U.S. immigration policies arbitrary, unevenly favoring, shunning groups
August 18, 2006, Salvadorans, Cubans, Irish are welcomed
In a national debate fixated on Mexicans sneaking across the border, there's been barely a peep about how arbitrary and political U.S. immigration law can be.
Congress, the White House and U.S. immigration agencies have developed over the years a complex patchwork system that favors some groups and nationalities over others.
220,000 Salvadorans can legally stay and work because the Bush administration has offered them temporary protected status for the past five years.
Irish-American members of Congress were able to set aside thousands of green cards, a path of eventual citizenship, for thousands of Irish immigrants.
Cubans who make it to U.S. soil can legally stay and apply a year and a day later for permanent residency. Those fleeing the Castro regime are probably the biggest winners in the U.S. immigration game.
Most Cubans who leave make the dangerous 100-mile trip by boat. But in October 2004, Jocelyn Honorate did what a growing number of Cubans do: She flew to Mexico, then headed for the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Hidalgo, Texas.
"I'm Cuban," she told the guard.
A few days later, she was released, leaving behind clothing for Haitians, Guatemalans and others -- who eventually would be sent back home.
"It was hard talking with them," remembers Honorate, now 26 and a legal U.S. resident who works for a Charlotte, N.C., architectural firm. "They were people without hope."
By contrast, Honorate and 40 other Cubans got this greeting by speakerphone: "Congratulations! You've all been approved. Welcome to the United States!"
That legal break dates to the Cold War.
Cuban exiles show clout
Hoping to strike a blow against Fidel Castro, Congress passed the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.
No such blanket welcome exists in U.S. law for those who would like to emigrate from other communist countries -- China, North Korea and Vietnam. One reason: None of those countries has an exile community with the political clout of Cuban Americans in South Florida.
After Castro's recent decision to cede power to his brother, Raul, the Bush administration announced plans to speed up family visas to make it even easier for some Cubans to come.
That latest step "has more to do with a handful of political races in Florida in November than with rebuilding Cuba," charged the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that wants tougher immigration laws.
Angela Kelly of the National Immigration Forum, which wants more welcoming laws for immigrants, agreed.
"You can't deny the high degree of influence by the Cuban lobby."
Irish Americans pull strings
Ditto the Irish lobby, which has long had pull with powerful Irish-American politicians in Congress.
In the late 1980s, Rep. Brian Donnelly, D-Mass., added amendments that enabled more than 10,000 illegal Irish immigrants to get legal status. And in 1990, Rep. Brian Morrison, D-Conn., was able to set aside 40% of 40,000 so-called diversity visas for natives of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
One of Morrison's allies is Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., whose office said his efforts were aimed at the unintended consequences of a 1965 law that made it harder for Irish people to come to the United States because most no longer had immediate family here.
"He wants to help the Irish and others who don't have family connections and have no other way to emigrate," said Kennedy spokeswoman Laura Capps.
Protection unevenly granted
El Salvador became a temporary protected status (TPS) country in 2001, following two earthquakes that killed 1,000 people and destroyed more than 200,000 homes.
After lobbying by the Salvadoran government, the TPS was just extended for another 12 months. That means Salvadorans who were living in the United States in 2001 -- many of them illegally -- can stay and work for another year. TPS comes up for renewal or termination every 12 to 18 months.
TPS is designed to aid countries facing a natural disaster, civil war or other destabilizing situation. But nations that qualify have been denied.
Pakistan had 80,000 people die in an earthquake last year. It doesn't have TPS even though 50 groups and 34 members of Congress have asked for it.
The government of Colombia also has asked for TPS, to no avail, even though the South American country is plagued by guerilla conflict and narco-terrorists.
And why has Haiti's request for TPS been denied? With poverty, violence and unstable governments, "what nation has suffered more?" asked Joan Friedland of the National Immigration Law Center, which promotes the rights of low-income immigrants.
Meanwhile, some of the seven TPS-designated countries get extensions though their disasters happened long ago. Christopher Bentley of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says assessments and studies help decide whether to extend TPS and whether holders can return safely home.
But some experts see politics in the process, saying President George W. Bush is using TPS to boost the pro-American government in El Salvador, as other Latin American countries -- such as Venezuela and Bolivia -- flirt with anti-Americanism.
Salvadoran President Antonio Saca sent 400 troops to Iraq. And El Salvador was the first nation to implement Bush's Central American Fair Trade Agreement.
Salvadorans in the United States send home $2.5 billion every year -- $250 million of it from TPS holders. Keeping those remittances flowing to voting families in El Salvador is a political plus for Saca and his conservative party.
Allies don't all gain entry
Being pro-American and sending troops to Iraq are no guarantees of winning the immigration game, however.
Poland, which also ordered troops to Iraq, would like better immigration benefits. Polish citizens who want to visit the United States are irked that they have to get tourist visas. They want to be part of the United States' visa waiver program, along with 27 other U.S. allies. Citizens of those nations need only a passport to visit.
This year, the U.S. Senate approved an amendment to its immigration reform package that would exempt Poles from the visa requirement. Among the sponsors: Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the great-granddaughter of Polish immigrants.
But it's not law yet, and there's also the pesky truth that many Poles who do come to the United States don't return home, making them illegal immigrants.
Still, U.S. politicians who visit the former Soviet bloc country say the Poles feel like second-class friends.
Fairness not required
Fairness has never been a requirement or a tradition in fashioning U.S. immigration law. Since 1875, when the Supreme Court ruled that immigration is a federal matter, Congress has felt free to discriminate.
"Immigration law is so wide-open that Congress could, theoretically, pass a law saying only 6-foot-tall, blue-eyed Norwegians can come," said Dan Kowalski of Bender's Immigration Bulletin, an online guide to U.S. immigration news.
It's never gone that far, but Congress did vote in 1882 to ban Chinese immigration -- a law that wasn't repealed until 1943.
From the 1920s until the 1960s, immigration quotas also gave preference to white northern Europeans.
Since then, a host of factors ranging from foreign policy to political clout have shaped laws and rules about who can come legally and who can't.
"U.S. immigration officials can cite reasons," said Josh Bernstein, director of federal policy at the National Immigration Law Center.
But, he added, the system is unfair at the individual level.
"Immigration policy is a hodgepodge of measures and standards that are always made in a compromise of policy and politics."
