Wall Street Journal (Op-Ed)
By Onuora Amobi
June 29, 2015
It’s
1990 in Lagos, Nigeria. My mom is packing up food, water, soap,
toothpaste and an extra set of clothes for us. I’m 17 years old and
can’t wait to get on the road. Where are we headed? Vacation? A trip to
visit family or friends? Nope. We’re headed to the American Embassy.
Back
then, you had to drive to the embassy the night before and camp out
because of the long lines of people wanting to get in—nearly all of them
hoping to get a visa to go to the U.S. I remember listening to people
share their stories about how they would get a visa, go to America and
become successful. Statistically, most of those people would get denied
by the consulate but hey, dreaming never hurt anyone. Then I slept in
the car.
The
next morning I washed my face and brushed my teeth outside the car at
around 6 a.m. We stood in line and waited two hours for the embassy to
open. It was a thrill to file past the Marines at the gate and arrive
inside the embassy, my first time, technically, on American soil.
I’ll
never forget the picture on the embassy wall of a cowboy on horseback,
swinging a lasso overhead, the color photograph of then-President George
H.W. Bush, and the faces of the consular staff doing their jobs—polite,
efficient, formal but friendly.
That
was 25 years ago. Today I’m an American citizen, I have a college
degree and I’m the CEO of a tech company in California. I guess you
could say I’m living proof that the American dream is alive and well.
But it didn’t happen overnight. In fact, over 16 years passed from my
first day in the U.S. to my swearing-in ceremony. Why? Because I chose
to do everything legally.
Here’s
what got me to this point: I got an F-1 visa and went to college in
Philadelphia. I graduated, got a job and got an OPT (Optional Practical
Training) visa extension. After that I got an H-1B visa and worked for a
bunch of companies. Then I got a green card (via an employer) and
worked some more. Approximately five years later, I was sworn in as a
U.S. citizen.
My
story is no better or worse than millions of other immigrants who come
to America every day, legally. People who start their journey by praying
that the American consular official issuing visas that day didn’t have a
fight with his wife the night before. People who upon getting here work
their butts off, remembering every day how blessed they are. People who
try hard to graduate from college, then hope and pray that an employer
sponsors them for an H-1B visa and then a green card.
At
the end of this long journey, as a proud U.S. citizen and voter, how
can I look the other way when others cross the border illegally and
expect to stay in this great county? I have compassion for every man,
woman or child fleeing persecution or poverty or simply seeking a better
life. But I also have two questions: Why are they better than all the
people from my country who slept in their cars outside the American
Embassy that night 25 years ago? Why are they better than all the people
in other countries who want to live here?
As
a Democrat, I am glad that Republicans are against blanket amnesty for
illegal immigrants because I am too. You see, I value immigration from
Mexico and Guatemala and every part of South America. I simply don’t
value it more than immigration from all the other countries, including
my native Nigeria. What a lot of well-intentioned people fail to see is
that for legal immigrants, supporting amnesty would be almost an act of
betrayal. It would be us disrespecting every other potential immigrant
from our home country that wasn’t lucky enough to make it to America.
I
appreciate exactly how fortunate I am to have become an American. I
would love to have as many people as possible from all over the world
make it here as well. I’m not a racist or a bigot. I’m just an American
who wants immigration to begin in the proper place—at an embassy.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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