The Government Won’t Let My Wife and Me Raise Our Family in the United States

When my first wife passed away more than a decade ago, it was one of the hardest times in my life. I became a single father, and while it’s been my life’s joy to raise my kids, it has been lonely. That changed when Deborah came into my life.

We met on a Christian website and immediately fell in love. Despite me living in Missouri and Deborah in Kenya, we had an instant connection. She is beautiful, caring, and smart as a whip. We started talking every day and quickly realized we wanted to spend our lives together.

We are both preachers, and our faith has given us strength as we navigate life’s challenges. In 2018, I flew to Kenya and we got married at a big church wedding in her parent’s village. I adopted Deborah’s daughter from a previous marriage, and in 2020, we had our own beautiful baby girl.

As an American citizen, I never thought I would be forced to choose between love and country. I am an Army and Navy veteran, and it feels like a betrayal of my service that I can’t live with my family in my own country.

Our family has a near-perfect life except for one thing: A consular officer in the U.S. Embassy in Kenya will not grant Deborah’s visa to live in the United States. To complicate things further, my stepdaughter’s visa was approved. She now lives with me and my eldest daughter outside Kansas City while our toddler lives in Kenya with her mother.

My desires are simple: I want to live with my wife and our children. I trust God has a plan, but that doesn’t make living apart less difficult. We spend hours on the phone every day, and I go to Kenya twice a year, but it’s not the same as living together. I have a good union job on a Ford assembly line in a community I love, and if I moved to Kenya I wouldn’t be able to provide for my family the way they deserve.

As an American citizen, I never thought I would be forced to choose between love and country. I am an Army and Navy veteran, and it feels like a betrayal of my service that I can’t live with my family in my own country.

Never once have Deborah and I doubted our commitment to each other, but it isn’t easy to function as a family spread across two continents. Thankfully, my wife and I are both stubborn as an ox. It’s part of what makes us a good match, and it means we’re never going to stop fighting for our family. We know we’re meant to be together; it’s just a matter of when and how.

That’s why I am helping challenge these unjust family separations. With the support of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) and American Families United, I contributed my story to a friend of the court brief in the Supreme Court case Department of State v. Muñoz. Like my family, the husband and wife at the center of this case have been separated for years because of a decision of a single consular officer. The Supreme Court is considering whether U.S. citizens have a constitutionally protected interest in a visa for their spouse.

For families in our situation, the decision in this case could be life-changing. The Court will hear the case April 23, with a decision expected in the summer. As they consider the case, I hope the Supreme Court justices listen to our stories and ensure that U.S. citizens will have access to a fairer process when seeking to live with their non-citizen spouses in the United States.

For now, my family and I continue to pray every day that we’ll be able to live together soon. We hope you’ll join us.