Is it difficult to get into this country legally?

[deb1]

I am asking this question out of complete ignorance, so please don’t over react.

Is it hard to get into this country legally? Is there a lot of red tape or something?

I ask because I really don’t understand why people come here illegally and I am trying to understand.

Please don’t answer, ‘because they want to work.’ Okay. I buy that there are aliens who want to come here for employment or a better way of life. But why not do so legally? Is it that hard to get permission to enter this country to work?

 

[TMC]

Yes, it is fairly difficult to gain legal entrance. There are strict quotas that are applied by immigration category. Immediate relatives of are exempt from quota, but immediate family is only defined as a spouse or a parent of a citizen, or a child if both parents are citizens. Other blood relatives (mostly siblings) can immigrate but are subject to waiting periods ranging from two years to as much as twenty years depedning on the country they are coming from. An immigrant with no family in the U.S. can still get a visa if they have a special skill, like a doctor or a scientist. Regular folks can apply if they already have job offer in the US, but there is still a long wait - 3 or 4 years, I think.

 

[deb1]

Yes, it is fairly difficult to gain legal entrance. There are strict quotas that are applied by immigration category. Immediate relatives of are exempt from quota, but immediate family is only defined as a spouse or a parent of a citizen, or a child if both parents are citizens. Other blood relatives (mostly siblings) can immigrate but are subject to waiting periods ranging from two years to as much as twenty years depedning on the country they are coming from. An immigrant with no family in the U.S. can still get a visa if they have a special skill, like a doctor or a scientist. Regular folks can apply if they already have job offer in the US, but there is still a long wait - 3 or 4 years, I think.

Is it possible to make the laws more fair to those who want to work here and still protect our country from terrorist?

I see faults on both sides of this issue. Some people are very xenophobic and fear any change to this country. While others seem inclined to ignore that there is a need for some government regulation of immigration. I think that the extremes on both sides are very dangerous to our country.

 

[lizaanne]

My husband immigrated to the US from England. Here is our timeline below, what we had to go through and how long it took from phase to phase:

July 28, 2004 - We email for the first time
Mar 19, 2005 - We meet for the first time
Mar 26, 2005 - Our engagement day in England
Sept 29, 2005 - Mailed I-129F
Sept 30, 2005 - Packet arrives at Lincoln, NE Post Office
Sept 30, 2005 - Packet is received and signed for at INS Express
Oct 06, 2005 - Received NOA-1
Oct 21, 2005 - Received NOA-2 via email (15 days!!)
Oct 26, 2005 - Received email notice of case going to NVC - BYE BYE NEBRASKA!!
Oct 27, 2005 - Received NOA-2 via snail mail
Nov 09, 2005 - Received case number via email - London here he comes!!!
Nov 10, 2005 - Received case number via snail mail.
Nov 25, 2005 - Received PACKET THREE!!!
Dec 6, 2005 - Returned Packet Three to the Embassy in London
Jan 9, 2006 - Scheduled medical appointment for January 16th
Jan 10, 2006 - Requested police report
Jan 16, 2006 - Medical appointment today
Feb 07, 2006 - Received police report
Feb 10, 2006 - Returned check list to embassy requesting interview
Apr 06, 2006 - INTERVIEW IN LONDON!!!
WE HAVE A VISA!!!
Apr 08, 2006 - Visa arrived by courier - yay!!! It’s really real!!
AOS Timeline

Sep 01, 2006 - Simon arrives in America
Sep 30, 2006 - We are married!
Oct 05, 2006 - Applied for SSN
Dec 09, 2006 - Mailed Petitions/Applications for AOS, EAD, AP
Dec 11, 2006 - Package received at NE office
Dec 22, 2006 - Package received back at house - sent to wrong address and one check was wrong amount
Dec 23, 2006 - Resent package to the proper office, with the correct check amounts
Jan 02, 2007 - All Checks cashed by USCIS
Jan 02, 2007 - Received NOA's for all requests
Jan 10, 2007 - Received notice to go for biometrics
Jan 18, 2007 - Appointment for biometrics - completed successfully
Jan 30, 2007 - Received RFE - just when we thought it was all going so well...
Feb 08. 2007 - Returned RFE with requested documents
Feb 10, 2007 - Package received by UCSIS location in MO
Feb 23, 2007 - Case transfered to California office for processing
Mar 16, 2007 - Received Advance Parole in the mail
Mar 19, 2007 - Received EAD card in the mail from Missouri Service Center
May 30, 2007 - Notice mailed welcoming the new permanent resident.
Jun 07, 2007 - Received Green Card in the mail! YAY!!!!
 
So - yes - it does take time.  We were fortunate that he was coming here from England and the US has a friendly relationship with that country.  Others wait many many years to do the same thing we did.  We did all our own paper work (you can see a couple mistakes we made) - we did not hire an immigration lawyer.  So as far as level of difficulty, it wasn't that bad, just time consuming, and check and double check EVERYTHING regarding process and documents before you send.
 
I was VERY glad that I'm a Project Manager by profession.  I don't know how someone who is not organized could get through it on their own.
 
~Liza

 

[HOPEFUL_IN_UK]

Compared to North Korea? No.
Compared to the UK? Absolutely. There was no way we could have jumped through the hoops to get my DH into the US. You need to have a lot of money in the bank and/or a decent job lined up. Then, it takes a year or two (as illustrated above.)

To go from the US, on the other hand, took one day at the consulate in Chicago and $500. We had to have some proof that we were a genuine couple, that my husband had a job and an apartment big enough for us, and then I had to say that I wasn’t a terrorist and hadn’t committed any acts of genocide.

I went to the consulate at 10am and had my visa by 2pm.

 

[deb1]

Compared to North Korea? No.
Compared to the UK? Absolutely. There was no way we could have jumped through the hoops to get my DH into the US. You need to have a lot of money in the bank and/or a decent job lined up. Then, it takes a year or two (as illustrated above.)

To go from the US, on the other hand, took one day at the consulate in Chicago and $500. We had to have some proof that we were a genuine couple, that my husband had a job and an apartment big enough for us, and then I had to say that I wasn’t a terrorist and hadn’t committed any acts of genocide.

I went to the consulate at 10am and had my visa by 2pm.

Well, that seems to quick to keep a country safe, but the American process seems to take to long. There should be a middle ground.

I am torn because I think that a person who honestly wants to work should be allowed into this country. I realize that we have to protect who is allowed in but an immigrant from a poor country who is uneducated shouldn’t be unable to come here legally. There has to be a better way.

 

[TMC]

Well, that seems to quick to keep a country safe, but the American process seems to take to long. There should be a middle ground.

I am torn because I think that a person who honestly wants to work should be allowed into this country. I realize that we have to protect who is allowed in but an immigrant from a poor country who is uneducated shouldn’t be unable to come here legally. There has to be a better way.

Part of the problem is that there are so many that want to come in, and the law limits legal immigration of non-family members to something like 150 or 200 thousand a year. There are many more than that who want to come in.

 

[water]

An immigrant with no family in the U.S. can still get a visa if they have a special skill, like a doctor or a scientist.

yes, that’s how my brother and his wife got into US so easily. They were from Canada and he is a physician. However, how he got to Canada from Vietnam when he was a kid is an opposite story.

 

[didymus]

Yes, it is fairly difficult to gain legal entrance. There are strict quotas that are applied by immigration category. Immediate relatives of are exempt from quota, but immediate family is only defined as a spouse or a parent of a citizen, or a child if both parents are citizens. Other blood relatives (mostly siblings) can immigrate but are subject to waiting periods ranging from two years to as much as twenty years depedning on the country they are coming from. An immigrant with no family in the U.S. can still get a visa if they have a special skill, like a doctor or a scientist. Regular folks can apply if they already have job offer in the US, but there is still a long wait - 3 or 4 years, I think.

Longer than that, with thousands of dollars in legal fees, trips back to your homeland to get documents and all the pettiness of bureaucracy – all the while watching illegals butt their way in uncaught and unpunished.

The State Department section in charge of all this is, of course, underfunded and understaffed.

 

[puzzleannie]

public radio is doing a series on this topic this week in conjunction with ongoing congressional hearings to raise the number of permanent visas and green cards issued each year, and there are some specifics on their website, according to the commentators.

Our immigration office in the diocese of course works overtime on this issue, of immense relevance here on the border. In parishes we deal all the time with couples who married civilly in order to facilitate the immigration process because church marriage in their own countries took so long. Sadly this eventuality results in many couples separating from the Church completely.

 

[stringbeanduck]

Well if the US dollar falls to much more then the illegal immigrants will retreat back to Mexico soon.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Longer than that, with thousands of dollars in legal fees, trips back to your homeland to get documents and all the pettiness of bureaucracy – all the while watching illegals butt their way in uncaught and unpunished.

The State Department section in charge of all this is, of course, underfunded and understaffed.

And yet we don’t have enough people to even process the applications of folks who want to come here legally, which is most of the waiting process.

 

[deb1]

Now I have a further question. Why isn’t this issue addressed by politicians? It would seem that improving the beuraucracy which surrounds immigration would be a part of a politician’s platform. Instead we get solutions that seem to polarize people on either side of the issue.

Is it possible that politicians have more power if they divide us instead of seeking real solutions?

 

[He_Man]

Speaking generally but somewhat accurately, the reason no one does much on the issue is because the liberals want their votes through false promises, and the neo-conservatives want their cheap labor.

In the end, that’s why neither extreme wants to amend the system, or protect the border.

Keep in mind the more serious aspect to open borders is security. I fear dirty bombs and terrorist technology more than I do some random Mexican dude.

With as EASY as it is to get into the US illegally, I you were a terrorist, where do you think you’d go to get in? Reagan National with tight security, or walk across from Tiajuana with none?

 

[RachelsAlumni]

My son married a woman from South America. It took them over 3 years AFTER they were married and thousands of dollars to get her green card.

There were all kinds of ridiculous fees. She had to have a physical exam which she had to pay cash for since she couldn’t work and didn’t have health insurance. Then the backlog of cases was so great that her court date kept getting postponed so that when she did get a day in court all her tests had expired and she had to get them all done again, etc. etc. etc.

My son had to prove that he earned enough to sponsor her. So they were living on a single income of a very young man and she wasn’t allowed to work in all those years. Plus they had all these extra expenses of health tests, physicals, attorney fees, court costs, had to travel to her country’s embassy to get documents. My son was getting so exasperated with the whole process he was ready to give up and move to her country.

I don’t know about the highly skilled worker permits. My DIL has an engineering degree from Oxford and that didn’t seem to help her much in her application.

When you have highly educated people with sponsors who are having such difficulty getting their legal status how could someone who is uneducated and unskilled with no money ever hope to get legal status?

I do know the quota for unskilled workers from Mexico is around 5000 per year. That’s an absurdly low number given our need in this Country for unskilled workers.

 

[jc-servant]

We were fortunate that he was coming here from England and the US has a friendly relationship with that country. Others wait many many years to do the same thing we did. We did all our own paper work (you can see a couple mistakes we made) - we did not hire an immigration lawyer. So as far as level of difficulty, it wasn’t that bad, just time consuming, and check and double check EVERYTHING regarding process and documents before you send.

I was VERY glad that I’m a Project Manager by profession. I don’t know how someone who is not organized could get through it on their own.

~Liza

You were blessed that your husband was from England. My family is very frustrated with the runaround being done to my sister and her husband who is from a predominately Muslim country in Africa. He is highly educated and speaks 5 languages fluently. He was told that he should expect a permanent green card in about 2 months early in 2001. He was almost finished with the process before he even married my sister, so it should not appear to be a sham marriage.

Then 9/11 happened and the next interview was not held until a few years later. At that time his temp card was taken from him. Our government threatened him that if they called more than 2 times to ask about the status of the case that he would get bumped to the bottom of the list. They were also charged hundreds of dollars in additional fees a few years after being told that all fees had been paid. They were penalized for the agency taking so long to process the case.

They were treated shabbily at the 2nd interview as if they were both presenting lies. Their attorney sent in paperwork to prove that the agency had mistaken my sister for some other woman of a very different age with a different Social Security number who had been in a minor (and non-criminal) court case, but the agency did not apologize or finish “investigating.” Although he has been married to a US citizen since early 2001, this man is still in limbo and being told he is still under “investigation.” He has had innocent friends picked up by the government at random and then released weeks later because they did nothing. However, one friend had to get a US senator to intervene before they left him alone. Luckily, he had powerful friends.

My sister and brother-in-law are afraid of our government which breaks my heart and makes me angry all at the same time. I’m ready to start calling senators, etc.

 

[deb1]

. I’m ready to start calling senators, etc.

I think that most Americans are unaware of the incredible delays, money and paper work that goes into entering this country. If perhaps more new organizations would pick up on this then there would be a call for change.

It seems to me that the entry process is the whole cause of our problems with illegals. And personally I feel like it is endangering Americans.

If a country doesn’t know who enters its borders it can not protect itself, but if it makes the process difficult for regular people who want to work then those people might enter illegally.

Some people might say, “Well even if the process was easier, a bad person could still slip across the border. He would just continue to ignore the process.” But if we know ahead of time that it is easier for workers to enter the USA then automatically we would know that anyone who was here illegally was up to no good.

Most Americans have probably never asked themselves why someone would choose coming here illegally over coming here legally.

 

[Ridgerunner]

At one time, I worked with skilled worker visas for people in the medical field. There is a distinction that needs to be made, that I don’t think anyone has talked about. It’s not very difficult to “get into this country legally” in the sense of being allowed physical entry. The difficult thing is being able to work legally in this country.

In my experience, it was not at all difficult to get “green cards” (they’re no longer green) for medical people from some places, tough for some; impossible for others. Mostly that had to do with English language facility and educational equivalency.

Easiest of all were Australians, Brits, Irish and Canadians. Their English was, of course, perfectly adequate, and their educational requirements are at least on a par with those in the U.S. Filipinos and Filipinas had no problem with the educational equivalency if they went to one of two universities in the Philippines (but not some others), but the language requirement was sometimes difficult. Since the University of Santo Tomas teaches courses in English, their graduates generally don’t have language problems. Lots of Poles could speak English or could learn it surprisingly quickly, but since their Polish educational degrees were not equivalent, (part of the communist legacy) they generally couldn’t make it. It’s very much a mixed thing for skilled workers.

The agricultural program is a mess. The farmer takes total responsibility for those workers. The pay scale has to be higher than you would ever expect. The farmer has to also ensure housing and meals, either directly or by additional compensation. The farmer has to keep track of the workers’ whereabouts. The paperwork and bureaucratic requirements keep all but very prosperous farmers with high-value products out of the program.

Of course, skill level does not guarantee a happy result; witness the Islamic doctors’ terrorist plot in Britain. I have long thought immigration should be based on treaty arrangements rather than a supposed “even-handed” approach regardless of origins. If a country is a faithful friend of the U.S. (e.g., the Philippines, Poland, South Korea, Australia, Britain) its citizens should have a preference, perhaps an exclusive preference.

 

[lizaanne]

I should have added as well that, just because my husband has his green card, does not mean that we are done with the government processes. After receiving the green card initially, it will expire after two years unless you petition to “remove conditions” (if he does not he will be deported) - this means that while he has permanant residency, it is conditional permanant residency. We will now have to PROVE that our marriage occurred, that we do indeed live together as husband and wife, and that the marriage is not one of convenience. This means giving them photos of us together over the two years and at the wedding, documents with both our names and address on them such as mortgage, lines of credit, utility bills, etc. We will need to go to an interview where we will present this evidence (if asked) to remove the conditional status of his residency. THEN his green card will be good for 10 years, at which time we will have to do this all again.

Unless he becomes a United States Citizen - which he is not interested in doing at this time. So we will continue to live with the immigration processes as part of our lives forever.

No - it’s not difficult (for our situation), but it’s not entirely easy either.

~Liza

 

[hazmatdude]

Immigrating into the USA is much easier than Australia, New Zealand and for that matter Mexico. Take a look and see the truth. Besides, it really doesn’t matter how difficult it is anyway. This is a sovereign nation legislating appropriate immigration laws to ensure its sovereignty and the orderly rule of law. Anyone entering illegally or helping to subvert the laws of the nation should be prosecuted. If a person enters illegally they should serve a prison sentence, have their identity (names, fingerprints, DNA) recorded so that they are never allowed to enter again and then deported.