Sunday’s News & Observer’s front page article “Foreign workers balk over backlog,” did a good job of highlighting the ever-growing frustrations of a forgotten group: legal immigrants. Bureaucratic mix ups and long waits are testing the patience of many law-abiding immigrants who apply for one of the 140,000 green cards the government issues each year.
This is not a happy tale. If you want to become a permanent resident of the U.S., you will be awarded the privilege of waiting years to merely learn if your application has been accepted — and then it may not even be approved. The couple mentioned in the N&O article has already waited seven years, with no end in sight. In the meantime, you’ll be asked to continue to pay your taxes, be prohibited from taking a promotion or changing jobs and have your future continually jeopardized by various immigration proposals. Sound like a good deal? Why do we punish legal immigrants who seek to contribute to our economy and communities and encourage amnesty for those who migrate illegally and exploit our social services? Our policies and actions alienate the very people we hope would immigrate to this country and become citizens. It’s lunacy, sheer lunacy.
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