Man Shares What’s Inside The ‘Welcome To The United States’ Pamphlet New Residents Receive With Their Green Card — ‘What An Unserious Place’
Judging from this pamphlet you'd think America is run by Captain Obvious.
Media_Photos | Shutterstock Moving to a new country is a huge undertaking, no matter where you go. But considering the vastness of the U.S. and how differently we do things compared to other countries, it seems like immigrating here might be even more of a culture shock.
Yet, as a man on TikTok shared in a truly hilarious video, the helpful hints and tips the U.S. government gives to new residents are… well, not really helpful at all, frankly!
The 'Welcome to the United States' pamphlet new residents get with a green card is full of the most obvious advice possible.
Content creator Farai Bennett has a friend, Alexandra Nikolajev, who recently emigrated from Canada and just got her "green card," the colloquial name for the permanent resident card, which allows an immigrant to live and work in the United States indefinitely.
It's a big deal and puts you on the path to citizenship. So, presumably to help new arrivals feel at home in their new country, the card comes with a pamphlet titled "Welcome to the United States" that purports to tell you everything you need to know to make a life here.
Except… well, as Bennett showed, it's two pages long, for starters — which really seems woefully inadequate, right? The entire experience of making a home in a new country summed up in just a two-page pamphlet?! Turns out it's about as detailed and useful as you'd think.
The pamphlet advises new residents to 'find a place to live' and 'get a job' but says nothing about how to do so.
Do you remember that scene from "Schitt's Creek" in which the phrase "fold in the cheese" in a recipe is explained as "you just fold it in" because nobody involved has any idea of what "folding" means in the context but doesn't want to admit it?
That's basically how this pamphlet goes, except instead of a clueless mother and son making enchiladas, it's a whole country telling someone how to create an entire life.
Bennett read from the section called "Getting Settled in the United States."
What does our fair government suggest? "Find a place to live" and "find transportation." Oh! What great ideas! But as for how to do these things, the Customs and Immigration Services (CIS) has very little to say. You just go… find these things, it seems. You just go do them. OK, cool, thanks!
As Bennett hilariously pointed out, the next step is even more absurd: "Get a job." Oh, so we're switching verbs from "find" to the more aggressive "get" now, are we? Frankly, Uncle Sam, your tone seems really pointed right now!
The pamphlet goes on to tell new arrivals to "improve your English skills" — to which Alexandra, of course, exclaimed, "I'm from Canada!" — and to "take care of your money," whatever that means, before taking a truly ominous turn: "Prepare for emergencies." Wait, what? What emergencies? WHAT EMERGENCIES UNCLE SAM???
The pamphlet seems to be a shortened version of a much longer online form, which is also ridiculous.
America is a country of extremes, and fittingly, Googling this pamphlet turns up a PDF from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that tallies up to 116 pages. A two-page pamphlet or a novel-length PDF — these are your choices.
This PDF is far more helpful of course, and does include details of how to find a place to live, for example. But weirdly, a lot of that advice focuses on a thing that does not even exist anymore: the phone book. The phone book! If you're under the age of 30, do you even know what a phone book is?! Do they even distribute phone books anymore?
Bojan Milinkov | Shutterstock
And as for that whole "get a job!" directive, the U.S. CIS is also a big fan of the "classifieds section of the newspaper," another thing that basically no longer exists and probably sounds like a prehistoric runic language from the wall of a cave to anyone still in the bloom of youth. But it's still where all the hot jobs and apartments are, according to the United States government!
No wonder that for Bennett and a handful of commenters on TikTok, only one word came to mind for this whole thing: "unserious," or as Bennett put it, "An unserious nation for which we stand!!" And if you're new to this country and not sure what the slang term "unserious" means, just look it up in the phone book or the classifieds.
Good luck!
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.