"Immigration Reform" is good, but seriously inequitable

[TT_Progress]

I posted this as a comment but since there seem to be people here who have the ear of party leaders:

I am for relief for undocumented immigrant families; but the executive needs to fix the other inequities and issues with immediate relatives of US citizens before overwhelming the system. Right now there are terrible inequities that do not get fixed because some groups, like citizens with spouses and children of other nationalities, do not have lobbying powers.

The immigration system is a terrible and tragic patchwork due to inequities in lobbying power. This has been seriously agitated by the addition of Homeland Security which is a terribly rigid institution and is not flexible when families are involved.

There are several hundred thousand mixed nationality citizen families who have to wait several years for their spouses and children. Even when the marriage may be 30 years long, they will be artificially and inequitably separated if they enter or return to the US because they have no lobby.

**The system now allows foreign laborers to bring their spouses to the country and the process is ** a month!

** Foreign labor gets super fast service - 6-8 weeks for the primary and a paid expedite option is available.

** Because of an executive change last year, undocumented immigrant spouses can now apply to be processed without having to separate and can remain in the country (which is a good thing). But because of the inequitus nature of the system they are placed in the same queue as other immediate families, actually causing the normal processed families to be apart **longer**. Those queues need to be seperate and families that are apart need to be processes first.

** It is impossible to bring in a spouse of a citizen or permanent resident (legally) without the long wait, but the US allows people who bypass the system and bring a fiancee over on a visitors visa to adjust their status and remain together without interruption.

All immediate family members should be processed equitably. They should all have an abbreviated visa that allows them into the country (as happens with work visas now) where processing is finalized. EQUITABLY!

But none of these problems are in the special interest lobbying for "immigration reform" It will just add to the mess created through legislation by lobby power, instead of truly reforming the system. In fact, the immigration lobby is asking that non-immediate family members (adult brothers/sisters/aunts uncles etc) be allowed into the same priority as immediate family. If the other issues are not fixed first that will entirely mess over many families who are trying to be united.

[merrily]

1. I have no idea how to formulate equitable laws about immigration, even

assuming they would pass.

As a general matter, I have not been a huge fan of anything politicians label "reform" these days.

[TT_Progress]

2. It is pretty simple really. Immigration policy needs to respect and give

precedence to the "nuclear family" unit. We talk a good talk about "family values". But the family unit has almost no actual rights in this process and can even be seperated without the ability to appeal in certain cases.

Many countries actually have the rights of the "family" inshrined in the constitution itself. We do not have this, so it must be included via policy and it is not currently given significant rights in the system. Which allows all kinds of inequities to occur.

But even if that cannot be achieved, simply adding policies that expedite (real expedition, not the current expedite process for family applications which is arbitrary) immediate family members equitably would go a long way.

[merrily]

3. Writing a statute is different from writing a one sentence general statement in a post.

Respect whose family unit?

The janitor or bricklayer who immigrated here legally ten years ago who can't find work at a decent wage?

The family unit of the American software engineer who has to hear companies lie that Americans don't have the skills they need, when they really mean that software engineers from third world nations who come here will work for a lot less?

The family unit of parents around the world who have been waiting for permission to come here in accordance with our laws?

The family unit of a wealthy Chinese couple who could afford to send the pregnant wife here to have a baby in the US and then return to China to live and raise that baby until they want or need to use the baby's citizenship for the offspring and maybe also for themselves?

You cannot respect all those family units equally or equitably with a simple directive to respect the family unit.

So, no, I have no idea how to write a truly equitable immigration law, and I don't think doing that is simple.

[TT_Progress]

4. I am not in disagreement. But clearly the core family of a CITIZEN should be a priority

And if rules can be created for the immediate relatives for corporations who want immigrant labor than certainly we can provide the same for our own citizens.

You don't by any chance work as a congressional aid? A senator's aid told me to "write the legislation and then they would consider it"! Otherwise it went in one ear and out the other. I am not a lawyer (nor should I need to be? Isn't that part of our problems?). It can be done, just they have to care about their own citizenry over corporate and lobbying interests.

We have a definition already in the system called "Immediate Family". The primary changes to keep Citizen's families from severe separation (and hardship) can be made through Internal rules, legislation is only needed if the executive did not do it. But as a citizen I have found it is all but impossible to approach people in a position to listen to the issues and consider it.

[merrily]

5. No, I am not a congressional aide. I'd probably last two minutes there, tops.

I think the Secret Service would remove me the first time I spit in a rep's eye, which would probably happen during my first ten seconds.

I kid. I don't believe in violence. (Damn it.)