Among the countries that take in a lot of immigrants, the United States stands out for its heavy emphasis on “family reunification.” What that means is that many people who become naturalized Americans do so because they have a spouse or a close relative who is already a U.S. citizen. Other countries allow their citizens to bring in family, too, but to a lesser extent than the U.S., preferring to open their door wider to immigrants who are well educated, speak their language, or have skills required by their labor market.

This American preference for immigrants with family ties to the country has been in place since 1965, and its logic is often summed up as “happy families, happy communities.” If incoming immigrants can rely on family to help them get their bearings during those first crucial years in the country, they are likely to assimilate into American society much more quickly than someone who has no support system other than what their employer is willing to offer.

Those who oppose the “family first” principle argue that what they call “chain migration” (that is, one immigrant brings in a family member who then brings in another family member and so on) does not benefit the U.S. Instead, they propose switching to a “merit” system. Getting an American to marry you, they say, is less deserving than offering the American economy some super-useful skills.

Be that as it may, “getting an American to marry you” does not, in fact, guarantee that you will become an American citizen yourself. The road to citizenship is long, complicated and expensive, and many spouses of Americans never actually get to the end of it.

Lillian Gordon, a Spanish teacher at Belchertown High School, found out 15 years ago just how long, complicated, expensive and uncertain the process is, when she tried to bring her Chilean husband to the U.S.

“I met my husband in ’96, online. Then I went to Chile for the summer and we met in person. We got along really well. Two years later, I went back and spent a year and a half there. We decided to get married,” she recounted. In 2008, their son was born. It was time to start the process to get his father to the U.S.

The first application they filled out is Form I-130, “Petition for Alien Relative” ($625), a 12-page document that must be accompanied by proof that the marriage is legitimate (common residence, joint accounts, affidavits from friends who swear that you’re a real couple, etc.). The application was approved.

Form I-130 is not a permission to become a legal immigrant to the U.S., however. That would be Form I-485, “Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status,” also known as the “green card” application ($1,440). This is a 20-page document that asks a battery of questions about the applicant’s life so far, including employment history and criminal record. And this is where Gordon and her husband hit a wall.

“He did have a legal issue from 1989,” Gordon told me. “He had been involved with a woman, and she had asked him to sign over some checks, and she committed fraud with the checks. And because they were signed by him, it was his crime. He was placed on probation, and once his probation was done, his record was expunged. So he never served any time, and his record was clean. But expungement does not mean anything to the United States.”

Indeed, Form I-485 wants to know about all your infractions, “even if the violation was subsequently expunged or sealed by a court.”

The application was denied. The reason: “crime involving moral turpitude.” (“Turpitude” means “depravity, a base act.”)

“To me, a crime of moral turpitude is ‘I robbed a bank. I murdered someone. I kidnapped someone.’ Not check fraud,” Gordon said. “I didn’t know anything about immigration. I was like, ‘This is over. I don’t know what to do.’ So I reached out to the first immigration lawyer I knew.”

The lawyer told her that they could appeal the decision: Form I-601, “Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility” ($1,050). Here, everything hinges on the answers you give to two crucial questions: 1) “Why you believe your application should be approved as a matter of discretion, with the favorable outweighing the unfavorable factors in your case”; and 2) “Explain the extreme hardship that your qualifying relative would experience if you are refused the immigration benefit you are seeking.”

“We wrote the first waiver. One of the hardships we listed was, ‘I take care of my parents. My father is sick. I need my husband to help me.’ Well, they denied that because, ‘They’re not his parents, they’re your parents.’ So, with [the immigration lawyer], we filed a new waiver,” Gordon said.

This time they were approved, and, five years and many thousands of dollars after Gordon started the official process, her husband arrived in the United States. Along the way, despite the ability to navigate bureaucracy and pay mounting fees afforded to her by her middle-class status, she had contemplated giving up the applications altogether.

“At one point, I was like, ‘I’m just bringing him however I can get him.’ And he said, ‘No, we’ve gone this far. I don’t want to be there undocumented, because that’s going to be even worse,’” Gordon said.

“But I didn’t really want to give up, because this is my country. I want to live where I grew up, with my parents and everything. I didn’t want to move to Chile. I’m used to the dysfunctionality of the United States and not the dysfunctionality of other countries that are even more dysfunctional,” she said, laughing.

Just marry an American. But stay out of any hint of trouble, and have money on hand, and be patient. And get an immigration lawyer.

Razvan Sibii is a senior lecturer of journalism at UMass Amherst. He writes a monthly column on immigration.