Visiting the United States is easy for most people. But living and working there can be a lot more difficult, or even impossible. That’s because the country has strict immigration laws. Many of them became even stricter under the administration of Donald Trump, who attempted to block even family-based immigration in multiple ways. President Joe Biden has promised to reverse many of these policies, yet still, demand is high and likely to be higher.
ILLEGAL RESIDENTS
Almost fifty million immigrants (meaning people who are citizens of non-US countries) live in the US. More than eleven million of them are undocumented (meaning that they do not possess a valid visa or other immigration documentation.) This is because they entered the US without inspection, stayed longer than their temporary visa permitted, or otherwise violated the terms under which they were admitted. They include many who initially arrived as minors, known as ‘dreamers’.
NO RIGHTS
Undocumented immigrants do not have the same rights and entitlements as documented immigrants, who, in turn, do not have the same rights and entitlements as US citizens; they are not authorised to vote in US elections, for example, and many of them find it difficult or impossible to obtain state-financed assistance and services.
A LOTTERY
Many documented and undocumented immigrants want to become lawful permanent residents or US citizens, in order to have more rights and entitlements, and a better quality of life. And to achieve this, they must acquire a permanent resident card, better known as a ‘green card’. Unfortunately, the process involved in acquiring a green card is potentially complex, lengthy and expensive. Worst of all, there is no guarantee that it will be successful.
the (NOT-Green) GREEN CARD
People from all over the world believe living and working in the US will provide security and a better life for them and their families. For many, however, obtaining a green card is an impossible dream to realise. To find out more, Speak Up met with Xiao Wang, CEO of Boundless, a Seattle-based technology company that helps people navigate the notoriously complex US immigration system. We began by asking him how his company could help.
Xiao Wang (American-Chinese accent): I think everyone who has either gone through it themselves or knows someone who’s been through the immigration process has remarked about how complex it is, how difficult it is, how stressful it is, because it’s so high stakes. In my family, when I came over here from China, we spent five months of rent money on an immigration attorney just because we didn’t know any better and this was our one shot, and this is a story that’s echoed by millions of families every year.
a NOT-GREEN green card
So what does a green card entitle you to?
Xiao Wang: It’s called a ‘green card’ because back in the day, it was green. It’s just that simple. Now, it’s not even green anymore. A ‘green card’ is a nickname. The official term is called ‘legal permanent residence’, and that means that you are able to legally reside in the US and work and travel outside of the US and back in perpetuity. Basically, you can always retain that ability if you live in the US at least six months out of the year, and if you continue to file and renew your green card.
a difficult process
Applying for a green card is increasingly expensive and the application process is lengthy.
Xiao Wang: The US government limits the number of people who can receive their green card every year by country. And so, if you are from the Philippines or India or China, sometimes the wait time can be ten or twenty years. But we generally see time periods of about one to two years all in for the green card application process. The process is that you have to complete a set of forms. It’s an entire package that for us averages about three to four hundred pages of all of the evidence of your relationship, all the evidence of your financial status. And it is a massive amount of work, that you then send off to the US government, and then you wait. This is what actually becomes the worst part for our customers; is that you send it in and then you just don’t know what’s going to happen until one day, you get an invitation to go to an interview.
FAMILY ROUTE
The most common way to apply for a green card is through marriage or having direct family living in the US, as Wang explains.
Xiao Wang: There are two main paths by which to obtain a green card. The first is through family-based immigration, and the second is through employment-based immigration. On the family side, you will either have to be married to a US citizen or current green card-holder, or be a child of an American citizen or green card-holder, or be a parent or a sibling of an American citizen or green card-holder.
EMPLOYMENT ROUTE
For those without family looking to work in the US, your company has to really value your contribution to back you financially, says Wang.
Xiao Wang: The second route is through the employer. Typically either you have to demonstrate that you have an ability or skill or background that no one else has in the country or that you’re like world-class, or you have to have advanced degrees in specific fields, and those lines get very long. It can take five, ten, fifteen years or longer to receive employment-based green cards. And that’s only if you work for a company that’s willing to spend the ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars in immigration lawyer fees to pay for that.
QUOTAS
So why is so difficult for a non-citizen to become a permanent resident in the US?
Xiao Wang: There’s [have] been many policies over time as the US has changed around how it views immigration. And it basically swings between when the US needs workers, and the immigration becomes a lot looser, to then there are too many foreigners, and then the immigration gets tighter. It started in the 1800s, when the first wave and the first immigration regulation actually happened, when people decided there were too many Chinese people in the US, and it was literally called the Chinese Exclusion Act, to ban immigration from China, and then later it spread through all of Asia. There’s a period of time when, especially after World War One, where [when] all of these refugees came over from Europe, after which they created the five or three per cent rule, where now there are specific caps per country, where you couldn’t exceed a certain percentage, which has lasted through even today.
FRAUD
Green card marriage, where a non-US citizen marries a citizen just so they can get a green card, is not as common as people think, says Wang.
Xiao Wang: I actually think marriage fraud, which is where you’re marrying someone just to get that green card, is pretty low. The government takes a very hard and very clear approach at evaluating cases and you have to provide a significant amount of evidence, and the sponsor —so the American citizen— is legally and financially responsible for the person that they’re applying for.
STAYING ILLEGAL
It is estimated that nearly a quarter of immigrants living in the US are unauthorised. But it is not an easy life.
Xiao Wang: As an undocumented individual in the US, you’re always living on the edge of fear, and your options are very limited. So, any time you make a mistake, you get pulled over for speeding, or you encounter law enforcement for any reason, you have the chance of being deported. And that is a really uncomfortable place to be. It becomes very hard for you to start really putting down roots, being fully dedicated and focused on your work, raising a family. Everyone wants a solution to this. No one wants eleven million people to live in limbo and fear and not work and not contribute to the country the way that they want to, but also no one wants to create an invitation for eleven more million people to try to come in.
NO GUARANTEES
And even if you get through all the paperwork and pay the fees, you may still be turned down.
Xiao Wang: There is [are] many places where you can get turned down along the process. So you can get turned down early because you forgot a document or you made a mistake on your applications, or when you can get turned down at the end, when the officer decides that they don’t approve your application. It costs right now $1,760 for a lot of families to go through the green card application and, as I mentioned, over a year of their life, and oftentimes you then have to start over again and basically go through this entire cycle, now with more burden to prove something different so that you have more success the second time.