THE REALITY
Spring, 2013
We were on the phone with my family in Scotland the day we got our green cards in the mail. The letter was addressed to my younger brother, John. We quickly realized that his green card was the first to arrive. The youngest in the family, it felt ironic. He has spent most of his life here and barely remembers living in England.
All we could do was laugh, it seemed to carry less weight as if John was always American and they just now decided to send his social security card along.
Deep down, however, I knew it wasn’t true. That if we hadn’t received our green cards, he would have had to go back to England just like us. To a country where he knows no one, a country he barely remembers.
The legal immigration process in the U.S. is entirely more complicated than most people realize.
I think it’s important to note that it's too complicated even for me to understand, as an immigrant in the United States. The path my family took to becoming permanent residents of the U.S. is one of many different ways that someone can gain that status.
Thankfully, Business Insider is able to help explain the process a little better than I can. The below flow chart gives some insight into some of the different paths one can take in order to acquire a green card.
The chart is at times, unbelievable. It demonstrates how if you don’t have family in the U.S. or a job offer, you either have to be a millionaire, a genius, or be from a minuscule country in order to even qualify for a green card. Many more paths lead to a"Dead end."
This chart, while fairly inclusive, doesn’t demonstrate the costs or the length of time the process takes once you are eligible to apply for a green card.
For a more nuanced experience, I will follow the path that my family took to show the many different hoops that one has to jump through in order to come to the United States.
Do you have a family member living in the United States?
While this is a very common way to immigrate to the United States, we did not have any family here. We were the “pilgrims” of our family, so to speak, and were one of the first even to leave Britain.
Do you have a job offer or potential job offer?
My dad did have a job offer, first with Ford Motor Company. But after 18 months, his working visa expired, and Ford doesn't sponsor its employees for green cards (unless they are Albert Einstein). We went back to England until Bosch Rexroth offered my dad employment just over a year later.
Is the company willing to sponsor you?
While it was Ford's company policy to not sponsor people for green cards, the same policy did not apply to Bosch. Therefore, they were able to sponsor us.
Can they certify that hiring you won’t displace an American worker?
My dad had to write a “dissertation” in order to explain exactly what his skills were and how they were unique to him and specific to the job. From there, the papers were reviewed in order to determine whether or not he was best qualified for the job, versus someone from the United States.
Are they willing to pay potentially thousands of dollars in application and legal fees?
Estimates for applications for H-1B visas are around $5,000. A company would need to be willing and able to pay an immigrant for the job they were doing in the States and they would need to front the cost of immigration attorney fees and filing process. Thankfully for us, Bosch was able to do so.
Are they willing to wait potentially years for you to get to the front of the visa line?
We were able to get our visas in a relatively quick amount of time, but the H1-B visa that we had could only be renewed once and for three year periods each. That meant after 6 years we would either have to go back to the UK or apply for a green card.
For us, the process most likely cost well over $10,000 and took 10+ years to complete. This isn’t something a regular person who is simply looking for a better life can afford. It wasn’t something my family could afford either.
The Business Insider chart does a fairly elementary job of explaining the difficulties of the immigration process in term of green cards. But for someone looking for information about how to actually apply for a green card or visa, it's not very helpful. Specific information about visas isn't available at all. The chart mainly displays a lot of dead ends and difficult hoops to jump through.
What if you’re here temporarily on a visa? Or applying for refugee or asylum status?
The process is, of course, different for this.
If you want to travel to the U.S. for a vacation, you must simply apply online for a travel visa, which is much easier to come by.
In order to apply for asylum, the process is quite the opposite of other immigration processes. In order to be eligible for legal “affirmative asylum,” one of two ways to be granted asylum in the United States, you actually need to be physically present in the U.S. You are eligible for asylum no matter how you crossed the border and as long as you apply within a year of being in the US. Asylum applicants are also allowed to live in the US so long as their application is pending.
When compared side by side, is it any surprise that undocumented migrants who can come to the US on foot, choose to do so by seeking asylum? Or that the rest simply overstay a visa that was easier to obtain than a working visa?
The legal immigration process is too complicated, too expensive, and too inaccessible for the vast majority of people who would hope to seek a better life in the “land of opportunity.”
What is the solution? Would fixing the legal immigration process reduce illegal immigration and bring wealth and prosperity to both the people who want to be here and the country as a whole?
I can’t be certain that it would, but for now, creating a more accessible to way to become an American would be a good start.