Thread: Our Legal Immigrants Deserve Better

Jan 07, 2009, 09:13AM

Our Legal Immigrants Deserve Better
John Lingan

He has plenty of tough decisions ahead, but President Obama could make an immediately positive, popular move by tackling our country’s abhorrent legal immigration process.


It took 19 months, a few thousand dollars, multiple doctors’ visits, and the help of a private lawyer for my wife Justyna to finally live and work in the United States legally. Our story was enraging and expensive, but it’s sadly not unique; of all the problems facing our country right now, legal immigration is perhaps the most under-recognized and embarrassing, but it should also be one of the easiest to fix. And yet our government drags its feet on this issue, perpetuating a broken, money-sucking system that’s fundamentally un-American in its disdain for motivated foreigners. A wealth of complicated, divisive decisions await the president-elect, but he could make a positive mark early on by streamlining our legal immigration process and saving less fortunate families from the demoralizing maze my wife and I recently endured.

I met Justyna while studying abroad in London in 2005. She is Polish by birth but had been living, working, and attending school in the United Kingdom for over two years at the time. With only an easily obtained student visa, I enjoyed the same privileges, including England’s national health care system—a resource that proved especially useful when Justyna became pregnant in the spring of 2006.

We decided that I would return to America and finish my degree while she would go home to Poland to have the baby near her family. With the intention of bringing my wife to America after the birth of our child, I filed an I-129f Petition for Fiance(e) visa in October 2006. Thus began our protracted and degrading experience with the United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The I-129f petition requires multiple copies of biographical information, passport photos, an affidavit of support including very personal financial information, a statement of intent, and proof that the intended parties have met before. It also costs hundreds of dollars. Once we had mailed the I-129f to Warsaw, my wife was summoned, despite the embassy’s knowledge that she was caring for a newborn, to take a six-hour train ride for a series of highly invasive medical checkups and interviews about her intentions, her relationship to me, and our daughter’s background. All this was required despite our thorough Polish documentation stating I was the father.

Once it became clear that my wife and daughter would be able to join me in the U.S., her sisters and mother applied for tourist visas to attend our wedding in June 2007. All five family members who applied were rejected. The USCIS’s Byzantine series of applications, interviews, and background checks is designed to ensure that every visa holder has sufficient impetus to eventually return to their home country. Yet even my mother-in-law, a 59-year-old Szczecin native who speaks no English, has never left Poland, owns an apartment, and has been married for over 30 years, was not allowed into the U.S. to witness her own daughter’s wedding.

We were married nonetheless, and subsequently began the Adjustment of Status process, which required us to resubmit many forms, my wife to undergo another biometrics exam, and another $1010. We sent the application to Chicago, only to receive notice that these cases were handled by the Nebraska office. Nebraska also sent it back, telling us to mail it to Chicago. We contacted a lawyer soon thereafter.

Legal counsel was a great help, but even the most knowledgeable bureaucratic Sherpa can’t anticipate the often bottomless depths of American governmental ineptitude. In July 2008, we received word that the Department of State needed another copy of Justyna’s medical forms, the very same ones we had already filed on two separate occasions. They admitted to losing it, yet still instructed us to complete the $300 checkup and documentation procedure ourselves, within 90 days. When I asked our lawyer whether an appeal could be made, he said of course, but the process would take longer than 90 days and Justyna’s entire file would be thrown out after that deadline.

If this sounds like a farce, it is. Here is a woman who has made the incomparable sacrifices of leaving her home country, her family, and her friends just to bring her new family together under one roof. The U.S. should be begging people like Justyna—who holds a master’s degree and desires only to work legally and pay the according taxes here—to live and raise their families within our borders, yet our government makes it humiliating and nearly impossible for them to do so.

Unfortunately, my wife and I are not an exceptional case, and a number of unsettling immigration-related national incidents concurred with our own struggles. In response to an early-2007 surge in citizenship applications, for example, USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez announced in February 2008 that thousands of files wouldn’t be reviewed in time for applicants to vote in the upcoming presidential election. They too were the victims of a mind-boggling bureaucracy that seems to view every would-be citizen and legal alien with scorn rather than welcome.

The efforts of public servants like California Rep. Zoe Lofgren to recapture these lost papers have also been routinely sabotaged by purportedly “pro-immigrationâ€

It is so un-fair that the illegals are being given top preference over those people that have followed our laws and waited their turn. Illegals will never be Americans even if our government gives them amnesty. They will always be criminals that broke our laws and were rewarded.

More legal immigrants need to speak out. They don't because many fear "consequences".

We were told not to "rock the boat" or we would get kicked out of America. This was over 40 years ago. Misinformation works when it's given by a "trusted" source.

I can certainly relate to this man's issues. I met my wife while I was competing at an international sporting event. My wife was a national champion as well in her country. We kept in contact for quite a while and I eventually started traveling to see her as we had so much in common. However, my wife could ot travel to the USA because she could not even get approved for a tourist visa to come to the USA, much less a visa to compete in sports. We were told by a friend of hers in the US Embassy Buenos Aires, that Argentina was listed as an unfavorable nation. I was later to told the same thing at the US border by a high ranking immigration agent. Anyway, after we made the decision to get married we began taking the same journey as described in this article.

Eventually my wife jumped all the hoops INS wanted and to make a very long story short we got married and she became a citizen a year ago. I think a lot if immigrants and families have been speaking out but unfortunately no one is listening.

I agree that this country has to diligently screen everyone that comes here. But I also think there is some room to improve our immigration process. What sense doe it make to allow people to come here to stay for any reason that have no education and no visible means to support themselves. All the while intelligent people who are fully capable of adding to this country are turned away or forced to wait. I can't count the delays in my wifes processing because she was forced to wait behind people from El Salvador who are allowed to come here at the drop of a hat. We wait while they jump in front of the line. Most have ZERO education and ZERO chance of supporting themselves once they get here.

But by all means what the heck does any of this matter when we turn our backs on the millions who chose to disregard our laws and just walk over the border. Kind of makes those who follow the law look stupid. Especially when nothing is done to them and they might even get amnesty for being criminals. Its a big sore sport for those of us who respected the laws of this country, waited patiently and did everything that was ask of us.