Immigration Reform

There is a lot of debate over immigration reform. I also see that a lot of people are misinformed on the various statuses of people living in the United States. Some people feel that if you make an illegal immigrant legal, you are giving them citizenship. That is not the case. You are making them a legal immigrant and giving them an immigration visa or green card (actually pink in color, guess they were green at one time).

There are basically three statuses of people living in the U.S., illegal immigrants, legal immigrants and citizens. There are also two types of citizens, natural born and naturalized. Natural born are people born in the United States or children of American citizens born overseas. Naturalized are those legal immigrants, that after a number of year living in this country, take a test and fulfill the requirements to become citizens. Citizens have rights that legal immigrants do not. The most important right being the right to vote.

Illegal immigrants are just that, illegal. They do not have a green card, social security number or pay taxes. Legal immigrants have a green card, social security number and pay taxes. Then there are the rest of us, good old taxpaying American citizens.

Do I feel there should be immigration reform? Yes I do. Now, before everyone gets up in arms and starts to think I agree with allowing illegal’s to stay, hear me out. The reform we need is to start enforcing our current laws. We need to secure our borders and deport people in this country illegally. I am all for allowing people to come into this country seeking a better life. Just do it legally. Do I believe we could streamline the process and cut out some red tape? Of course I do. This is a government run program, so the red tape runs deep.

I have firsthand experience of the immigration process. My wife is British. She is a legal immigrant in this country. We married when I was stationed in England with the U.S. Air Force. Just because she was married to me she did not get automatic entrance to the America. About six months prior to coming to the states we had to start the immigration process. We were informed that if her visa was not issued prior to entering the states she would be forced to leave until the process was complete. She was required to take physical exams, have a background check; we had several trips to the U.S. Embassy and were subjected to interviews just to make sure this was not a scam for a green card. When she was finally issued her green card it was only good for two years. At the end of two years we had to go to an immigration office and show the reason she came to the states was still valid i.e. we were still married. Did we complain about any of these rules? No we did not. They are the law and we followed the law.

Bottom line, my wife and I followed the law. Anyone seeking to live in the United States needs to follow the same laws, just because someone entered the country illegally and managed to keep their head down for a couple years does not give them the right to stay. They should be forced to leave the country and apply for an immigration visa. Once the visa is issued, welcome to America.