Looking into the subject of Immigration, I researched the process from that to citizenship. Back when the grandparents of baby boomers came to the US as immigrants, there were no quotas or restrictions to speak of. Those started in the 20's. Even then ,if you came and were accepted at the border with a cursory questioning, you were given a Certificate of Naturalization. If you got employment and lived in the U.S. for 5 consecutive years, you could go to any court and petition for citizenship which was an easy procedure. Thus, we became a nation of immigrants from the beginning of those seeking religious freedom back in colonization days.
With the establishment of the INS as bureau of authority, immigration became a "quota" system where it remains today. If You are a scientist working in Europe and have a job offer in the U.S., admission as immigrant is easy, and naturalization almost just as easy. If you are a Mexican peasant, this is not the case. In looking up all the various requirements and limitations from Visa through Green Card residency to citizenship is a labryinth of astounding difficulty. Even a cursory look at the law is perplexing. No wonder there are attornies that practice only immigration law.
Along with a friend ,I personally helped in getting a Visa for a Hispanic friend and his family to work in the U.S under a "person of exceptional ability" quota. This is a man of well-known and respected status in his native land.as well as an artist of international reputation. Even with an immigration attorney and endless work with evidentiary substantiation requiring reams of paper, it took almost a year to get a three year work visa for him and his family. Oh, and thousands of dollars. Even then, with his Visa and authorizations in hand, the US INS official at the embarkation airport told him, and his family within earshot, that he personally had to accept the papers but he himself would never have allowed them in., Legal advice to us was not to make note of the event as that official, minor as he was, could flag the file, making it more difficult to be in this country, as the visa was subject to review. I am ashamed for my country. Truly embarrassed.
My country is in dire need of revision to our immigration system and all the blow-hards who want to "wall-up[" our southern borders and create another "Berlin Wall' or "send em all packing" should actually take note of Emma Lazarus when she said
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Instead of today's " get the hell off my front porch "
Really citizens, where is your humanity?
