Disciple: Immigration Reform Matters to Us All

By Penni Bradshaw

We are a nation of immigrants. Our Christian tradition teaches us to “welcome the stranger.” Although there is widespread agreement that our current immigration system is in need of reform, there is significant disagreement as to what those reforms should be.

Per the Pew Research Center, an estimated 11 million undocumented persons currently live in the United States. More than 60 percent have lived in the United States longer than 10 years. They make up approximately 5 percent of the U.S. workforce. Some 4.5 million children in this country have at least one undocumented parent.

The responses to these statistics have become familiar. Some suggest these undocumented persons should simply return to their home countries and re-enter the United States legally. Others say, “My forebears came here legally, and so should these folks.” What is not as familiar to each of us is the reality that immigrating to the United States today is very different from when our forebears did it. Until the early 1920s, there were few restrictions or requirements for persons immigrating to the U.S. Under the current law, however, legal immigration is highly restricted. Many undocumented persons have no option to obtain a legal immigration status in the U.S.

THE REALITY

For the most part, unless someone has a sponsoring employer or a close family member already here as a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, there are no viable options. And even if sponsored, those who have been in the U.S. without a status for a year or more must generally leave the country for 10 years before becoming eligible to return.

It is not just undocumented immigrants who face hurdles. Under the annual quota, the current wait for some nationalities to receive a green card after a successful employer sponsorship is more than 10 years. Professionals seeking work visas must go through a lottery process. In 2015, there were three times as many visa seekers as there were available visas; 148,000 applicants were turned away.

When dealing with family green card sponsorship (as opposed to employer sponsorship), the waits can be even longer. If a Mexican national who is a permanent resident sponsors an unmarried adult child, that unmarried adult child faces a current wait to receive a green card of more than 20 years. Being sponsored does not give a person any status in the U.S. prior to receipt of the green card.

Recently, the Obama Administration has taken steps to provide a temporary fix to the U.S. immigration system, until such time as Congress acts. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program permits individuals who were brought to the U.S. as children to obtain a two-year deferral of deportation and receive temporary work cards. Other Executive Actions designed to provide additional temporary fixes to the immigration system are on hold indefinitely due to challenges in the federal courts.

IT MATTERS TO US ALL

Why does all of this matter to each and every one of us? From our nation’s founding, immigrants have played a vital role in our country’s vitality: creatively, productively and economically. Today’s immigrants are no different. An example that illustrates this well: the farmworkers in our own backyard. Without them, crops would go unharvested, and the food we take for granted would not be waiting for us in the grocery store.

We were once a nation of “give me your tired, your poor.” We are now a nation of red tape, bureaucracy and quotas. Yet people seeking a better life continue to come, and it is up to us to decide whether we will welcome these strangers or make it impossible to join our melting pot heritage.

For more than five years now, the Diocese of North Carolina has, at its annual conventions, considered and approved resolutions in support of comprehensive immigration reform. Those resolutions have called for the people and parishes of our Diocese to contact their elected representatives to encourage them to take up the issue of immigration reform, to familiarize themselves with the issues under our current immigration system and to welcome the immigrants in our communities.

Let us renew our commitment to do so. Because it matters to us all.

Penni Bradshaw is an attorney, a Board Certified Immigration Specialist and a member of St. Paul’s, Winston-Salem.

Border fence: Public domain. Statue of Liberty: “Statue of Liberty, from Ferry” by Jeffrey Zeldman/Flickr. CC BY 2.0