Immigration Overview

Our immigration system used to work.  Why doesn’t it work anymore? 

You, like many Americans, may proudly trace your heritage to an ancestor who immigrated to the US to make a better life for your family. Can immigrants today do the same thing?  For many, the answer is no, due to a broken immigration system.

The US once welcomed immigrants with open arms as long as they were not convicts, prostitutes, ill, or members of a certain racial group – most notably the Chinese. However, many of our ancestors—who were largely poor, unskilled, and without family in the US—would be denied green cards today. 

Under the current system, access to immigration visas are generally limited to those who are highly skilled or closely related to US citizens or permanent residents. Since 1965, immigration law has developed into an arbitrary, piecemeal system of enforcement and category limits, which is complicated and ineffective for the US and unjust for immigrants.

What’s wrong with the system now? 

A lot. But here are the basics.

Inhumane enforcement

For many immigrants, something as benign as a routine traffic stop could result in detainment and a deportation referral. You might spend months or years in detention waiting for a court date, and you don’t have the right to an attorney if you can't afford one yourself. Your fate will be decided by an administrative judge. If you are deported, you won’t be eligible to try to return to the US for at least ten years.

Tears families apart

As an immediate family member of a US citizen or permanent resident, you may be eligible to come to the US, but you may wait years or decades for your visa application to be processed. If you have been deported (correctly or not), you will be barred from re-entering the US for ten years, even if you are the mother or father of a young child who is a US citizen. Many families are now living with a border between them, causing all manner stress and grief.

No options for undocumented immigrants

If you have been in the US unlawfully for any reason, and have been present for more than one year, you cannot adjust your status without leaving the country. However, leaving carries with it a ten-year bar for re-entry. This is true even if your parents brought you to the US as an infant and you have never known any other home. Although you may feel just as American as your U.S. citizen friends, you have little chance of going to college or working legally. You may feel fearful of authorities, and in the case of witnessing or being victim of a crime, you may fear deportation so much you are unwilling to speak to the police. All our communities are less safe when undocumented immigrants are forced to live in the shadows.

Ignores root causes of immigration, including economic disparities between sending and receiving countries

As a new immigrant, you may have been debating about immigrating for years due to unemployment or poverty, but you preferred to stay in your home community where you were comfortable with family and friends. Although you wish you could find a job in your home town, economic necessity eventually forces you to immigrate to help your family survive.

Canada

In Canada, one problem is the temporary foreign worker program. Workers enter Canada legally -- but only on a temporary basis, without their families, and with no right to become permanent residents of Canada. Often these immigrants will stay when their temporary permits expire, either because they have come to rely on their paychecks, or because they have no means to return to their home country. This system causes family separation, an "underclass" of Canadians without access to health care, minimum wage, or unemployment insurance. 

Another big area of injustice is in the refugee system. Some asylum seekers enter Canada as visitors or are smuggled into Canada and apply for refugee status. Many are not accepted as refugees. Their only course of action is to appeal -- which is limited to procedural review only -- or retreat to the shadows and live as an undocumented person. Canada is in the midst of proposed refugee reform legislation. 

Finding a Better Way: The need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

So much of our current immigration system is broken, OSJ believes a comprehensive approach to immigration reform is the best way to address all the complexities and injustices that exist. While we do not condone any violations of the law, such as living in the United States illegally, we recognize that this is but one aspect of the issue.

It must also be mentioned that the US immigration system has degenerated to a point where the vast majority of the people who want to come here -- particularly those who are poor -- have no legal means to do it. This does not seem consistent with values of the United States, and it certainly is not consistent with the "good news to the poor" that we are called to as Christians.

We are hopeful that the CRCNA will begin to join the thousands of voices that are crying out for change.