Immigration System Gets Fixes in Small Steps

Chicago Sun-Times (Editorial-note this has been corrected, was previously published as a column): Bit by bit, inch by inch, the Obama Administration is taking baby steps to mend a broken immigration system.

The time for a real fix has long passed, but that effort appears all but dead. In the meantime, the best we can do is cheer on small changes that make for a more humane — a more American — immigration system. By highlighting the perversity of the current immigration maze, a compelling case can be made for wholesale change.

The latest baby step is a proposed rule announced Friday that would fix a devilishly unfair and burdensome policy that punishes legal citizens who have a spouse or a child who is an illegal immigrant.

Normally, an immigrant who is married to a U.S. citizen but came to this country illegally would have to return to his or her home country for at least three years to be eligible to apply for a green card.

But an exception exists — and that’s where this new rule comes into play. If the immigrant can prove his absence would cause an “extreme hardship” to an American citizen (i.e. he is caring for the American citizen), he can get a waiver, meaning he would not have to leave the country for at least three years. Each year, 23,000 people seek out this waiver.

The current waiver system, fair and humane policy in theory, is anything but in practice. Waiver applicants still have to return to their home country to apply and await a decision for weeks, months or even more than a year, sometimes in dangerous locations. Ciudad Juarez, where a large number of waiver applications are filed, is one. Because of its high murder rate, the State Department last year urged people to “defer non-essential travel” there.

This long wait in an immigrant’s home country isn’t by design — remember, the purpose of the “extreme hardship” exception is to minimize how long an applicant is physically separated from his American spouse. This is bureaucracy at work.

The proposed change would allow immigrants to apply for a waiver in the U.S. and require that they travel only briefly to their home country to secure the waiver.

The proposed regulation, once it grinds through a long process, will likely become a permanent rule, offering much-needed relief to families caught up in this bureaucratic purgatory.

This is the second attempt in the last year by the Obama Administration to recalibrate outdated immigration rules. In 2011, the administration began to reprioritize which immigrants it deports — criminals at the top of the list, young people, elderly immigrants and military service members at the bottom. Once fully implemented, this will help soften the blow of several years of overly aggressive deportation policies.

These two changes will help thousands of people and are vital adjustments. Even if they are politically motivated — designed to woo Latino voters for the fall election — they are good policy.

But they amount only to tinkering along the edges.

Comprehensive immigration reform, complete with a rigorous path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, is the only real solution.