Really about to come full circle and im thrilled every day i wake up and i thank god that im here in the greatest country in the history of the world. This is a place where you can do anything, where youre free to be yourself, where personality hasnt been downsized and where i feel most comfortable when i get on the beach, 16, 18 lane freeways in texas where ive chosen to live and i think the best state in the union. Im just settling down and sometimes i look around and its the plethora of options that you have for eating or drinking or shopping. Theres really no place like it. The freedom is palpable. Its very much discernible and perhaps thats something that someone who spent the first years of their life letting someone else has more of a perspective on then say a nativeborn american that has not experienced life anywhere else they may have been of a place that never for such an extended period of time living in those places. I can tell you as someone that had the chance to livein australia for an extended period of time in germany and greece , there is no place like it. Theres no culture like america. Theres no feeling like being an american. Patriotism, the excitement, the energy, the optimism. All of these things are just remarkable, theyre incredible and is why america has been the number one destination for immigrants and remains that way and always will be that way because its just quite unlike anywhere else. How is it different than australia . Australia is a great country but australia is not a kind of place where you can blaze a trail or leave a legacy or holler outside of the lines or take a risk or do something different. What happens in australia is if you differentiate yourself , whether its through ambition, whether its through success, even whether its through perceived success, you are rejected. Media, the public, the culture gangs up on you because there is this idea that we all need to be the same, theres this idea that its not right to not conform , that weve got to color inside the lines. Theres something called the tall poppy syndrome, the interviewers today may be familiar with this, essentially we all know what poppy is. Poppy is a flower and hobby grows much like humans but it different kinds of sizes and shapes and ranchers like to come along and cut off the sides. So make them all the same because it looks prettier. Thats basically the analogy that exists, the moment that someone gets a little bit bigger than the pack, all of a sudden they have their wings clipped. All of a sudden there they become a target. Instead of almost every single famous australian that americans would be familiar with, as a failure. They live here in the United States of america because its a place where you want to be successful. This is the place where people look up to people that have done well. When i go into a barnes and noble, when i go into bookstores, i love reading. Im always absolutely, im still to this day taken aback by the size of the health and personal development section. Its uniquely american trade. That was to learn from people that have made it, do not believe that they just are lackeys. Do not believe that there further off than i am, they had a different life. The success is a real aspirational trait that exists deep in the american psyche. And its one that i love and ive always identified with. Thats what led me to write what i wrote. And being an australian, or an american trapped in an australian body. Because i had that desire to be the best i could possibly be. I have always been someone that has tried to be great. Not be a joker and while it may seem a little bit harsh, i think its fair to say that in australian culture and australians, we tend to aspire to mediocrity rather than greatness. What were your First Impressions as a child of america . My journey with america really began at a very young age. I was diagnosed at the age of seven with stage iv neuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer. And one thats notoriously difficult to diagnose and when it is diagnosed, its almost always already metastasized and in my case it was no different. My tumor was in my abdomen and in and metastasized all throughout my body and for a long time, many many months, my parents had brought me to doctor after doctor, to pediatricians, to anybody and everybody thatcan help. And no one could identify, no one could diagnose what was wrong with me. Youve got to think that this was the center of , when i was diagnosed with this, it was 1985, late 1985,australia. 12 Million People, 30 Million People. And no one could tell me what was wrong with me. At night, they did what i think they done on one or two prior occasions. They had no choice because i was so unsettled. And the emergency ward, lots of children also. And that night there was one overnight doctor there. There was a young man in a smiling face and he had an accent and as he looked me over, he smiled and it disappeared quickly and he looked at me and said im not sure and theres not much i can do for you right now but i think i might have seen this before. I think that he says, what your child has, you need to make sure youre getting into the test first thing tomorrow because this thing looks advanced. And sure enough, the next morning i was going to the hospital and these tests were conducted, they specifically were ordered and it turned out to be right. That doctor was an american. So im kind of saying that i have only studied american exceptionalism, ive lived it. Im alive because of it. Then of course there was the myriad of hollywood movies and shows that i was exposed to, of course most americans dont realize that 90 percent of the australian media market has been and remains american. All of the same shows, people watch here are shows in the movies that we want in australia, and i had the great chance to watch many of my favorite movies, the rocky series was one of my favorite movies and to this day every time when i travel to washington dc, and new york for fox news or something else, i always have to get out on the amtrak in philadelphia and go to the art museum. Im a bit of a rocky junkie. I know every single line of every single movie. And for me, that really exemplified the american idea and the american story of the young adult, against all opposition imaginable, getting a chance. Getting an opportunity and being able to make the most of it so those kind of movies and then i grew up watching full house, and how and all the other good stuff, many 80s children will remember. And all that felt so wholesome, so patriotic. And i always wanted to be a part of it. I remember being a years old and telling my parents and telling my teachers what i wanted to come to america. They all thought that i was insane. Here was this child, born in australia whose family hails from greece. This maternal family hails from germany. Talking about going to america and even my mom and dad who are extraordinarily welltraveled people who the one country, the one place they never been to was america. So no one in the family had been to america. This eightyearold who was fascinated and enamored with the place and saying i want to go there and i want to people. Nobody could understand it. It wasnt until i got to be older and i was reading biographies by people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and i got to know the stories of people like Stuart Varney and people like you i must. That i realized that its not just me. There are a lot of people that an extremely young age have this unexpected magnetism for america. Its been well documented and most of those people who come here and not doing phenomenal things because its so grateful and appreciative of the countries and the idea and the culture and atmosphere that fostered here. And thats certainly what i want to be about. Nick adams, whats the process of becoming a permanent residentlike . Its difficult, peter. Its really difficult. Probably the hardest thing ive ever had to do in my case. It took me four years , it took me plus 50,000. It was torture. It was something i will never, ever forget. Against all adversity, it made me stronger and it made me more grateful for what i have. But ive got to tell you, i was put through the ringer. So i applied to be an very ability permanent resident. Thats basically but for ways that you can, to the United States of america as a permanent resident, is either by coming to work here and going through the certification and becoming a permanent resident , marrying an american, winning the green card lottery. Every single year there are a certain amount of green cards that are given out like an automated lottery. And the fourth way is the extraordinary ability green card. The extraordinary ability green card is not open to that many people because its a very elite, very exclusive green card. You have to essentially prove that you have reason for the top five percent of your chosen field. There is extensive documentation about your life and people in the field that you are cleaning exceptionalism in. In the process of putting the application together itself is one year and i managed to get some of the biggest names in america to support my application and it was submitted, and then it took another year or more to get the approval of that by the United StatesImmigration Services and the very last step peter in all of this is, the way it works is in order to collect your green card you have to physically enter the United States so the green card is not mailed out to you. You have to actually physically interview and collected and in order to be able to do that, the state Department Needs to issue the immigrant visa. So the United States and Immigration Service which falls under the part of homeland security, they make the dissemination on whether or not you are eligible for the green card that youve applied for. But the state department has to grant you the immigrant visa that will permit you to actually collect the green card. So in my case, i had an approval by the United States to do Immigration Services for my extraordinary ability green card and that means the heavy lifting is done. It has been made and all that remains is the paperwork and thenwhat is meant to be a very routine , very procedural rubberstamp kind of interview at the us consulate which, or amnesty, whatever is closest to you. And you go in there with your passport, your police check and a medical check, your birth certificate. Its kind of like if i could use an analogy, youve got a ticket to fly somewhere and you check in and then you go through security, through the tsa and you get to the gate and at the gate you still got to show your boarding pass. Kind of like being at the gate and having to show your boarding pass. Everything has been done and it really is to make sure that youre the person that your application said that you were. Its really quite meant to be an opportunity to relitigate the decision of the United States citizenship of Immigration Services. In my case, thats exactly what happened. And i got an individual at the us consulate that proceeded to send my life completely upside down. I parents as well. And that application, the individual held onto my passport for seven weeks without any explanation. They didnt expand in australia. My passport was returned to me with a onepage letter which three paragraphs were printed. And all it said was dear mister adams, after reviewing your application and the interview that we had, we decided to return your approved application back to the United StatesImmigration Services with a recommendation that approval be revoked. For reasons, nothing. Meanwhile my application that cost a lot of money said we been practicing immigration for four days. Weve never seen it. This, this is not meant to happen. Its something going wrong here and were never going to know. Theres really not going down the way its meant to go down. The only solution you have is the political solution. I saidall right, well , whats involved . You need to go and make some political contacts and they need to make representation from the other half of the United States citizenship and Immigration Services because otherwise it appears that someones guy out for you. And we dont even know what the next steps are because weve never seen is, we dont know what happens. I said okay, theres a further problem area. Whats the further problem. They said theres this longstanding legal principle called immigrant vc and immigrant and camp stipulates that if you have ever demonstrated a formal desire to be a resident of the United States, hopefully i had by virtue of my application, you are never, ever again, or you been rejected, you are never ever again allowed to enter the United States in your lifetime. Even as a tourist. Its a legal principle that nobody in america, particularly practically nobody knows about. But the case. If im legally to immigrate to the us in the us knocks you back, you cant ever come here again. Probably accurate entry to the United States and anyway, i took the rest. I took a risk, i sat down with my mom and dad around the Kitchen Table and i said mom and dad, i dont know what to do. They said you havent done anything wrong. They saidyou got a book tour coming out so my book retaking america was due to come out in february 2016. Its now december 2015 and they said do you have a copy of your return itinerary with you so that you can show that you plan on returning . And you can tell them that is not your way, at this point i think america is 17 time but if i cant stay up, i would have already stayed. And anyway, i came to the book tour and had a very successful trip and i took the opportunity to muscle up as much Political Support as i could and i was very grateful to the more than half a dozen United States senators and 15 or 16 congressman who intervened and made representations on my behalf and thankfully, justice prevailed. It would later emerge and these are only suspicions but this particular individual that was as resourceful in this was somebody who had the office of policy, opposite policy than me and they decided they could block my politics and this was returned to the us Immigration Service in the hopes that id never be able to return here again. In fact, here at the time i was essentially on a nofly listi actually couldnt come to america. And visit several of the us in june. Before i got my green card, i was turned away at the airport and ill never forget. It was difficult, but if i have to do it all again, the us green card worrier, there were variance in trying to get to this point, and you say at one point that you researched the person who interviewed you at the consulate and he found out that he was a gay liberal. Thats what prevented you from coming to the country. Yes, thats exactly what i found, thats what we found. So essentially, when all this was going on peter, everyone was named and they said we dont know whats going on and you can imagine when you have something so close to you, i mean i had my flight to immigrate to the us on 8 october. 2016 and my interview at the us consulate was on september 22, 2015 and the legal advice that i received again, was that this was the kind of routine, that i have been thoroughly vetted. That the decision had been made and this was very simple , that it wasnt a big deal. And that generally took about five business days, but what they do for the immigrant visa, that they went into my passport and then id be able to travel on the eighth of october. And not only was i not able to travel on 8 october, i had to forget that travel and lose those tickets. And in those proceedings, in those following two or three months, it was tortured. We could work out what was going on. We were given any explanation. So my instinct is always to go out and try and find out things on my own. And i managed to track down this individual and i did discover that he was a homosexual activist that had discovered that his politics were of the democrat nature. And having been all of my adult life at the other of the left, having experienced that persecution and ostracization and the blacklisting of employment in australia, this is a High School Teacher and trying to get a media internship, university, and really throughout my time i instinctively knew what had happened. Without even knowing. Because i know this is the way of many on the left to play the game, they are ruthless. And they are determined. I think thats the major difference between liberals and democrats, when you instinctively dont like something, we look away, we wriggle our nose, where just, we comment to each other and so forth and we say thats terrible but liberal doesnt do that. If a liberal see something they dont like, they go out of their way to make sure that it doesnt exist. Is often said you write in green card worrier, the immigration system is broken but that doesnt begin to describe it. More than broken, its an unmitigated disaster. It is. When good people have such a hard time coming to the United States and that people have such an easy time coming to the United States, you know that something is very, very wrong. I came to america to give, not received. I came to join the place, not to change it. I came because there are opportunities and possibilities that dont exist anywhere else on this earth. I came to be an american. I came to subscribe to American Values. I came to make sure that america doesnt end up being australia, the place that i felt that i had to leave. So i would think that i would be the model person that america would want coming in as an immigrant and yet for me, it costs not just for me, anybody that tries to come to america legally knows theyre going to be many many right now that are listening and watching that can relate. Anybody that tries to come to america legally stops for tens of thousands of dollars, stops for a lot of heartache. Stops for a very onerous burdensome bureaucratic system. The only, its incredible. Now in 2017, i can tell you that still to this