One of the arguments frequently given in the comments of my most-recent Huffington post is, essentially, that "illegals should apply for entry into the United States and wait in line like everyone else." In a perfect world, this argument makes sense. Historically the U.S. has been a harbor for "huddled masses yearning to be free." These masses identified themselves, waited in line, and were eventually admitted and naturalized, 'mericanized, etc.
However, if there is one consensus in the immigration debate, it is that the U.S. immigration system is far from perfect. The system is broken, as it were.
In 2008, David Bennion noted the following in Citizen Orange (h/t kyledeb):
Immigrants eager to apply for employment-based green cards often find themselves in a Catch 22. There is typically a wait of three to five years for an employment-based green card for a worker with a college degree or two years of experience. But the worker must remain in status or leave the country during that waiting period and, unless he/she has an H-1B visa or qualifies under Section 245(i) of the INA, usually cannot continue to work for the employer in the U.S. and still get a green card at the end of the wait. Most employers don't want to sponsor someone who can't work for them for the next three to five years. This means that many immigrants who are qualified to work in the U.S. and have an employer willing to sponsor them still find themselves unable to work lawfully.
If you are poor and unskilled, it is usually much more simple: there is no line whatsoever. Duke from Migra Matters had a good run-down a while back of the minuscule number of green cards made available in 2006 for unskilled workers: 147. The great majority of immigrants from Mexico and Central America fall into this group. Almost none of them can get a visa to come here lawfully in the first place, and they certainly can't get one if they leave the country after having violated U.S. immigration laws.
The simple(ton) answer here is, in essence, Well, tough shit! Then they should just say home! Unfortunately, this answer fails to take into account the increasingly hellish world many Mexicans and Central Americans now call home.
Last October, a report issued by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) found that the overall homicide rate in Central America "(32 homicides per 100,000 persons) is tantamount to more than three times the worldwide rate, and it exceeds by seven points the rate for Latin America as a whole."
"To put it bluntly," the report concluded, "Central America is the most violent region of the World, with the exception of those regions where some countries are at war or are experiencing severe political violence."
Since the UNDP report was released, narco-violence seems set to put Mexico on course to join Central America in the dubious "most-violent" distinction. On Wednesday, AP reported that the mayor of El Naranjo became the third Mexican mayor in a month to be slain by hitmen believed to be working for drug cartels. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has remarked that Mexico is "looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago."
"How can I explain this," writes Bennion, "For most undocumented immigrants, there is no line. There. Is. No. Line."
But there could be, and needs to be, a line. And not just one line, but (at least) two.
The first "line" can be found in the Real Enforcement with Practical Answers for Immigration Reform (REPAIR) proposal released on 29 April of this year by Senators Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, and Bob Menendez. REPAIR offers a framework for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that secures our nation's borders, reforms our immigration code, and offers a path to citizenship (or earned citizenship, or back of the line citizenship...whatever you want to call it) for undocumented immigrants already living in the United States. One provision of the REPAIR framework is the creation of an altogether new visa category (the H-2C visa) for "non-seasonal, non-agricultural workers to enter the United States" legally. In short, an H-2C visa category creates "a line" for Latin America's average Josés to apply for legal entry into the United States.
The second "line" can be found in the Refugee Protection Act introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy's office in March. In some sense, those who wish to flee to the U.S. from the hellish violence in Central America and Mexico seek asylum. Unfortunately, not in the legal sense.
In order to qualify for asylum under current U.S. immigration law, an applicant must establish a "well-founded fear of persecution" due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Julia Preston notes in the New York Times that "American immigration judges, always careful not to open the asylum door to any flood, have made it more difficult for Central Americans running from gangs." The Refugee Protection Act is designed to address this dynamic.
According to a press release by Sen. Leahy's office:
The bill eliminates the one year waiting period for refugees and asylum seekers to apply for a green card. The legislation authorizes the Secretary of State to designate certain vulnerable groups as eligible for expedited adjudication as refugees. The Refugee Protection Act also clarifies the law to ensure that innocent asylum seekers and refugees are not unfairly denied protection as a result of the material support and terrorism bars in law...
In short, one thing the Refugee Protection Act would do is create a way for Latin Americans fleeing persecution from the violence plaguing the region to legally flee to el norte.
Unfortunately, the Refugee Protection Act remains stuck somewhere in the legislative pipeline and the H-2C visa remains two paragraphs in a framework, a draft, a outline of suggestions, and not somewhere immigrants can yet "line up and wait their turn just like everyone else" to come to the Land of the Free.
That said, until the U.S. immigration code is amended to create places where immigrants -- and particularly, immigrants from Latin America -- can line up, the argument this blog seeks to address remains, as Bennion noted in 2008, "a fabrication dreamt up by restrictionists to make their odious ideas palatable to an unknowing public."
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People who apply for admittance to the USA as Immigrants have their applications placed in a queue of paperwork waiting to be processed with priority given by date of filing. This is the very definition of a line. No amount of philosophical twisting can change this.
Just because someone chooses to not participate in the line does not mean that the line does not exist. And just because the line may be long while the number of opportunities the line leads too is small does not mean that the line does not exist.
Routinely 50% of those people who come in on Family Reunification Visas are unskilled workers. Some of them wait for 20 years to come to the USA. Should we reduce the number of Family Reunification Visas so that we can let in more unskilled workers that have no family in the USA? Sounds pretty cruel to me.
Also, BEFORE the current recession the employment picture for young Americans first entering the workforce or working to pay for College was the worst in 30 years thanks to the flood of unskilled Illegal Immigrants. Today it is worse than in the Great Depression. Now you want to open the floodgates on unskilled worker immigration?
If you have a link or even the name of a politician please list it as I would definitely lie to research it. Thanks
When we have (according to them) at least 10% of another nation's population is here without permission it is time to start sending them home, not making room for them.
There is violence in Central and South America and there has been for as long as anyone can remember. We have not declared thier people refugees. Enough of them are trying to do that on thier own. These "desperate" refugees talk about "trying thier luck in America."
As for the violence in Mexico it is almost to be expected. 28,000 of thier people have died in the violence of their "Drug War" (Revolution) and Calderon is trying to declare victory while running a "catch & release" program for the narcoistas. There are rumors that Cartels are the ones who put him in office.
Here in America we are going through a major economic crisis and every job is one an American will do if given the chance. We don't need more unskilled workers and not even really skilled ones.
Latin America needs to fix it's own problems and Mexico needs to finish "regieme change".
That their people are not happy where they are gives them a right to complain there, not here.
Immigration to our country is our business. Foriegn countries and their people need to stay out of it.
Our immigration system, "broken" or not, is not for non-US citizens to judge, especially those people who are here illegally. Thus, it is "broken" is only your personal opinion, because people all over the world do get through it, even for people from Mexico, everyday. Do you mean to tell everyone here that there is not a single Mexican who immigrated to this country legally? (Is this something to be proud of for the up coming bash in Chicago?)
Your 1st line doesn't make sense. There is no back-of-the-line citizenship. How are you even back-of-the-line when you are here already? Pablo, you seem to try to twist a fact when writing columns. You try to suggest that being in the US now, like all the illegals, is the same thing as people who went through the immigration process and waited years in the line. Everybody, I'm sure you all know "having money now is better than having money later", but you must also realize that being in the US now, legally or illegally, is hugely different than being here 8, 9, or 10 years from now.
Your 2nd line doesn't make sense either. You describe what they have in Central America and Mexico as "most violent", how would you describe the war they are having in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan? By your reasoning, their whole civilian population should be here now?
Pablo Manriquez is a MISSOURI-BORN AMERICAN CITIZEN. He's NOT a "non-US citizen".
Therefore, kindly sit down and be quiet, since you clearly have no idea what you are talking about right from the get-go.
How would I describe the war in Iraq? Totally caused by and totally the fault of the United States. And illegal. And immoral.
And yes, the majority of the Iraqi civilian population SHOULD be here in the U.S., seeing as how it was America and its illegal and murderous invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq that resulted in the violent deaths of over half-a-million Iraqis and the near-destruction of their country.
Before worrying about "illegal aliens" in America who only come here seeking to achieve a better life for themselves and their families, perhaps you and the U.S. government should set a good example (for a change) and remove the remaining 50,000 or so American illegal alien troops who are illegally occupying Iraqi soil.
Pablo Manriquez was born in Santiago de Chile's Barrio Pudahuel during a year of discontent and rebellion, but was raised an O'Fallon, Missourian at the heart of the housing boom & bubble.
So, somebody need to sit down and be quiet? Learn how to read, perhaps?
And if there is all this violence going on how do we know that we won't be letting the violent element into our country?
Citizenship should be granted just because people want it. It should not be easy to attain.
Therefore, people must be prepared to make a choice: accept Reality, and devise a means to let those here illegally qualify for citizenship; refuse to accept Reality, and continue the status quo; or become like North Korea, a country which has effective border control (on shoot-to-kill orders) but which nobody in their right mind would ever want to visit and which has no contact or interaction with the outside world - including, no international trade or investment.
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Does reforming the code also include a path for GLBT American's to legally sponsor their spouse?
Immigration laws ARE being enforced, every single day. If you don't happen to "like" the manner and scope in which they are being enforced, that's Just Too Gosh-Durn Tough Rockos For You.
The federal government has exclusive rights to enforce immigration laws. If the states have a "problem" with that, see my above comment: TOUGH ROCKOS FOR THEM.
You are never, EVER going to successfully find and deport 11 million people who are in the U.S. illegally. It will not happen. It is a physical impossibility. It cannot ever be done.
Therefore, you can accept Reality, or you can continue to cry moan and whine and demand that the U.S. government do the impossible, when the fact is that you probably don't even want to pay the tab for what the government is ALREADY doing.
Of course, U.S. immigration policy should be for the good of AMERICANS, not immigrants, so there's no need for us to import more immigrants at all if we believe it harms us. With unemployment running in double digits, we don't need more immigrants at all, with very few exceptions.
It's no accident that 30% of the welfare recipients in CA live in homes headed by illegal aliens, who are able to collect welfare on behalf of their U.S. born kids. No accident, either, that the increase in poverty among children is driven by births to illegal aliens.
Recall: the historical fact of these lands of the continental United States is that they were first stolen by the USA from Mexico under the threat of war. Plus, these lands were originally settled by the original native indigenous peoples of these lands I still call Aztlan ~that is~ the southwest portion of the United States. ~Che Peta Amnesty Now! ~ http://twitter.com/Peta_de_Aztlan ~
P.S. A good article though Senor Manriquez kind of lost me at the end. "... the argument this blog seeks to address remains, as Bennion noted in 2008, "a fabrication dreamt up by restrictionists to make their odious ideas palatable to an unknowing public." c/s
As an Arab-American, I am offended by the highly racist claims that Hispanics in general and Mexicans in particular "deserve" to have preferences in our immigration and that they should be rewarded for breaking our immigration laws.
And of course, in furtherance of your aim to provide refuge to those escaping violence in Latin America, you'd be willing for us to do away with "family reunification" which gives certain families a lock on our immigration system--and is the major source of legal immigration to this country.