San Diego Union Tribune: A proposed change to a law governing how illegal immigrant spouses and children of U.S. citizens apply for legal status could allow thousands of families to stay together during the application process.
While mixed-status families and their advocates see hope in the planned amendment, critics consider it an attempt by the Obama administration to make life in the U.S. easier for illegal immigrants.
Currently, undocumented spouses and family members must return to their native country and apply for a visa to enter the U.S. legally. Once out of the United States, many applicants can be barred from returning for up to a decade because they had lived in the U.S. without permission. Waivers exist for people who can prove extreme hardship, but they must be filed in the individuals home countries and can take months or years to process.
The planned change, outlined in the Federal Register, would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for the waiver while still in the U.S. Applicants would only return to their birth country for a few days or weeks when its time for an in-person visa interview, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The aim is to benefit U.S. citizens and limit the amount of time family members are separated by the bureaucratic process, said agency director Alejandro Mayorkas. If adopted, the new rule could go into effect by the end of the year. It would not be retroactive.
Conservatives consider the proposal an unfair administrative maneuver that sidesteps Congress.
This is just another attempt by the administration to make it easier for illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S., said Joe Kasper, spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine. Whats most ironic about this change is that the administration has been complaining about the backlog of immigration cases and is expediting proceedings and providing amnesty where it can, and now its contributing to the backlog.
Another prominent critic is Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. He wrote legislation in 1996 banning people who have lived illegally in the U.S. from coming back legally for three or 10 years, depending on their previous immigration violations.
Officials at the citizenship agency said the criteria for determining who qualifies for an extreme-hardship waiver will remain the same. The only difference is where a person waits out the process.
Its unclear how many people might benefit from the change. Immigration attorneys said thousands may come forward if they are able to stay together while seeking a waiver.
The citizenship agency received 23,262 waiver applications last year and 17,790 were approved. Of all the applications, about 74 percent were filed from Mexico.
The modified regulation would apply only to illegal immigrant spouses and children because they lacked permission to be in the U.S. in the first place. So they need to go back to their native country to legally obtain a visa and a waiver.
People who originally entered the United States legally, even if they overstayed their visas, are allowed to complete the process from here.
Prolonged wait times and thus family separation have concerned immigrant advocates, who said it is a de-facto trap that leads to major stresses including the loss of a wage earner, home foreclosure and sometimes homelessness for the U.S. citizen and his or her children remaining in the U.S.
The problem is, once (applicants) set foot outside of the U.S., they get barred. They face a catch-22, said David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Processing waivers in the United States streamlines this process by allowing people to do their time while with their families.
His organization and other immigrant, Latino and Asian advocacy groups welcomed the proposed regulatory change, even though they see it as a political move to mollify them after years of record deportations and the lack of a comprehensive solution for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in America.
Our broken immigration system has been keeping families apart, said Karen Narasaki, president and executive director of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, D.C.
Rafael Ochoa, 38, is praying that a judge will postpone his removal hearing so the proposed change will take effect and he can apply for a waiver and wait it out with his family in Lemon Grove. Married to a U.S. citizen, Ochoa initially applied for a visa on the advice of a paralegal and was denied.
The proposal, while it may or may not help (the government) make a decision about you, removes the stress of having to go to Juarez and wait and not know what will happen to you, Ochoa said. I worry for my job, my children, my wife. I would be leaving everything.
Ochoa also is anxious about adapting to Mexico; he was sent to San Diego as a 15-year-old from Michoacán to be with his mother. Now a restaurant cook, Ochoa is pinning his hopes on the proposed regulatory change.
For Alicia Estrada of Oceanside, who takes her two children to visit their father in Tijuana every weekend, the proposed change comes too late.
Her husband, Fabian Vargas, 32, has been in Tijuana since July waiting for word from the U.S. officials about his waiver application.
Her children are quieter, sad that they cant see their father every day. Her father moved in to help her make ends meet after Vargas, the sole wage earner as a construction worker, went to Tijuana.
Its the wait that is crushing us, Estrada said. I wish they would tell us something. Whatever it is, then we can decide what to do.
While mixed-status families and their advocates see hope in the planned amendment, critics consider it an attempt by the Obama administration to make life in the U.S. easier for illegal immigrants.
Currently, undocumented spouses and family members must return to their native country and apply for a visa to enter the U.S. legally. Once out of the United States, many applicants can be barred from returning for up to a decade because they had lived in the U.S. without permission. Waivers exist for people who can prove extreme hardship, but they must be filed in the individuals home countries and can take months or years to process.
The planned change, outlined in the Federal Register, would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for the waiver while still in the U.S. Applicants would only return to their birth country for a few days or weeks when its time for an in-person visa interview, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The aim is to benefit U.S. citizens and limit the amount of time family members are separated by the bureaucratic process, said agency director Alejandro Mayorkas. If adopted, the new rule could go into effect by the end of the year. It would not be retroactive.
Conservatives consider the proposal an unfair administrative maneuver that sidesteps Congress.
This is just another attempt by the administration to make it easier for illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S., said Joe Kasper, spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine. Whats most ironic about this change is that the administration has been complaining about the backlog of immigration cases and is expediting proceedings and providing amnesty where it can, and now its contributing to the backlog.
Another prominent critic is Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. He wrote legislation in 1996 banning people who have lived illegally in the U.S. from coming back legally for three or 10 years, depending on their previous immigration violations.
Officials at the citizenship agency said the criteria for determining who qualifies for an extreme-hardship waiver will remain the same. The only difference is where a person waits out the process.
Its unclear how many people might benefit from the change. Immigration attorneys said thousands may come forward if they are able to stay together while seeking a waiver.
The citizenship agency received 23,262 waiver applications last year and 17,790 were approved. Of all the applications, about 74 percent were filed from Mexico.
The modified regulation would apply only to illegal immigrant spouses and children because they lacked permission to be in the U.S. in the first place. So they need to go back to their native country to legally obtain a visa and a waiver.
People who originally entered the United States legally, even if they overstayed their visas, are allowed to complete the process from here.
Prolonged wait times and thus family separation have concerned immigrant advocates, who said it is a de-facto trap that leads to major stresses including the loss of a wage earner, home foreclosure and sometimes homelessness for the U.S. citizen and his or her children remaining in the U.S.
The problem is, once (applicants) set foot outside of the U.S., they get barred. They face a catch-22, said David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Processing waivers in the United States streamlines this process by allowing people to do their time while with their families.
His organization and other immigrant, Latino and Asian advocacy groups welcomed the proposed regulatory change, even though they see it as a political move to mollify them after years of record deportations and the lack of a comprehensive solution for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in America.
Our broken immigration system has been keeping families apart, said Karen Narasaki, president and executive director of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, D.C.
Rafael Ochoa, 38, is praying that a judge will postpone his removal hearing so the proposed change will take effect and he can apply for a waiver and wait it out with his family in Lemon Grove. Married to a U.S. citizen, Ochoa initially applied for a visa on the advice of a paralegal and was denied.
The proposal, while it may or may not help (the government) make a decision about you, removes the stress of having to go to Juarez and wait and not know what will happen to you, Ochoa said. I worry for my job, my children, my wife. I would be leaving everything.
Ochoa also is anxious about adapting to Mexico; he was sent to San Diego as a 15-year-old from Michoacán to be with his mother. Now a restaurant cook, Ochoa is pinning his hopes on the proposed regulatory change.
For Alicia Estrada of Oceanside, who takes her two children to visit their father in Tijuana every weekend, the proposed change comes too late.
Her husband, Fabian Vargas, 32, has been in Tijuana since July waiting for word from the U.S. officials about his waiver application.
Her children are quieter, sad that they cant see their father every day. Her father moved in to help her make ends meet after Vargas, the sole wage earner as a construction worker, went to Tijuana.
Its the wait that is crushing us, Estrada said. I wish they would tell us something. Whatever it is, then we can decide what to do.
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