Thread: Illegal immigrants jump the line, making legal immigrants wait

Opinion piece from the Washington Examiner.
Illegal immigrants jump the line, making legal immigrants wait

by Adam Barsouk

| February 02, 2019 12:00 AM

Despite political and religious oppression under the Soviet Union, my parents waited their turn and legally immigrated to the U.S. They became doctors and saved thousands of American lives.

My Ukrainian aunt, cousin, and other relatives are doctors and other needed professionals. They have struggled constantly to immigrate for decades. Even as other less qualified cross the southern border daily and then cut the line, my family is forced to wait, kept apart by a broken immigration system.

President Trump’s promise of border security offers them hope that one day, illegal immigration may slow down and their turn will come to arrive legally.

Yes, the grueling government shutdown meant further delay in processing applications for people in my family. But what’s 32 days compared to the almost 20 years they’ve waited? My family is willing to wait however long it takes for a compromise that could fix our nation’s broken immigration system and border security.

And considering what's going on now in Ukraine, it’s not like they are any less deserving that those fleeing violence and poverty in Latin America.

My aunt, a physician, witnesses every day how trucks carrying injured soldiers, and even body parts, arrive at the hospital. Many young men are beyond salvation. However, she has learned to do whatever can and needs to be done.

When her son, my cousin Alex, completes his medical education, he will be expected to join the ranks of the soldiers fighting and dying for freedom in a war that the U.S. has financially supported for years.

My septuagenarian grandfather, who drags his swollen legs to a military factory on three buses daily, had to be hospitalized due to the shortage of medications and the emotional burden of the war. His job pays under a hundred dollars a month, one-fifth the cost of the essential drugs he needs. If he were to retire, he would receive half as much.

They are amidst a humanitarian crisis no smaller than than that faced by millions of asylum seekers from Honduras or Guatemala. But it seems that the same politicians who heaped praise on Ukraine’s struggle for freedom are not quite so dedicated to helping Ukrainian people. Perhaps Democrats fear they’ll have a harder time winning the votes of legally immigrating Eastern Europeans, like my relatives.

Nearly 15 percent of Americans today are immigrants, and another 15 percent are first generation Americans like myself. It is not difficult to conceive that nearly all of us still have family abroad whom we long to see, but many of whom, like my relatives, are unable even to get visitor visas because of our broken system.

Then again, how can the line to immigrate not take 20 years if there are thousands entering illegally every year? How can our government not be concerned about issuing visas when so many are overstayed, and we don’t have nearly enough personnel to ensure enforcement? Securing our borders and investing in enforcement is not “anti-immigrant” but “pro-legal immigrant.” It would also help countless Americans.

With an impending shortage of 130,000 physicians, it is especially shameful that the U.S. ignores doctors and other educated professionals who have waited for decades for the opportunity to contribute to the U.S. economy. After what she’s seen in Ukraine, my aunt is ready to work in any underserved community. While Congress remains completely dysfunctional, qualified immigrants like my family could get the hardest jobs done, if we only let them.

Over a century ago, the Statue of Liberty was erected to welcome legal immigrants with open arms, and upon her were engraved the words, “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.” Today, many of the “huddled masses,” my cousin included, are not even allowed to visit to take a picture with lady liberty. Meanwhile, those crossing the southern border illegally do so with impunity.

Only comprehensive border security, wall, fence, personnel, technology and more, can empower my law-abiding, educated and freedom-loving Ukrainian relatives to immigrate and contribute to our great American dream.

Adam Barsouk is an M.D. candidate at Thomas Jefferson University and a research assistant at the Hillman Cancer Center.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...mmigrants-wait

Everybody on the planet wants to come here. We need a 10 year moratorium on all of it.

There are good and bad people all over the world...but quite frankly, we have had it...we want it stopped. We want them to stay home and have a "good life" in their countries.

The U.N. needs to focus on FIXING their countries where they can stay home and have a good life, not displace these people and destroy our countries by millions of these legal and illegal aliens. Shut it down.

If we were "relieved" of the 25 million illegal aliens, ramp up deportations, and the millions more who come here on Visa's...maybe we would not have these Doctor's" shortages!

We cannot get into see our Doctor's because they are overloaded and these hundreds of thousands of foreigner's are adding to the workload. We also are NOT building more hospitals and schools to accommodate these people.

We do not have the housing for it either! Go home and stay home.

What is "shameful" is that our government has flooded this country with foreigners, and their many offspring, depleting our resources, our peace and OUR prosperity!

What is "shameful" is that our government FORCES us to foot the bill for millions of foreigners who should not be on our soil or on the taxpayer funded benefits!

These Doctor's need to stay home, serve their own people, and stop all these damn wars!

We need a One Million Man Yellow Vest March on the border to stop this invasion of our country.

They have no right to come here and WE have no responsibility to take in the entire world.

Go home and build America on your soil.