2025-11-08 –, Room 332
You're probably asking yourself what open-source software has to do with the US immigration system. As with all good technical questions, the answer is 'it depends'.
Personally, I've never found a technical problem that I won't at least try to solve with open-source software, so that's exactly what we did. Join me as I walk through the open-source workflow that my spouse and I used to wrangle the documentary requirements of the US immigration system.
In 2023, my American spouse and I filed for an immigrant visa to bring me to the United States. US Citizenship and Immigration Services requires spousal visa applicants to provide a variety of evidence to prove that they have a bona fide marriage - that is, that their relationship is real. It's important to present this evidence clearly, so that USCIS employees and consular officers can easily find what they're looking for.
Between boarding passes, photos, and receipts - and the one constant in life, taxes - the evidence accumulated very quickly. We needed a way to keep it organised, so that we didn't overwhelm the people who had to review our application.
This is where open-source tools come in. Git, LaTeX, and open-source document management utilities allowed us to store evidence as we went, and collate what we needed when it was time to submit. We even had a CI/CD pipeline, which produced clearly-labelled documents with a table of contents.
Not everyone will immigrate to another country in their lifetime, but the principles and tools that we used can be applied to any situation that involves managing and collating personal data. If you'd like to do something with your photos other than letting them sit in an unused folder behind a 'Beware of the Leopard' sign, or if you've never used LaTeX and want to learn, there's something for you in our deeply technical take on an immigration story.
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Dawn likes to tinker with cloud infrastructure and security, and regularly goes down rabbit holes in a futile search for ways to develop systems that are both reliable and impenetrable. As well as accidental accessibility advocacy, Dawn can regularly be found sharing knowledge within various tech communities.
Outside work, Dawn is an occasional author, kitchen alchemist, and raging sportsball fan.