Immigration process in need of change

Immigration process in need of change
By Kevin Bratcher
NEW YORK-
Immigration forms the foundational backbone of the population of the U.S. Without immigration the United States would not have been colonized, nor would it have the wide variety of individuals and cultural expressions it has now.
Immigration has, it would seem, become a bureaucratic bog that causes more problems than it helps.
Immigration attorney and former mayor, Michael Wildes spoke to the WJI Times about some of the overall problems immigration is dealing with.
“Immigration is tremendously backlogged in applications such that the retrogression of visas creates collateral consequences for businesses and families who are not reunited with one another,” Wildes said. “Immigration also does not have proper technology and records in place to track departures from the United States.”
With both government and the people calling for a change in the immigration process, stories of miscommunication and abnormal delays give an idea of what sort of reforms need to be made.
One story involves an American man marrying a Canadian woman. After applying for the proper forms and legally marrying, they moved to an apartment in the states, where they planned to wait the allotted amount of time for her to receive a social security number and a work visa.
However, upon visiting the local social security office after a couple months in southeastern Pennsylvania for information, the computer systems informed government employees she was eligible for a social security card already. INS officials later informed the confused couple that she was not, in fact, eligible for a social security card.
Michael Wildes shared another story of a diplomat who has been experiencing an abnormal delay in the processing of his application for citizenship.
“[I have a story of a] diplomat who filed a case for citizenship in 2003 and still in 2010 the case has not been adjudicated,” Wildes said. “He already passed his interview. This is a simple case of a gentleman that actually came forward with great intelligence to help our nation, and this is the reward he gets.”
Wildes referred as well to a number of other cases in which length of time made immigration very difficult and painful for families.
“We’ve literally had clients die while the applications for citizenship are pending…these are people put in harm’s way because of immigration delays,” Wildes said.
These two accounts indicate that there are major flaws in the immigration system which Congress and the President will have to deal with in the coming years. With questions as to how to deal with illegal immigration and recent controversy in Arizona concerning new laws passed, the issue of immigration is increasingly important for the U.S. government to address.