It seems like every single day we hear about Trump’s wall(and more recently about his ‘deportation squads’), and hear - from Democrats and many Republicans too - about how it’s a stupid idea that will never come to fruition. We have heard for years about the Democratic pro-amnesty pro-pathway position on immigration and the desire for comprehensive immigration reform and the Republican anti-amnesty position and how they won’t stand for any comprehensive immigration reform that gives the illegal immigrants already here a pass. We have heard all of this ad nauseam. But it seems like we almost never hear any politician on either side of the aisle talk about what I, and many, feel is the real crux of the immigration issue - the legal immigration system and the ways it works against many immigrants who want to make a life here.
First, as an aside, let us be clear on the distinction between being a legal resident and being a citizen. Getting the green card makes you a legal resident. Citizenship requires an extra series of tests you have to pass after you’ve been a legal resident for a certain number of years, and once you become a citizen, the only differences are that now you can vote(not a small thing) and now you can’t be deported even if you’re convicted of a crime(also not a small thing). I’ve always been skeptical of requiring immigrants to jump through this extra hoop before they can vote. I roll my eyes so hard at the civics/social studies test they have to pass to in order to become a citizen and have the right to vote, simply because it’s a double-standard. The sad reality is that because of the failures of our educational system(another topic entirely), there are probably troubling numbers of natural-born U.S. citizens, who have the right to vote from the second they turn 18, who could not pass that test. But we don’t stop them from voting, we don’t even ever make them take a test to earn the right. Ideally, all citizens natural or otherwise would be able to pass that test, but as it is, it is an unfair double-standard. Either make everyone take the test or no one should take the test.
That’s an aside though, the real issue isn’t citizenship, it’s getting the green card, the thing that says ‘you are now here legally’.
To start with, I pose a question. I hope that we can agree that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are people that came here to make a life. We see stories all the time about people that have been here undocumented for decades, who have worked honest jobs and raised families, all the while looking over their shoulders. So the question is this: if these millions of people only ever wanted to make a life for themselves and their families here and they never had any nefarious intentions, then why did they come illegally? Certainly we can also agree that it is unlikely that any illegal immigrant - save for the actual criminals(drug pushers, traffickers, whatever) who are real but a minority - WANTS to be illegal. Who would WANT to live a life where you can never stop looking over your shoulder, where any medical situation that requires you to go to the hospital, or any encounter with the police - even if you’ve done nothing wrong, say you were in a car accident - is cause for mortal fear of your life as you know it ending just like that because as soon as a doctor or nurse or cop looks up your name and realizes you’re not legit, it’s game over. Who would WANT to live like that?
So I posit that so many of these illegal immigrants are not illegal because they wanted to be, but because they felt they had no choice, because the process for getting a green card is too expensive, too restrictive, and too complicated for a lot of people to get through it.
The cost alone would be enough to make getting a green card impossible for people who don’t have much in the way of money who want to come here. Take this passage from an article from legalmatch.com:
Getting the green card application should not cost anything. However, there are filing fees associated with each type of green card form. It is important to remember that an application will not be considered unless the filing fee is paid. The main green card application document is Form I-485. This form is called the "Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status," and the filing fee is $985. If biometric data is required, there is an $85 fee, bringing the total filing fees to $1,070. There are also filing fees associated with every green card-related form that needs to be submitted, and may vary by green card category.
Some other green-card based filing fees include:
• Form I-698, "Petition to Change Status from Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident" : $1,020
• Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative: $420
• Form I-129F, Petition for Alien Fiancé: $340
• Form I-90, Petition to Replace Green Card: $365
Finances can be a big factor in immigration matters, making it very important to be prepared for the basic fees as well as any extra additional costs.
- See more at: www.legalmatch.com/...
So we’re talking already at least a thousand bucks in fees just to apply for a green card. This doesn’t take into consideration the costs of the required medical examination, and it certainly doesn’t take into consideration that you may have to hire a lawyer to help you through the process, as apparently it can be confusing and daunting. Retaining a lawyer for this purpose can cost thousands more. Take this passage from an article on thebillfold.com:
After the government fees, there are the legal fees. Briand and Yazmin, who use a “low-bono” sliding scale schedule of fees, told me that it’s not uncommon for lawyers with standard fee schedules to charge $3,000 for a straightforward green card application (e.g., a spousal application). The cost can quickly go up if there are complications, like criminal convictions, the prior use of false documents, or anything else unusual. She told me that $6,000 to $10,000 is common.
So, long story short, it can cost thousands of dollars to get a green card, and a lot of people who want to come here simply do not have that kind of expendable money. There is a very real argument to be made that we are pricing so many immigrants out of being able to be here legally.
And then there is the sponsorship thing. It seems that it’s very difficult to just independently apply for a green card without being affiliated with an employer, a school, or family members who are already legal(this is where ‘green card marriages’ come from, along with the intrusive interviews conducted to make sure you’re ‘legit’). This strikes me as needlessly setting hurdles too high. If you come here from a poor country, and you don’t have any family here, and you’re not qualified to get a job with the kind of business that would sponsor you, and you’re already out of school or can’t afford school, what are you supposed to do? Our current system makes it borderline impossible for many unskilled immigrants without legal family to be here legally, and then treats them like criminals(yes, I know, strictly speaking they are, but come on) for being her illegally. This chart pretty much spells it out how restrictive the system is:
http://danielhaas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/legalimmigration.jpg
Finally, let us not forget the waiting periods. Even if you have the money, even if you’ve filled everything out correctly, even if you have a legit sponsor, it can still take a lot of time for your application to be processed and your card sent out. It can take over a year, if you’re lucky, more than that if you’re not. And a lot of people who are filing are here illegally in the interim.
From the same blog as that chart, look at this guy’s experience getting a green card and how long it took:
Here is what it looked like for us:
June 2009 Our first attorney charged $50 to refer us to a colleague of hers.
…
June 2012 Green Cards came in the mail
Total time: 3 years Total cost: $9,039.56
Read the whole thing here: danielhaas.org/...
It should not be this hard to get a green card.
Aside from the green card process, there are other problems as well. For one, we have no system, that I know of, for keeping track of people who come in on tourist visas, which makes it real easy for people to come in as tourists and then just stay. The majority of illegal immigrants come in this way. I can’t say I’d be real excited about such a system being implemented, as it seems like exactly the kind of security-over-privacy action that I generally oppose. There’s an argument that such a system should be imposed in order to reduce the number of illegal aliens, but I tend to feel like the better solution is, again, to make it easier for them to be here legally, such that they won’t feel like they have to be here illegally looking over their shoulders anymore.
For another, our system lords the fear of deportation over illegal immigrants in such a way that anyone who has been here for even just a brief period of time illegally would be too scared to come forward and attempt to legalize him/herself. A system that encourages them to stay hidden in the shadows for fear getting shipped out, of having their family ripped apart. A system that often doesn’t much care what becomes of the family members of the deported who are left behind, as in the case of the actress Diane Guerrero, whose Colombian parents were deported when she was a teenager, leaving her to live with friends until she was of age - she claims no one from the government ever asked her how she was or how she would be taken care of.
It is a broken system of over-tight restrictions, (sometimes prohibitively) high hurdles, double standards(what an immigrant has to do to be a citizen vs the natural born), and unforgiving punishments. And you rarely hear politicians of any stripe talking about this.