Gertrudes migrated to the US in the late 70s. She later became a US citizen and petitioned for her mother who also became a resident of the US. When her mother died in 1986 Gertrudes filed immigrant visa petitions for her 2 sisters.
After a wait of more than 22 years, her 2 sisters eventually got their visas and travelled to the US. Now both her sisters are staying with her in Daly City, California. It was a very long process and Gertrudes found herself adjusting to the ways and attitudes of her 2 sisters whom she hardly interacted with for many years.
When the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Protection (CIR-ASAP) was introduced on December 15, 2009 before the US Congress, she called me to express her disagreement with the proposed immigration reform bill. Gertrudes claims that she played by the rules and waited 22 years to get visas for her sisters. She questions the propriety of legalizing immigrants who jump the process and are already in the US illegally. For her, quick fixes such as the proposed legalization of undocumented immigrants are unfair to those who go through the process legally.
Waiting more than two decades to be reunited with her sister is “worth the wait” according to Gertrudes. However, with the current situation where the backlog in family and employment petitions are severely long, many are now in a quandary on whether or not patience in the immigration context may still be considered a virtue.
Family Disunity
In the early 1900’s when the first Filipino sacadas (farmworkers) migrated to the United States to work, their family members were left behind the Philippines. An immigration system founded on family reunification was put in place at that time which was based on a numerical system. Most of the first Filipino sacadas were able to petition their spouses and children from the Philippines.
As the immigration law evolved, a quota system was then established where priority is given only to the spouse, the parents and the minor children of US citizens. Adult children and siblings are not given priority and are categorized in a different group. The significant number of petitions filed then resulted in backlogs. It is now taking more than 22 years to petition for a sibling. To petition for adult children above 21, it is taking anywhere from 16 to 18 years. These protracted waiting periods are causing prolonged separation of family members thus defeating the principle of family reunification and instead resulting in family disunity.
Family members separated for extended periods of time suffer adverse impacts from this long separation. This becomes especially more difficult for elderly petitioners who have to wait long periods to be reunited with their children. A 65-year old new immigrant, for example, who files a petition for her adult children will have to wait until she is already in her mid-80s before she can be reunited with her children.
Many Filipino World War II veterans who arrived in the US when they were already in their 70s filed petitions for their children. Many of them have already passed away. The moment they passed away, their petitions were rendered void. Their children likewise ended losing their immigration benefits with never having been unified with their US citizen parents.
Critical Shortage of Nurses
Even with the recession, there is a surge in employment of local nurses in the US as visas for foreign RNs and other health care workers are no longer readily available as they were a few years ago. The fact remains though that as baby boomers age, the need for health care grows and a shortage of nurses is still projected in the coming years. With the current immigration system, a severe backlog resulting in ‘retrogression’ halted the issuance of visas for many foreign health care workers to the US. At the present time, for example, visas are only being issued for RNs whose petitions were filed in 2002. Unless new visas are added by congress, RNs and other health care workers who have already been petitioned will have a wait of many years before visas are issued.
While many Filipino nursing graduates have already passed the board exams and the NCLEX exam, the important consideration for many is the question of when they may actually migrate and start working in the US or other countries. Many families invested on the nursing education of their children just to find the latter unemployed and unable to migrate.
Waiting Game
Intending immigrants are not the only ones affected by protracted delays in visa processing. Millions of undocumented immigrant, unable to wait for visa availability outside the US, are already in the US without legal resident status and hopefully waiting for a legalization program to be enacted by US Congress. The last amnesty law was passed in 1986.
Patience may be a good trait. Growing up, we were taught to practice the art of forbearance. But when family members are separated for a long time it becomes a natural reaction to be angry and take action to be reunited with our loved ones. For fresh nursing graduates, they are left to speculate on the amount of time they have to wait before they can work abroad.
Whatever alternative step is taken by those who are caught in the ‘waiting game’ it still needs to be within the parameters of legality. This is to avoid the disqualifications to migrating in the future. For those of us who are already in the US, we recognize that US immigration law is obviously dysfunctional and it is time to put all our efforts together to support a comprehensive immigration reform. Yes, patience is still a virtue. But life still goes on and we just need to do whatever we can while waiting and hope for the best to come.
(Tancinco may be reached at law@tancinco.com or at 887 7177)
