What's even worse, we went thru all kinds of crap to get her a green car. We stayed in the US for 3 years, then I got a transfer (big company, not military) to her home country. After 6 years there we came back to the US for a holiday, when we went thru the immigration at the airport they had to call a supervisor and were upset that at one time she had a green card but left the US. It took a couple of hours for them to fuck around on phones and computers to decide since we had round-trip tickets back to her home country she could come in on a tourist visa. So getting ready to leave the US find my mom is terminally ill. So we decide to stay for 6 months to take care of 'stuff'. So we decide to be legal and go to an immigration office in the nearest big city to get her a 'work permit'. After waiting for our number to be called, explain things to the person at the counter. They don't know shit, call a supervisor, they don't know shit, call some super-supervisor. Get escorted thru the building by an armed guard to an 'interview room', wait about an hour. Guy comes in with a hand full of papers and we explain, again. He shuffles the papers around for awhile, then says 'you had a green card' and left, so it's no longer valid. We said yeah we know, that's why were here, to get a temporary work permit. He asks her 'you still have a social security number?'. Uh, yeah. Then he says 'it would be a lot of paper work, and take alot of time, just go ahead and work using your SSN, and nobody will care'. This was in 86-87.