SANTA ANA : Romance Escapes Clutches of Red Tape

For the past two weeks, Judy Dennis of Santa Ana had been afraid that she and her new British husband might have to spend a year of their marriage on different continents.

The couple have been kept apart by international red tape since April 7, the day Ian Dennis, 41, left on a business trip to Amsterdam. The trip was to last only a few days, but when Ian tried to come home, he was denied a return visa by the American Consulate.

The separation has been difficult, but being apart is not new to the couple, who Judy said “fell in love through the mail” during a long-distance courtship.

In 1986, she was looking for pen pals and placed a classified ad in the newsletter of MENSA, an international social group for people with high IQs. Ian, who lived in Bristol, England, began writing to her. The couple met for the first time in April, 1988, when Ian arrived in Orange County.

“He showed up a day early, and when he came to the door, he didn’t recognize me because I had a mud mask on and I didn’t recognize him because he had grown a beard and didn’t look anything like his pictures,” Judy said. “It kind of set the tone for the relationship, which is very humorous and spontaneous.”

After that first visit, the couple decided to marry. It was the second marriage for both. After selling his home in England and quitting his job, Ian returned to the United States and filed for a work permit. The couple were married in November, 1989, aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

“We thought it was an appropriate setting since it was a British ship on American waters,” Judy Dennis said.

After the marriage, Ian got a job with a computer company in Irvine. It was this company which sent him on the trip to Amsterdam, where he went believing that he could re-enter the United States without a problem. But he was told by the American Consulate that since he didn’t have a green card and intended to live in the United States permanently, it would take anywhere from six months to a year to process the proper paper work to allow his return.

After weeks of frantic and often tearful overseas telephone calls, the couple late Monday received word that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had granted Ian a “humanitarian parole” which will enable him to re-enter the United States while his paper work is being processed.

The news came on Judy’s 38th birthday.

“I’m just stunned,” she said tearfully from the Tustin office where she works as a medical legal specialist. “It was the best birthday present I could have hoped for.”

Judy said the situation was particularly frustrating because her husband tried to file for a green card in February. But when the couple sent in their paper work, the Laguna Niguel branch of the Immigration and Naturalization Service told them that it was done incorrectly and sent it back. They sent it in again but were then told to send it to the Los Angeles branch which, in turn, told them to send it back to Laguna Niguel.

“After all of this, we then discovered that Laguna Niguel handles one aspect and Los Angeles the other,” Judy said.

Now Judy is visualizing the couple’s reunion, which will take place as soon as they can arrange a flight from Vancouver, Canada, where Ian has been since Sunday.

“Knowing us, we’ll be at the airport making a scene, crying and hugging,” she said. “We’ll be so emotional. But mostly, we’ll feel relieved.”