Citizenship Information
Dear Esteemed Colleagues,
I am presenting you with brief information regarding my citizenship status. You have my permission to use this information to consider my application carefully, and to use it in your hiring processes if my job application is accepted after your considerations.
My birthdate is June 11th, 1991, and I was born in Şişli, Istanbul, Turkey. I am a citizen of the Republic of Turkey (Türkiye). Thus, I am a 33 years old (in 2024) Turkish male. I am unmarried, and I do not have any children.
I have been a temporary (non-immigrant) resident of the United States of America (USA), between 2009-2020 (11 years). During this time I have held a student visa (F-1) as a university student and had the Optional Practical Training (OPT) work permits, which allowed me to work as an engineer and scientist at the university and at research sites. I resided in the USA between 2012-2020 (8 years), without leaving the country to visit my family in Turkey (my sister was also a student in the same university as I was, and our parents did visit us in the USA, although infrequently).
I had applied for the US visa, H-1B (long-term) temporary non-immigrant worker visa, for a university research appointment at the “Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI)” when my OPT work permit ended. My visa work permission was granted by the US Department of Labor, but I never started my job at the university, since I never received the visa. I canceled my job appointment after 1-year of waiting in Turkey for the visa appointment at the US consulate, between 2020-2021, during the “coronavirus flu pandemic.”
Thus, I am currently staying in Turkey (since 2020) during which time I had to apply for:
a new driver’s license
(the whole process took an astounding 8 months!),
a passport renewal
(took a surprising 3 months waiting, and a second request for my new passport document),
and I attempted to officially register my US university degrees with the Turkish Board of Higher Education (YÖK)
(This was a failure, since after an application with officially notarized translated documents and petition, and after two interviews, my Bachelors (BSc) degree was registered, yet my PhD degree was not registered (but was not rejected either – my application was “considered lost” after a year of waiting for the positive outcome of approval (?!)), and thus I am currently unable to apply and to hold a faculty appointment at a Turkish university as a professor. 2021-2022).
In addition to my current unemployed academic status, I have issues with my finances regarding lost unaccounted apartment rental income in Turkey, and issues regarding my neighbors, which have turned extremely unpleasant even though I work from home to continue my research studies, and to find employment.
I was arrested by the Turkish police in my second month in Turkey after arriving to my country for the first time in 8 years (in 2020), during a stay with my mother in Yalıkavak, Bodrum, Turkey (tourist friendly, beautiful town) for taking “unauthorized photos of pedestrians” during a quiet morning walk at the beach right nearby, on the day after a busy holiday (Bayram – Eid) where everyone had left the town already. I was mistreated by the police officials and I was imprisoned at the Muğla Prison for ten days after the initial court hearing shockingly decided that I should do so. After ten days, I was banned to travel internationally by court order, and I was on probation to sign my name every month with the local police wherever I resided in Turkey. (2020) (!)
In the end, after some time, the charges were dropped and my “criminal record” was annulled. Everything was erased from the official criminal record in Turkey, and my criminal record is still clean today as it was before arriving in Turkey! I left it at there.
I was also hospitalized against my will for “anger management” issues (2022), after my father and my grandmother called an ambulance after an argument; and yet this is also not a real case either – and even though I was also forced to receive medical treatment (even some forced injections and a visit to the ‘crazy white pillow room’ (!) at the very beginning), I did find some peace away from my harassing neighbors (still ongoing) and father (back then), in a quiet beautiful setting after the initial sting wore off. I remember staying there for ten days or so, and it is all okay: I pass by in front of the mental hospital every now and then during my walks around Istanbul.
I do not find think it is necessary to be hurt by anyone, and then be hospitalized to treat their hurt! Yet I can tell also anyone that I do feel much better, much lighter nowadays living in Turkey, with regards to “living with depression” of all the visa and immigration procedures, missing out on old and good friends and family, having long work schedules without proper vacation, and tight official supervision culture in the USA…
This does not mean I feel “good” living in Turkey (as I said it above “it hurts!”) – but I am just not depressed anymore, as I can see very closely of what is present here in Turkey! Now I can keep going about possibility of having even more litigation in Turkey to solve my current problems, and other things that would challenge me and my work during my continuing stay in Turkey, even as citizen… however, I would like to get back to working as an active engineer and scientist internationally, as soon as possible!
I would also prefer to live in a country that should not require ‘a test of force and willpower’ for basic civic treatment of its own citizens, as I find that Turkey has devolved in this aspect during my time away from the country. I did not expect it to be so in 2024… when I left my residence in Turkey in 2009 to be a university student in the United States.
I will keep upholding civic values and duties of my own, regardless of my location in the world.
So I ask of my esteemed colleagues to please consider my citizenship circumstances for their careful decisions regarding my job applications.
Sincerely, ‘Thank you!’ for being considerate and reading my application,
Rahmi Orhon Pak, PhD