Trump’s immigration policies are hurting lawful immigrants too
This January, I flew into O’Hare International Airport on a long-haul flight fromArgentina, showedmy fiance visa to the immigration officer— then headed to the registry office to marry Robert, my boyfriend of five years. Robert is a medical student at theUniversity of Illinois and aU.S. citizen, so our marriagemademe eligible for a green card. I filedmy application andwas told I’d receive employment authorizationwithin a couple of months, and full legal permanent residency a few months thereafter
It’s nowSeptember, and I’m still waiting. At the ChicagoU.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office, backlogs and red tape mean the wait time for family-based green card applications like mine has soared to 39 months. In the meantime, my employment authorization still hasn’t been processed.
That’s left us scraping by on Robert’s student loans even though I’ve had multiple job offers. With our city facing a $1.2 billion budget shortfall, Chicago needs all hands on deck, and I want nothing more than to join the workforce, pay taxes and support Robert while he prepares to treat patients. Instead, we’re up at nightworrying about our finances andwondering if I’ll ever get permission towork.
Our situation speaks to a fundamental shift in theway the United States now handles even routine immigration cases, and the willful erosion of institutions that once made the United States a welcoming place for hardworking immigrants. According to New American Economy, Chicago has over 113,000 immigrant business owners, and foreign-born workers pay $16.8 billion in taxes. Immigrants fuel our economy— but increasingly, they’re doing it despite federal policies designed to hold them back.
The public charge rule— intended, ironically, to ensure immigrants could support themselves— now requires immigrants to track downend less hard-to-source documents including credit reports, high school diplomas and English proficiency tests. Immigration fees have soared, with employment authorization fees up 34% and naturalization fees up more than 80%. USCIS has failed to issue documentation to immigrants who receive work authorization— and such delays can be devastating for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, who need to renew their employment authorization every two years. USCIS is even failing to schedule naturalization ceremonies for immigrants approved for citizenship.
The frustrating part is that Robert and Iwanted to do things right. After finishing college inArgentina, I spent two years teaching at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, then completed my master’s in Spanish at Loyola University Chicago. I could have married Robert then, and stayed in the United States towait formy green card— but to avoid any suggestion we’d married for immigration purposes, I returned to Argentina and applied for a fiance visa.
While I waited, I worked for the U.S. State Department as an academic adviser with Education USA and the Fulbright Commission, building connections between American and Argentine universities. After working for the U.S. government, I assumed it would be easy for me to return to the United States as the spouse of a citizen. Yet here I am, unable towork and facing a three-year wait formy green card.
I can’t imagine howhard this system is for people without our resources. Even for Robert and me, the uncertainty andmy inability to contribute has been tough. We’d planned to live off our savings untilmywork authorization came through, but as theweeks turned into monthswe’ve had to rely on student loans Robert never planned on taking out. To make ends meet, we’ve tightened our belts, postponed our honeymoon and eaten through moneywe’d saved to set up our home together.
We’ve spent our first year of married life fretting about howwe’ll cope ifmy employment authorization doesn’t come through until next year. The longer the process drags on, the more it costs: so far, we’ve spent almost $13,000 on legal and filing fees.
I’m grateful for all thatAmerica has givenme— an education, awonderful husband, a path to permanent residency. But I knowU.S. citizens shouldn’t have to struggle like this to be united with their loved ones, and law-abiding immigrants shouldn’t face such obstacles when all theywant to do iswork to support their families.
Quite rightly, the immigration debate focuses on.the neediest people: the millions of undocumented immigrants excluded fromcoronavirus relief, theDreamers whowant nothing more than a stable future, the refugees onwhomtheUnited States is turning its back.
But asmy story shows, fixing the immigration system doesn’t just mean helping these groups. It also means addressing the broader decay of our immigration infrastructure. Our lawmakers should push for the comprehensive reforms America so badly needs. But they should also do their jobs, and demand to knowwhy theU.S. immigration system has been allowed to fall into such disrepair.