Gaining citizenship or even a green card can be expensive and time-consuming
By Larry Muhammad
lmuhammad@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
Remember that inscription from the Statue of Liberty?
America's changed a lot since 1903, when Emma Lazarus' poem was mounted on the base of the monument that stood as a beacon greeting millions of mostly European immigrants.
Today immigrants come to the United States from Africa, Asia and Central and Latin America as well as Europe -- a total of 33 million in the country, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report in 2000. At least 9 million of those are here illegally, the Department of Homeland Security says.
Kentucky has about 180,000 immigrants -- 15,000 illegally in the state -- the bureau says.
The metro Louisville area's immigrant population of 53,000 is more diverse, better educated and contains substantially fewer illegal immigrants than the national average, according to a study last year of Jefferson County and its 14 surrounding Kentucky counties, plus Clark, Floyd, Harrison and five other Indiana counties.
"It was easy" to get a green card to become a permanent resident, said Ali al Lamy, a 52-year-old Iraqi refugee who came to Louisville in 2005.
"Everything I did was through Kentucky Refugee Ministries," said al Lamy, who works as a warehouseman. "I'm praying that I can bring my whole family to get out of the terrifying situation in Iraq. And I'll try to become a citizen, because I love the United States. There are so many things here I didn't have in my country."
But there are still some concerns about the process.
* A year after Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI began checking every name on applications for citizenship and green cards -- there were 2.7 million nationwide, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services -- and every week since then the agency has submitted 27,000 more names to be checked. About 60,000 of these applications are still bogged down in the system -- about 1,000 in Kentucky -- according to Geoff Verderosa, Kentucky field office director for the U.S. immigration agency.
* The agency is expected to raise fees for naturalization and visas an average of 66 percent this summer in an effort to make it self-sufficient. But that would be a burden to those least able to pay, critics say. Applicants for a green card would pay $905, up from $325; naturalization or citizenship applications would rise to $595 from $330.
"We're still in the period where the public can comment on the proposed fee increase, and the final increase may not be as high," Verderosa said
"But they've done studies, looking at the full cost of every aspect of immigration, from the price we pay federal courts to naturalize someone to the cost for FBI security checks to the price of lights in USCIS offices. And the fees that they've proposed will cover the full cost of USCIS operations, making us the first agency completely unfunded by appropriated dollars."
Enid Tucious-Haynes, a law professor at the University of Louisville specializing in immigration, questioned the fee increases.
They would "definitely burden those who are trying to become citizens or permanent residents," he said. "The real question is who should bear this cost. Should it be those least able to afford it, or should the cost be borne by general funds?"
"The immigration system itself is broken, backlogs are ridiculously long and reform is needed. Something's going to have to change," said Maria Ramirez, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, founded after protest rallies last year.
"If you have somebody who has moved to this country, is working on a visa and wants to bring his family, there's about a 10-year backlog. That's probably why people are coming to the U.S. undocumented."
Verderosa said there's a reason for the delay.
"Congress has set caps on how many people come from a given country each year," he said. "The four countries with the longest waits right now are China, India, Mexico and the Philippines. Someone who filed their petition to bring their brother or sister here from the Philippines in September of 1984, March of 2007 is the first month their application could be processed."
He said the vast majority of applications are for permanent residency, which takes five months, and citizenship, which takes about six months.
Immigration policy can vary from one nationality to the next. Cubans, for example, enjoy something like immigration carte blanche.
"It's really lenient because of the Castro situation," said Ruth Meers, immigration specialist at Kentucky Refugee Ministries Inc., a major resettlement agency along with Catholic Charities of Louisville Inc.
"Cubans have all these different rules that apply to them in immigration, and they are processed easier. If they set foot on U.S. soil, they're allowed to come in. But the immigration process can be very different from one status to the other. Most of our clients are eligible for their green cards after being here for one year, and apply for citizenship in five years. But most of them do not know anything about the procedures."
Across the country, often desperate and unsuspecting immigrants are being swindled by people promising to get them citizenship, travel papers, asylum or other benefits for which they aren't always eligible.
Immigrants from Latin America are confusing American notary publics with lawyers because "notarios" means lawyers in some of their countries. This prompted the Kentucky secretary of state's office to note on its Web site that "A notary public may not charge a fee for preparation of immigration documents or represent someone in immigration matters."
So far, the attorney general's office hasn't received any complaints from immigrants being victimized, but Ramirez said, "It's happening here. We hear the stories. 'So and so told me if I came in with $200, she would get me a green card.' But I don't think they know the process for making complaints."
Kentucky Refugee Ministries offers a citizenship class, and Meers said that immigrants need help navigating the system: "It's really hard. They're barely just learning English most of the time. You can fill out any of these forms by yourself, but chances of you making a mistake are pretty great because they're all in legalese."
Verderosa said state licensing of immigration consultants would help: "It is very beneficial and makes it easier for us, the federal government, to direct people to good immigration providers, both free and paid."
The Kentucky General Assembly passed a bill this month that would punish those who bring immigrants to the United States illegally to work, prevent state officials from seeking to deport those victims of human trafficking and make Kentucky's occupational-safety laws apply to immigrants who don't have work permits.
"There have been several reports of people brought into Kentucky and forced to do labor, even prostitution," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. David Boswell, D-Owensboro. "In my mind, this is a crime against humanity."
