Another letter from an immigration lawyer

A Daily Herald letter to the editor…

Ask lawmakers to make immigration law just

A U.S. citizen can sponsor a spouse or parent for permanent residence who entered without permission only after that family member stays outside the U.S for 10 years. That is the law.

An employer who wants to legally hire a foreign national must wait a minimum of five years, after having proven that it was unable to find qualified U.S. workers through a rigid Department of Labor process.

A U.S. citizen who wishes to sponsor a sibling or child 21 years or older must wait up to 15 years. A lawful permanent resident who wishes to sponsor a minor child or spouse must wait up to eight years. And add a 10-year wait outside the U.S. to all of those lines if that person has spent more than one year in the U.S. without permission. Those also are the laws.

And if you haven't figured it out yet, Ellis Island is now a museum, not an entry point for those wishing to do it the legal way, as in years past.

Those who say their grandparents came here legally, or that those here should do it the right way, should take a moment to understand how our legal process actually works or, perhaps better said, how it doesn't, and how it differs dramatically from years past.

Perhaps they should stop to think that maybe our current laws and lack of a workable immigration policy are the reasons why we have so many people here without permission and should be changed to comport to reality.

Years ago, it was the law for blacks and whites to attend different schools and use different bathrooms, Years ago, only white men could legally vote. It is only thanks to the hard work of those who realized the fundamental flaws in these laws and policies that we are the greatest nation on Earth.

We all must work toward what is right, what is fair and what approach provides the best solution to a problem that is dividing our communities.

We are strong today because of our immigrant heritage and our policies toward inclusion, not exclusion. Speak out against prejudice and misinformation, and urge your representatives to support federal immigration reform.

Shirley Sadjadi
Elgin

And here is our response to that:
Ms. Sadjadi,
It is a good thing citizenship is so hard to achieve in this country. Otherwise, you’d be out of a job. (It always amuses me when immigration lawyers, bilingual teachers and directors, and Latino studies professors pontificate about discrimination and misinformation. Do they think people won’t see the vested interests of those who make a living off illegal aliens?)

You make a couple of assumptions that need further exploration.
Assumption #1 – America needs more third world immigrants with little education, few skills, and a need for social services. Family unification is a wonderful idea, but there are significant costs involved when these families are overwhelmingly from third world countries.

Assumption #2 – This wave of immigrants wants to assimilate. The numbers do not bear out that assumption. Naturalization rates are about 42% of the foreign-born. At one time (1950) the naturalization rate was near 80%. And don’t be fooled by this latest backlog of citizenship requests. It was created by a pending fee increase, not loyalty to the United States. Also note the pathetic lack of English literacy among the foreign-born today. It is shameful.

Is it good for America to be flooded with low-skill workers? University of Chicago Economist Barry Chiswick says “no”. So does Cornell Professor Vernon Briggs at this link to his Congressional Testimony on real immigration reform:
http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/Briggs070503.pdf

Yes, we need reform. But it must be reform that benefits the United States of America. Barbara Jordan declared that when her commission on immigration studied the matter in 1994. And surely Shirley, you aren’t suggesting that Barbara Jordan was prejudiced?