Family Values at Face Value (Page 1 of 2)

This story was originally planned as an interview with two married couples connected to East Tennessee as they each navigate the Department of Homeland Security’s complex immigration system.

Both couples are pursuing one of only three legal channels to U.S. citizenship available for a foreign-born spouse married to an American: sponsorship by an immediate family member. Both couples shared horror stories of prohibitive expense, bureaucratic loopholes, personal heartache, and indecipherable paperwork they feel are designed to prevent them from completing the process.

In a country whose Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press, both couples are afraid to be identified for this story. Both couples fear their precarious advancement through the maze of our immigration system would be threatened by the slightest misstep or criticism of the process that keeps two of these newlyweds living a continent apart and has the other two relying on one income following the random revocation of an Interim Employment Authentication.

So much for “family values.”

Monica Hernandez, Board Chair of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and coordinator of Pueblos de Latinoamerica, a program at Highlander Research and Education Center supporting grassroots immigrant groups, said extended separation from family, excessive financial hardship, and legal entanglements are common, even for the scarce few who meet the narrow qualifications for citizenship.

“The debate is framed as people not wanting to play by the rules, but the current system provides few opportunities for people to obtain legal status,” Hernandez said. “It’s not a matter of people taking their turn and waiting in line. For most people, there is no line.”

For an immigrant to gain permanent residency or citizenship in the U.S., one of three criteria must be met: sponsorship by an immediate family member who is a citizen or permanent resident, sponsorship by an employer who can prove no U.S. citizen or permanent resident can be found to fill the immigrant’s job, and/or proof of persecution in the immigrant’s home country based on political beliefs or activities or membership in a persecuted social group. U.S. foreign policy often arbitrarily affects immigration policy, which has fluctuated throughout history based on the needs of the capitalist system and has favored white European immigrants while denying entry to immigrants of color.

Although recently released census data note a 16 percent rise since 2000 in the number of immigrants in American households, few meet the specific criteria required to gain legal citizenship. Approximately 12 million immigrants currently in the United States are believed to be undocumented.

“People don’t have the luxury of waiting,” Hernandez said. “People aren’t just coming here because they want to break the law or access consumer goods or because they necessarily aspire to the American lifestyle. They can’t make it back home. They literally can’t provide for their families, and they feel like they’re left with no choice but to move here.”

Many feel compelled to risk or sacrifice their lives to enter the U.S. and provide for their families, particularly on the border between Mexico and the U.S., where at least 4,000 people have died since the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted in 1994. NAFTA led to massive destabilization of the Mexican economy and is one of the main factors fueling the current immigration boom in the U.S.

Hernandez recently returned from a tour of the border that was organized by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the Human Rights Campaign of Tucson, Arizona. “I saw firsthand the consequences of our border policy. In many immigrant debates and current proposals in Congress, there is a trade-off: rights and benefits for some immigrants combined with increased enforcement of the border,” Hernandez said. “But one thing increased border militarization has not done is stop the flow of immigrants. It’s a failure of policy, yet the administration plans to continue to build and enforce that strategy that has horrible impacts on human life and the environment.”