I have learned an incredible amount of immigration law during my 2+ years in working as a legal assistant. I have heard stories about child brides and murder threats and women being raped in Morocco. I know how to file a family petition, a fiancee petition, how to turn in documents to the court, how to order police and court records. I have heard countless stories about domestic violence and victims of crimes. I know what evidence is necessary for a pre-hearing statement, and have worked with consulates all over the world. I have learned a lot, but the lesson that stands out most to me is this: Immigration law is arbitrary.
I mean that someone made up a law, and put it into action, and though it is not based on anything specific, for some reason we give it power and it means something and shapes how immigrants can live in our country. Though maybe it's not just immigration law that's so arbitrary, but law in general. Why can we drive at 16, become adults at 18, but can't drink until we are 21? Because someone in power said so, and people let that person have that power. It was enforced. It was obeyed, simply because a piece of paper was signed by the right person. It's baffling when you begin to think about it. Words have power. And words become law.
Anyways, let me give you an easy example from immigration law. Let's say an illegal immigrant marries a US citizen. It seems that they should be simply given a Legal Residency card, right? They married a US citizen, so that should give them legal status right away. But in fact, that's wrong.
There are three ways immigrants can become a legal resident from marrying a US citizen (Legal residents are not the same as citizens, but still have many legal rights in the United States. Almost all immigrants are residents for at least 3 years before they can become a citizen.). For two of those ways, the immigrant is allowed to stay within the United States during the application process as long as:
1. They entered legally, or
2. They have a previously filed family petition dated before April 30, 2001.
If, however, the immigrant does not have one of these two things, the immigrant must LEAVE the United States to process their petition abroad from their own country. BUT, as soon as the immigrant exits the United States, most become what immigrant attorneys like to call 212(a)(9)(C). 212(a)(9)(C) is part of the immigration law that states that if an immigrant enters the United States, stays illegally for more than one year, and then departs the United States, they are AUTOMATICALLY BARRED from re-entering the United States for 10 years. 10 YEARS. So, does that seem like a trap to you? It does to me.
These immigrants are not criminals. Their only crime is entering the United States illegally and then leaving. It does not matter if they were children when they were brought here. It doesn't matter if they are good people. It doesn't even matter that they are married to a citizen of the United States. They came illegally, stayed illegally for more than a year, then left. And because they left, they can't come back for 10 years.
So how do these illegal immigrants who are married to US citizens but leave the country and receive a 10 year bar ever COME BACK to the US to be with their families? They have to apply for a waiver of this 10 year bar by proving that their 10 year absence would cause EXTREME and UNUSUAL hardship to their US citizen spouse.
I have a US citizen friend who recently married an illegal immigrant. They were happy together. They both had jobs, she was not sick, her parents were healthy, she didn't have many debts. They were in a perfect position in their new life together... except that they did not have a good waiver case. Because they were doing well, they could not apply for the waiver of the 10-year bar. There was no hardship, besides the fact that she would be devastated to be separated from her new husband for that long. But does the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service care about that? No. They do not. They do not care if tearing a couple apart would be emotional agony. They need something more concrete than simply FEELINGS.
Good evidence for extreme and unusual hardship to the US citizen spouse would be that the US citizen spouse is ill; they have cancer, they have depression, they were abused as a child in the country they would be forced to return to. Additional evidence could be extreme debts that the US citizen cannot leave behind, US citizen children that have learning disabilities or medical problems, parents of the US citizen that they must support, extreme financial hardship were the spouse to leave... anything that proves that:
1. It would be impossible for the US citizen spouse to relocate to the immigrants country, and
2. The US spouse NEEDS the immigrant in the US with them.
So the worse someone's life is, the better chance they have that their waiver will be approved. It is a depressing thing to cheer because my client's mother has cancer, or because her son has autism. I am constantly baffled by being happy about terrible things.
My friend and her husband did not have any extreme or unusual hardship. They were a caring, healthy, dedicated, hard-working couple, but the simple fact was that her husband would not be able to become a legal resident because their life wasn't shitty enough.
The more my friend thought about this, the more she understood that if her life was more difficult, her husband could become legal. She needed to become worse so that her husband could get better. She agonized over how GOOD her life was. If only something were wrong with her, then maybe they could win their waiver case and she could live happily with her husband. The stress of never knowing if he hadn't picked up the phone because he was driving or because he was detained by immigration consistently wore her down. Would he come home that night? How long would it be before he was pulled over by a cop for not changing lanes correctly and asked to show his legal identification?
Her constant stress about her husbands legal status as well as knowing that she wouldn't have to worry about that anymore if only something were going wrong in her life finally took their toll. She became a victim of depression. She had to quit her job, see a therapist, get on medication. And therein was the cure to her husband's legal status; her life was finally shitty enough that maybe, just maybe, her husband could become a legal resident and stay with her in the United States.
HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT?!
My friend and her husband are the EXACT kind of people that we would WANT to stay in our country. I have met people that I thought should get deported, and I have met people like my friend and her husband, who love this country and treat it well, who work hard and contribute to society, who are intelligent and kind and caring. So WHY is it that because of a stupid, made-up, arbitrary rule, that these people are made to suffer so much? Why was it that my friend had to become extremely depressed before there was any hope for her case? The punishment does not match the crime.
So there is just ONE instance of how ridiculous immigration law can be. Tomorrow I will go back to simply shaking my head at this stuff, but every once in awhile it really fires me up to think about the injustice of it. I think a lot of people don't understand the immigration system because it doesn't apply to them, but the more informed people are about the issues our country has, the greater chance we have of actually fixing it... not taking recent governmental shutdowns into account. But we should always hope for the best for the future.
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