"She went to Germany since she had German citizenship (he didn't)."
They were married and had been for a long time (i.e. demonstrably not a "sham marriage"). The husband would have got a permanent residency and work visa in Germany.
Even worse- "Still a citizen of Germany, she has the option of repatriating to her homeland, which has a free program for nationals wishing to relocate. She’d be able to get off the plane, connect with social services, and get subsidized housing and medical coverage."
She has a golden ticket to a vast array of social services, but she's tied to a community in one of the most expensive cities in the USA.
"Still a citizen of Germany, she has the option of repatriating to her homeland, which has a free program for nationals wishing to relocate. She’d be able to get off the plane, connect with social services, and get subsidized housing and medical coverage. But for 50 years, she has built a life for herself in San Francisco, and that’s something she doesn’t want to give up."
If you read the end of the article, it turns out she is actually a German citizen, which has "a free program for nationals wishing to relocate. She’d be able to get off the plane, connect with social services, and get subsidized housing and medical coverage." In fact Germany has a very strong social welfare net, she just chooses not to take advantage of that.
Hmmm… maybe there are some details she is leaving out, but it seems like she decided to be a military spouse abroad on hard mode:
- There are typically base services that support spouses in ways that she griped about — taxes, language instruction, health insurance, cheap gas, big box stores (PX, AAFES), etc.
- She and her husband get a substantial stipend for housing near the base — that is, they don’t pay rent for what will likely be a very nice place by local standards. Plus they can buy stuff at US prices at the base stores. Complaining about prices seems odd.
- She seems to have a shitty attitude. It’s not a surprise that folks aren’t responding well to her.
- Side note: I wonder if she’s actually having marriage problems, and she’s projecting it onto Germany. Her husband does not seem to be helping her much with being a military spouse (e.g., by telling her about base services), and that’s a culture shock of its own.
I’m not sure if she is a German citizen? That seems a bit quick. I’d assume it has something to do with her medical condition and him (the citizen) being her caretaker instead.
> Still a citizen of Germany, she has the option of repatriating to her homeland, which has a free program for nationals wishing to relocate. She’d be able to get off the plane, connect with social services, and get subsidized housing and medical coverage.
What the hell? She has to threaten and insult people around her and was living in an illegal building, yet has the perfect option open to her.
EDIT: And before anybody says anything about her giving up her life - by the sound of the article, her life consisted of insulting and fighting with all her neighbors. Logically if she had friends, she wouldn't be living in her car - her friends would have helped her out.
Thanks.
She's a strong woman as well and, as devastating as these events are she's moving forward with her life, up to the point that she is planning to move to Germany in a few months.
Whatever her reasoning, she chose the same destination as people like Jacob Applebaum who "[...] has moved to Berlin, where he has applied for residence authorization; his stated reasons include that he doesn't want to go back to the USA because he doesn't feel safe and that privacy protections are better in Germany than in the US. In December 2013, Appelbaum said he suspected the U.S. government of breaking into his Berlin apartment." [0]
> I had already been in the process of moving, permanently, to Germany, and had retained a German immigrations lawyer several months prior to these events. [1]
It's not like she just impulsively thought about Germany and left that week. Yes, it was a catalyst, but it seems to me that she was already on the fence, ready to leave. She even said she was waiting for her visa approval to be accepted after the FBI had made a request to interview her.
I'm pretty sure this just means she moved to China but her family didn't. It's a bit of an awkward phrasing as it includes "she left her husband" but adding "in the US" means she just left him behind rather than divorcing him.
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