Immigration problems - Letters to the editor
.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat
Published: Friday, August 19, 2011, 10:51 AM

To the Editor:

Last Friday my son, who is an electrical engineer, became a U.S. citizen. It was a protracted process that lasted 14 years from our first visa application. Our other son has worse problems — he was married when he applied 7 years ago. He passed all the tests and was told by the U.S. embassy not to phone more than once a year to enquire about getting a visa. Something is wrong when qualified people have to wait so long to come and make a contribution to our country.

I’m writing on behalf of the thousands of us who are frustrated about government efforts to legitimize entry into the country of work seekers without documentation. We are feeling stymied because we have completed the paperwork that our family members need to enter the country. We have paid the filing fees. We’ve been for the interviews. We’ve had the expensive testing done to prove our DNA match to relatives who desire to live with us here. The Department of Immigration and Naturalization has accepted that we meet all the requirements — and yet still no permission is forthcoming. The State Department issues the entry visas according to some plan of theirs by which they seek to make the ethnicity of immigrants match the population distribution on earth.

Clearly there is work for illegal aliens to do. They are doing it and being paid. So can anyone tell us why our relatives should not have first priority for that employment? We understand that these people have crossed our borders by stealth and are already here, but do you understand that we, as United States citizens feel annoyed when our State Department restricts the flow of visas to legitimate applicants while you, our leaders, debate the DREAM act in DC?

DREAM is the acronym for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. The bill provides conditional permanent residency to undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools after arriving in the country illegally as minors, and living here continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment. Stop it! Either open the borders for all who so desire to enter or tighten up on who may live here. That’s where your bold action needs to be. Can you not see that DREAM will increase the pressure for people to smuggle their kids into the care of legal residents so that they may become citizens here?

We must compliment the high work ethic of those who are here without documentation. Sometimes, to the shame of our citizens, these people do jobs nobody is keen to undertake. To their credit they do those jobs well.

We know all about the forged social security cards. Business owners tell us how the Treasury Department is happy to bank the monies from these false social security card numbers.

Its time to take a new look at immigration. It’s not a tool for a social experiment whereby you balance up the ethnic numbers in the country. Our land needs skilled and not-so-skilled workers. There’s no shortage, if you consider that some months 100,000 people apply to live here. These are the people who are the most likely to create jobs and start new industries. These are the people who have life experience and technical skills to bring fresh vision. Quit looking at illegal immigrants as a possible source of grateful votes and start looking at the resumes of the long line of people waiting for a visa to come here the right way. That’s your first priority, and then, having done that, by all means turn to the needs of those who have jumped the line and are here without our government’s permission.

ANDREW J. PATON
Clinton Township

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