Immigration decision needs compassion and fairness – Journal Star, Peoria, IL – 04/16/2006
My
sixty-seven year old aunt, principal of a school in India, was among a couple
of Indian educationists chosen to attend a two-week seminar in America. On her
arrival here, she pleaded for a week’s extension of visa to visit me, her
favorite nephew. The request was unceremoniously denied. My colleague, also a
Permanent Resident, applied to bring his aged mother for a visit. The request
was rejected twice on the basis that she was a ‘possible immigrant’. The web
abounds with thousands of such tales of power wielded with seemingly
unreasonable harshness.
Millions
of legal immigrants like my colleague and me have gone through the agonizing
process of finding a job in America, applying for and renewing, year after
year, our employment visas. We have stood in lines at the American embassies
all over the world, feverishly dreading the red ink of the ‘Rejected’ stamp. We
have spent sleepless nights over the Employment Authorization and the Advanced
Parole, which is basically a travel permit but makes us sound like criminals
out on bail. Our spouses have opened and shut our mailboxes a thousand times
over the years, waiting, hoping, looking for that magical piece of paper, the
Green Card approval, which will grant them the right to work and put their
qualifications and experience to use. Subsequently, we have to wait for almost
five years more to start the excruciating journey to citizenship, to the fulfillment
of a dream that was cherished in so many hearts and prayers. Workers who do not
obtain Green Cards have to return home after six years, abandoning the lives
they have built here.
Today,
when I look at the television images of half a million people protesting on the
streets, my first reaction is one of outrage. Their protest seems a personal
affront, a brazen mockery of my journey. At the end of it all, I will have a
vote, a single pathetic vote that may be counted, but may never count. Here,
eleven million seek to coerce the Congress of the nation to change its law.
I
sit and write a blistering letter to the editor, bitterness welling up like
bile in the throat. What is my sin? Or my colleague? What did my aunt do? Or my
colleague’s mother? What are we being penalized for? Why are we called ‘Aliens’
while they are ‘Guests’?
There
is insecurity and frustration too. Will we be pushed to the end of the line to
accommodate those who jumped it? What will this do to citizenship quotas? With
eleven million people ahead of us, will our turn ever come?
Fortunately,
it is late and the email message never goes out, simply because it is
incomplete. I have not yet poured my heart out completely. Dregs of resentment
still linger, like the sour smelling grind at the bottom of my cup of coffee.
Unable
to sleep, I read. I read about the ones who took the easy way in. I read the
stories of heartbreak, of journeys that are more frightening than mine, of
sacrifices that are more poignant, of entire lives lived in the shadows,
without recourse, without hope. Despite myself, my heart goes out to them.
Their dream is no different than mine, their longings as simple - the human
pining for a dignified existence, a better life. Who am I to take the high
moral ground? In the twisted, tormented, twilight world of immigration, I was
just born luckier.
But
there are the other sides to the story too, from people who are more balanced
than I am, from people who bear the responsibility for this nation. It is not
so simple.
There
are the needs of business and economics that need to be fulfilled, but there
are the laws of the land that need to be upheld. The letter of the law when not
enforced will sometimes kill its spirit too. The wound of September 11 may have
clotted but a fingernail is all that is needed to rake up the blood again.
Terror lurks in the corners of the psyche, like a burglar under the awnings,
waiting for you to sleep. How can we send our troops to guard the borders of
other countries, when our own borders are unprotected? Eleven million is a
large number and polarizes the arithmetic, dividing the nation and multiplying
the politics.
Unfortunately,
our leaders tend to drag such issues to the ballot box, like pet bears on leashes,
making them do sad little tricks on the streets.
But
I do not envy the ones who will decide. I hope with all my heart that decisions
will be taken with compassion but with fairness.
And
as sleep refuses to come, I wonder too, with a heavy heart, if there is such a
solution at all.