The other day, I worked with a Mexican gentleman who has pending permanent residence. His situation illustrates a variety of problems and challenges we are having with the immigration system in America today. His story was not atypical of stories I have heard.
His wife was a permanent resident. For a person from Mexico to get permanent residence through a spouse, there is currently a five and a half year wait. During that time, the beneficiary cannot reside in the U.S., unless he or she qualifies for some type of legal status, which is seldom the case. Therefore, in most cases, a Mexican couple who follow the rules will be separated for nearly 6 years. There are few couples who can handle that type of separation.
In this case, this gentleman and his wife have 3 sons. Two of them are U.S. citizens, so one of the U.S. citizen sons filed for permanent residence for his father. He had to wait until he was age 21 to do so, but then there is no waiting list for immigration through an adult U.S. citizen child.
However, since September 11th, there is always a security check when a person files for immigration. There is an imperfect system in which the computer checks for names and birthdates that are even similar to the applicant. Because there are so many Mexicans in the U.S. and so many of the names are similar, Mexicans often get caught in this security check and end up waiting a long time. This gentleman had been waiting almost 3 years. When that much time has passed, it is important to make an inquiry with immigration. If not, it could turn out that the case was lost and the applicant will never know without some kind of intervention. I can help people write these letters of inquiry and that is what we will do.
In the meantime, it turns out that the third son is not a U.S. citizen. He entered legally as a non-immigrant but then stayed on illegally to be with his family. Who can blame him? He is a teenager and would otherwise be separated from his family for 6 years while waiting to immigrate. However, without current documents, he is the only member of his family who cannot work, get a driver's license, or go to school without paying impossible fees. He has applied to immigrate through his permanent resident mother but he still has more than two years of uncertainty before he will get to the front of the waiting list for this immigration category. If he gets picked up during that time, he will be sent back to Mexico and barred from re-entry to the U.S. for at least 10 years. Under the current system, taking this level of risk is the only option this boy has if he wants to be with his family now.
There are 4 members of this family who are here with 3 different types of legal statuses, and one member who is here with an expired status. That is why I call this a "multi-status family."
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