Colombia Forum

BMS
Joined 2015
Posts: 12

3 years ago

USA citizen stranded in USA wants to return home to Colombia

3 years ago

Greetings my fellow expats. The following is one of a number of emails I have been sending to the US Consulate in Bogota. If anyone has a suggestion for how I may return home, I will be most appreciative and will extend a warm welcome to your and your family to visit at my finca in El Retiro.

Dear consular officer:

I am a US citizen and have been stranded in the USA because of the Covid-19 virus pandemic. I seek your assistance in returning to my home and family in Retiro, Antioquia.

I am a semi-retired physician assistant, having resigned from my full time position in emergency medicine as of October 2017. I have enjoyed a fifty year plus career in medicine. I hold active PA licenses in California and New York. I am an Army veteran, having served fifteen months in Korea during the Korean DMZ Conflict in 1968 and 1969.

My wife of twenty years, Ruby, a Colombian national citizen) and I purchased land and built a finca near El Retiro in 2017. I have traveled to the US to help man a rural health family practice clinic in Hollister, California, one to three month contracts, for the past three years.

I hold a three years residents visa and have applied for a five year residents visa. I intend to apply for citizenship in Colombia.

I understand the US Consulate is providing humanitarian flights for US citizens stranded in Colombia to return to the United States. I am seeking the opposite.

My home and all my possessions are in Colombia with my wife and grown daughter, Daniela. I am currently living in a short term rental apartment near in Orlando, Florida. I own no car in the United States and have my groceries delivered by Publix. All my medical insurance and my physicians are located in Colombia. I do have Medicare, but only part A, and thus am required to pay out of pocket for medication and outpatient health care. I draw social security retirement benefits.

At seventy-two years of age, I consider myself to be healthy, but I am required to take medication for hypertension and intermittent atrial fibrillation.

I hold flight reservations with American Airlines to return to Colombia on June 4th, but with the recent border closing extensions by President Duque, I fear those reservations will be cancelled.

If the consulate can arrange for a humanitarian flight for me to return to my home in Colombia and provide me with authorization papers, I will gladly pay required expenses.

Thank you in advance for your most kind assistance. I just want to return home.

Sincerely,

Bruce Strickland

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