073, 1.074, 1.075, and so on, door after door, down the almost featureless hallway. Finally we got to the end of the hallway and turned left. To another long featureless hallway. How long can this continue? I felt as though I was in a Kafka story. The hallway ended in a doorway to the outside, which I saw led to a bridge to the next building. Where I found yet another long hallway.

Eventually we got to a waiting room, where we were to wait to be called. The appointment was just for the two of us - the Relo Agent could not go in with us - so she prepped us for what to expect, but still reassured us that it was essentially a formality.

And it was mostly a formality, except I got scolded for working prior to getting a work visa. For a few moments they had me sweating. Then the interviewer said it would be okay since it was only a few weeks, so she'd ignore it.

From there it was bureaucracy. She filled out forms. She glued my ID photo to one of the forms. She scanned four of my fingerprints (both index fingers and both thumbs). She gave me a voucher and told me to go down to the payment office to pay the registration fee. I did so and brought back the receipt. She put an official-looking stamp on one of the papers and handed it to me, and said that was my temporary permit, and I should receive the actual permit in the mail. She repeated the process for my wife. And we were on our way.

And thus went my interaction with German bureaucracy. I have legal permission to work here, as does my wife. and we continue to adjust to our life.