A word on US immigraiton

A word on immigration
I love immigrants so much I married one! My wife is Canadian, and her immigration ordeal has been a 5+ year process. Many people think if/when a foreign person gets married to a US citizen, then citizenship is just a simple test and ceremony away. That is really not the case at all. In fact, before you can even apply for citizenship, you must obtain legal resident status – a process that involves lots of forms, can take a very long time, and is ultimately difficult to understand. She just now, after 5 or so years, finally received her permanent resident card and legal resident status… she can now apply for citizenship if she so desires (and she does).

We are both intelligent people and figured we could handle the paperwork on our own… and we were right, up until we made one mistake right at the end by waiting too long to file an extension, then in a panic, filing the wrong form. That misstep put the entire process in jeopardy, so we decided to get an immigration lawyer and fast. Thankfully, we found Sylvia Miller. Sylvia was very pleasant to work with, was very thorough, knew how to expertly handle our situation, gave us great advice, has great rates, will represent you in court (if it comes to that), and ultimately she won my wife her permanent resident status. If you are in the Seattle area and need an immigration lawyer, I highly recommend working with her.

A word on illegal immigration
Some of the people we’ve talked to about our ordeal think that US immigration policy is too complex, and because of that fact, suggest we offer leniency toward illegal immigrants. After going through it ourselves, I must say this process has garnered a healthy resentment for people who don’t make any effort to undergo this arduous process. Becoming a US citizen is very important to my wife, that’s why we did it – the right way. People that don’t think it’s worth the effort clearly don’t actually care about the US, the people who live here (legal US citizens), or care to make this country a better place. That’s the true value of a person who actually cares about being a productive member of the citizenry who make up the heart and soul of a country.

Clearly, illegal immigrants who run borders and/or pay human traffickers… these people would rather operate like criminals than actually honor the laws of the country they are infiltrating. What does this say about their character? Do we really want to indulge these people and give them free passes? I used to think people that ranted about illegals were mostly full of hot air, but I’ve witnessed this for myself in my own community – illegal immigrants who have no intention of making even a single positive impact on the community in which they’ve settled, they waste no time weaseling their way into social programs that have no requirements for proving legal status, bleed these social services dry, while at the same time streaming the money they do earn right out of the country. It’s the worst form of injury to a community I can think of.

The cycle continues
I was absolutely flabbergasted one day when we had to go to the local free clinic to get a certified physical from a US government recognized physician (part of the immigration process), and the place was literally overflowing with pregnant immigrants (their legal status yet unknown to me). I saw a sign, printed only in Spanish, that referenced free social services counselling – a program to help new mothers immediately get on to social services programs for their new baby. I grabbed a pamphlet and the #2 line item was “Obtaining citizenship”. I asked the woman behind the front desk how many pregnant immigrants they see in a month with questionable legal status. She laughed and said “Too many to count.” – So, apparently the free clinic is overrun with illegal criminal social service sucklers trying to pop out as many legal US residents as they can, all to continue the cycle of turning our necessary social services, designed to benefit US citizens, into a criminal life support system for illegal immigrants with no actual love or reverence for the country or the people they are leeching dry.

Some say illegal immigrants can’t afford to get a lawyer or go through the process of obtaining legal status. Clearly, the price one would pay to a slimy human trafficker is rapidly approaching the actual cost of obtaining legal status the right way… and you have a far less chance of dying working with a lawyer than a criminal smuggler. So I guess my message to illegals is this – if you actually care about the US and/or becoming a US citizen, go talk to Sylvia and do it the right way… otherwise get the hell out of my country you worthless leech.

Tags: law

This entry was posted on Monday, January 2nd, 2012 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Life in general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.