By CHRIS PARKER

cparker@tnonline.comGlen Greenzweig sits in his rented Palmerton home. The spacious rooms are neat and clean, but spartan. No dolls wait on the sofa for a little girl's tender care. There are no pretty pictures on the walls, no soft pastels or Easter decorations.It's as if the house itself is waiting for a feminine touch and a child's laughter.The wait could be years long.Greenzweig, 43, is doing all he can to get the federal government to allow his wife, Julie, also 43, and their 5-year-old daughter, Kaitlin, to come back to the United States from Julie's native Australia.Because Julie overstayed her 2007 visa by 1,100 days, she has been barred from returning to the country for 10 years. Greenzweig is working to obtain a waiver so the family, which includes his 79-year-old blind mother, Arlene, who suffers from dementia, can be reunited.He's been in touch with an alphabet soup of government agencies, has gathered 610 signatures on a Change.org petition, and sought the help of state Sen. Pat Toomey.Efforts to reach Toomey spokeswoman E.R. Anderson were unsuccessful.The online petition asks U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Ambassador John Berry to waive the 10-year wait and grant Julie the waiver.The petition can be accessed by visiting Change.org and clicking on "immigration" in the list of topics on the right side of the page.If Julie cannot get the waiver?"Not an option," Greenzweig says. "Not sure, but I would probably leave the United States forever."Love, marriage,and bureaucracyThe couple met in an online game chat room in 2006. She came here for a visit in June 2007. Two months later, while on a trip to Atlantic City, Greenzweig proposed."And she said yes," he says with a smile.They wed on Aug. 20, 2007, and from there began a series of events that left the family 10,000 miles apart.According to her visa, Julie was to leave the United States on Aug. 26, 2007. But the day after she and Greenzweig were wed, she had a miscarriage. Not a citizen, and without insurance, all the money they had saved went toward medical bills."So it was inevitable that I stayed," she wrote in an update to the petition. "Three months later I miscarried again, and again I had to use that money for medical bills."In the fall of 2008, she conceived again, and Kaitlin was born on July 25, 2009."Once more our finances went to the birth of our baby girl especially with me having gestational diabetes," Julie wrote.Later that year, Julie's father was diagnosed with cancer.In November 2010, the family packed up and moved to Australia so Julie could be with her father during his final few months.They flew back to the United States for a visit in September 2012, but when they landed, she was denied entry and sent back to Australia because of the overstayed visa.Kaitlin stayed behind with Greenzweig. Not long after that, Greenzweig, Kaitlin and Arlene joined Julie in Australia.No automaticcitizenshipAt the time, the family was unaware that an overstayed visa would result in being barred from entering the United States for 10 years. Marriage does not automatically confer U.S. citizenship.By November 2012, Arlene had been diagnosed with dementia, and it seemed like the best thing to do would be to bring her home. Believing the process for Julie's immigration was well on its way, Greenzweig in August 2014 found a job (he's a computer specialist) and a place for the family to live.But since then, the family has battled with government agencies to allow Julie back into the United States ahead of the 10 years.As time wears on, Arlene Greenzweig's condition worsens, Kaitlin misses her daddy, and the family's finances are strained by the cost of the struggle.At last estimate, the labyrinthine expediting process will take at least nine months.Greenzweig, a veteran of both the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Air Force, waits.Brightly wrapped Christmas gifts are stacked in a closet, and he is decorating a bedroom for Kaitlin. There are characters from the popular movie "Frozen," Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Tinker Bell, and stuffed koalas and kangaroos."The wall decals and most of the decorating I am waiting for until they get here so Kaitlin and me can do it together as a family," he says.