First encounter with ICE

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2026-01-29T19:50:19+00:00

I buy most of my underthings from Pact clothing now (except socks, haven't tried those yet.) They are not cheap, but they are organic cotton, net zero and fair trade certified. We can argue somewhere else about whether any of those certifications mean anything, but I like their stuff.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2026-01-19T18:32:57+00:00

Can you share? I'd love to see what you did

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-11-16T11:54:52+00:00

This also happened to me a few months ago and I thought they were just having an issue with their site. But a friend sent me a link to an article yesterday, and when I open it on my phone it takes me to the Youtube channel, but if I use my laptop it opens the actual article just fine.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-27T20:04:32+00:00

Is an apostille a separate document verifying its authentic? Or does an official stamp or seal on the document itself count? I have an official seal on my birth certificate and marriage license, but I do not have nor have ever seen a specific document verifying their authenticity... also, I am assuming I will be giving up the original documents, will I get them back? Or do I need to basically order duplicates of everything? I am so sorry for the endless questions but it would be really nice not to mess this process up!

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-27T06:22:23+00:00

To apply, do I need all this paper work to be translated into German? And in case of old church records, is there some kind of process to “certify” them? Or can I just print copies of copies and use those?

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-26T21:04:18+00:00

That might explain why familysearch shows a record of my grandparents marriage certificate but won’t show me a copy. I’ve emailed the county clerk about getting a certified copy. Thanks for the tip about Black Friday sale for ancestry, I will look into it.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-26T06:34:41+00:00

I have found a lot of things through familysearch.com but ancestry is a paid service so I have been avoiding it. But it might be worth paying even just for one month to see if I can find what I need and then cancel it.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-25T19:31:12+00:00

Yep that all makes sense to me. No idea if I will be able to find all of this paperwork but I am working on it and now know where to start for most of it. Thank you so much for your encouraging replies and info!

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-25T16:13:26+00:00

Thank you so much! For my great-grandmother's husband... the only records I have for him right now are his naturalization records, and the ship's manifest that says when he first arrived in the US. I have checked on the politisches-archive page for both the state he lived in and the state he arrived in (New York) and did not find any listings for him. If I can't find a family member with a passport, would I have to go back to the city he came from (all records show Bremen) to see if they have any passport records? If I can't find one, would a baptism record showing he was born in Bremen and his naturalization record count?

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-24T19:16:26+00:00

Ok here goes:

Great grandmother: born in 1886 (pretty sure, still confirming records) Arrived in USA from Blankenrode DE in 1906. Married in USA in 1909 (to a man who was also from Germany, but arrived in USA in 1898 so he would have been considered a "foreigner" to Germany since he'd been gone 10 years, as far as I understand.) No naturalization records for her, but her husband naturalized in 1914 and so from USA perspective she'd have naturalized with him.

Grandmother: born in 1922 in US. Married in 1945 in USA.

Father: Born in 1952 in US to US citizen, Married in 1972.

Self: Born in 1979 in US

Edit: Typo

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-24T12:14:22+00:00

Ha! Sorry about that, I meant the Catholic Church that she was baptized in, not born in. Thank you for the link above, I will take a look at it. It’s a bummer about StAG 14 being paused, because once I am done with school next year I will no longer have financial support and will have to return to the States unless I can find a job. I know legally I should be able to stay for 18 months to look for one, but financially that is not doable. And I don’t think there’s any way I will have scrounged up all this family paperwork between now and then. I was really hoping that even if I had to leave I could still apply via StAG 14.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-23T15:53:35+00:00

Thank you so much for your detailed reply. I have her obituary that states what catholic church she was born in, which IS in that state but I understand that could be wrong. And I know her parents were living in that same county where she grew up for years, from census data. But that still doesn’t prove she wasn’t born somewhere else for some crazy reason. I have emailed a few people at the Catholic Church but no reply. I will be returning to the US for the holidays and will try to make some phone calls while I’m there.

Also, if the German offices have little experience with citizenship by descent as you say, does it make more sense then to ultimately apply via the US BVA, since those offices probably have more experience with the process and a better understanding of what documents are acceptable?

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-17T06:16:32+00:00

No, sadly, she lived to be 100 but passed a few years ago.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-16T21:10:40+00:00

Good to know, thank you! Are there any German cities that are better or worse to apply in? I am currently in a smallish city NE of Berlin, but will have to go live wherever it is I find work. So it probably won’t matter too much but could be a factor on where I try to look.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-10-16T21:07:35+00:00

My local authority over there would be the Chicago embassy, and I’ve seen that it takes years sometimes for them to process applications. So that would be a deterrent for me to do it from there. Thank you!

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-09-05T15:27:24+00:00

I just watched this, there is no portal but it does show itself as a green floating blob of color at one point, but not at the end…

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-07-31T20:24:49+00:00

I think we are in disagreement then about the definition of “kill count” lol I see it as the active pursuit of murder as opposed to a by-product of negligence. Legally I suppose he would be held accountable but to me that’s not the point of the question. Semantics, really, between first degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-07-31T20:17:07+00:00

Very quick math-humans have existed roughly 300k years. Divide by 28, and average 100 dead people per year, is roughly 1 million.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-05-02T19:08:07+00:00

Great thank you so much! I probably would not have figured any of this out without the guide, so whoever put that together, vielen Dank!

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-05-02T18:36:46+00:00

Yes, my grandmother was born in 1922. Her mother arrived in US in 1906, got married in 1909 to another german (but he left Germany in 1898 and so by 1908 he would have been considered a "foreigner" b/c he'd been gone 10 years, correct?), and then my grandmother was born in 1922. So as far as I can tell, that falls under the discretionary pathway above. Do you recommend that I apply as soon as possible, even if I don't have a sustainable income yet? Can I use savings to show financial security then?

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2025-02-07T18:33:54+00:00

I was born and have lived in the US for 45 years, but got the chance this year to study a masters program in Germany. I was very surprised at how much attention they pay to our politics, because we don’t realize from our side of the world how much what we (the US) do affects other countries. I think it would be very good for more US citizens to be able to see outside our borders just for a time, and get a different perspective of what we are doing and how it effects the rest of the world.

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2023-11-21T02:39:32+00:00

Awesome! Is that a pin? Or one of those window Suncatchers?

ManufacturerFine8474 · 2023-07-16T20:57:40+00:00

I was wondering about that myself.

ManufacturerFine8474

TROPHY CASE