I recently worked with a Mexican family in a complex, but not atypical, situation. The father was an illiterate construction worker who had never had much education in any language. He was a legal permanent resident but because he could not read or write or speak English, he could not apply for naturalization. To become a U.S. citizen, one must read and write and speak English at a basic level. More than once, I've met residents of the U.S. who are devoted to this country but because of lack of opportunities or time to get an education and basic abilities in English, they cannot qualify to become American citizens (in some cases, people arrive in the U.S. when they are quite old and find learning a new language impossible). This was the case with this father.
He has four daughters, who are currently ages 20-27. He applied for them to immigrate in the year 2000, when all of them still qualified to get in line to immigrate as children of a U.S. permanent resident (to do this, the children must be under age 21). However, the wait is about 7 years. Now 8 years have passed and only one daughter still qualifies to immigrate as a "child," although they could otherwise all file their immigration papers today. There was a law that was passed on August 6, 2002, called the "Child Status Protection Act" (CSPA), which allows some children who "age out" (pass age 21 while waiting to immigrate) to still immigrate as if they were under 21. However, this applies mainly to the children of U.S. citizens (with some complex exceptions). In this case, the three daughters will now have to immigrate as adult children. This means their case will continue for about 8 more years.
There are two daughters currently in the U.S. who came in without documents. The daughter I met that day is now 25 years old and has 3 U.S. citizen children. If she goes home for any period of time to fix her immigration situation, she will have to leave her children behind, or take them to a country they have never seen, where she may not be able to get enough work to support them. However, if she stays, she cannot become a permanent resident. Under current law, there is no possibility to become a permanent resident while remaining in the U.S. if a person entered without documents, unless a relative filed an I-130 petition before April 30, 2001, that qualifies under the LIFE Act. If she leaves to improve her situation, she could be gone for years, with or without her children. If she stays, her children will grow up having an undocumented mother; haunted by fear and an inability to ever admit to their friends and teachers that their mother is not legally in the U.S.
There are a few other items of note. The first is that the father works very hard. Having never had an education in Spanish, and working long hours in the U.S., it seems impossible for him to go to classes to improve his English in any way. Therefore, the benefits of citizenship will always be out of reach. The second is that, if any of the daughters were to get married, they would no longer qualify to immigrate unless their father becomes a U.S. citizen (back to the first problem). As a result, although these women seem to have devoted boyfriends, they are not getting married and their children do not have the legal protection of a recognized father. The laws discourage marriage for children of permanent residents who are trying to immigrate.
No matter what one may think about the complex situation between this father and his four daughters, one has to have sympathy for the children involved. They are Americans, living in the U.S., and Mexico is unknown to them. But they will grow up with the constant fear that if their mother is caught, they will lose her. Or else, they may some day have to go back to a place they have never known, with a culture that is foreign to them. It is this type of situation that makes finding fair and just ways to treat immigrants and their children such a challenging, and critical, task.
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