From the AILA Blog:

Under the twisted immigration law the husband or wife of a US citizen is barred from applying for a green card in the US if they originally entered without proper inspection by an immigration officer. To obtain lawful status the immigrant must leave the US and apply for a visa at a US embassy in their home country. But once they leave the US they are barred from returning for up to 10 years unless they can prove their US citizen or legal resident spouse will suffer extreme hardship in their absence. But the process–known as an “unlawful presence waiver”–can take months, even years. In the meantime the family is separated, the foreign spouse may be stuck in a dangerous place–like Ciudad Juarez, Mexico where many immigrants have lost their lives–and there is no way of predicting if or when the family will ever be reunited.

The proposed rule change is huge because it will allow undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens to apply for a provisional waiver while in the U.S.–something not permitted under the current rule. If the waiver is granted, the foreign national will then leave the U.S., apply for his or her immigrant visa abroad, and return to his or her loved ones. The change will give countless American families a chance to stay together safely and legally.

The move is also smart enforcement because it will reduce the illegal immigrant population and allow the Department of Homeland Security to better focus its resources on keeping America secure and safe.

This is very welcome news for our friends who have loved ones out of status.  It’s all too easy to brush off these kinds of problems with platitudes and sound bites.  However, if it is your husband, wife, child, sibling, it becomes much more than a sound bite.  I have had two situations with people I know in the past few years that turn this issue into much more than an ‘illegal is illegal’ question. 

Case #1 –you are aware of.  The wife has posted on the blog many times.  She has been married to an illegal immigrant for a decade.  They have a child.  She has a decent job so she cannot apply for hardship.  The hardship is not having a husband and father, not the financial loss.  The hardship would be not having a dad there to take her child to and from school, athletic events and activities,  not having a husband as a life partner for years, a father missing his child’s graduation and other important life-time landmarks.   So they take their chances.

Case #2–a woman I worked with has a son who married a foreign born college  student.  She overstayed her student visa and left with the son to her home country to introduce her new husband.  When it came time to come home, she was denied a visa to reenter the United States, for 10 years.  My friend’s son would not leave his wife.  After months and congressional help, my friend’s son and wife were able to come home. 

These are absurd situations.  We are not talking about hardened criminals out drinking, drugging, and killing others.  We are talking husbands, fathers and daughters in law who just happened to to have not been born American citizens.  I am delighted to see the change in the law.  It is just common sense.  Americans should not have to live in fear for their loved ones.

9 Thoughts to “Common sense changes to immigration status”

  1. Elena

    common sense, that is what this means. Certainly where there are sparse resources, keeping family togethers makes legal sense, as opposed to investing precious tax dollars to seperate them which solves nothing.

  2. Kelly3406

    I have yet to see a proposal to relax immigration law that was not touted as “common sense.”

    I have yet to see a proposal to tighten immigration law that was not denounced as heartless or racist.

    Just sayin’ …..

  3. @Kelly, can you think of one reason to keep a husband and wife apart and in doing so, keeping a child from having a father? I can’t think of one.

    Can you think of one good reason to keep an American and his wife out of the country because the wive over-stayed her student visa?

    I can’t think of one.

  4. Twinad

    Thanks for posting, Moon. Yes, this change in policy would honestly change everything for us and is what we have been waiting for all these years. This would be an administrative change only and it was the administrative change that occurred in April of 2001 that prevented us from getting his status changed in the first place.

  5. Elena

    Thanks for sharing Twinad!

  6. Starryflights

    We need more common sense in Washington.

  7. Rick Bentley

    “can you think of one reason to keep a husband and wife apart ”

    Punishing the guilty for criminal behavior.

  8. Bear

    Somewhere in the middle of discourse on immigration there has to be room for a little kindness and tolerance. With the possible exception of Native Americans we are all from
    immigrant backgrounds.

  9. Twinad

    I can’t let Post #7 go by without refuting it! Being in the US without legal status is NOT a criminal offense, it’s a civil offense. Just because you consider it “criminal behavior” does not make it so.

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