Hotly debated legislation would keep families intact
Llane Zarco hates coming home.
There's no one to hug him after his 12- or 13-hour days at a Wilmington concrete plant. No home-cooked meals. No children to take to the park. His New Castle house feels too big.
For the past nine months, his wife and children have been in Mexico.
Immigration laws say Zarco, who became a naturalized citizen in March, and the children -- they were born on U.S. soil -- can stay in Delaware. But his wife must seek a special waiver just to apply for residency because she ignored a judge's 1993 deportation order.
Legislation that would allow the Zarcos and thousands of other families to reunite has become a contentious issue in an already divisive debate over how to reshape this country's immigration policy. The Bush administration and Republican lawmakers want to give priority to skilled workers, while limiting the number of family members allowed into the United States. Democrats say such a policy is impractical.
The Senate is set to take up immigration reform this week.
One in 10 U.S. families is estimated to have at least one member who entered the U.S. illegally, and about 3 million U.S.-born children have at least one parent who is an undocumented immigrant.
About two-thirds of legal permanent residents admitted last year were sponsored by family members. About 12 percent entered based on employment.
The White House's proposal would end the right of legal residents to petition to bring adult children or siblings to the United States, and would severely limit the ability to sponsor parents. Democrats are set on family reunification, especially Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who in 1965 pushed approval of the current policy that gives priority to family ties.
"There are difficult decisions that have to be made about immigration, but this is not a difficult decision to make," said Randall Emery, one of the founders of American Families United, a Pennsylvania-based group lobbying Congress to legalize spouses or parents of U.S. citizens. "Spouses and children of American citizens should be with their family."
Children alter the equation
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors immigration restrictions, said that if parents knowingly broke the law by coming to the United States, they also had to know the possibility of deportation existed and that their children would be the ones to suffer.
"In any other aspect of law, we don't allow parents to use children as human shields," said spokesman Ira Mehlman. "Anytime you punish parents for breaking the law, it inevitably winds up affecting the children, but we don't say we're not going to punish you because it harms your innocent child."
Bill Ong Hing, a professor of law and Asian-American studies at the University of California-Davis, said family reunification benefits the country, both economically in terms of productivity, and socially in terms of stability and health.
"There is a reason that the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights highlights the unity of the family as the 'foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,' " he testified before the House last week. "Our families make us whole. ... Our families make the nation strong."
For example, according to the group Unite Families, the estimated $4.2 billion a year legal residents send to their spouses and immediate families in other countries could instead be spent in the United States.
Living under the radar
Zarco knew his wife wasn't supposed to be in the country, but because she was a stay-at-home mom, he thought there was nothing to trigger immigration officials' suspicions.
But after their third child was born, he wanted his wife to be a citizen. They filed paperwork. Her petition was denied.
When it comes to the law, it doesn't matter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement whether someone is a parent or married to a U.S. citizen.
"Families are impacted by decisions family members make every day," said agency spokesman Marc Raimondi. "The consequences for violating the nation's immigration laws are well known and nobody here illegally should be surprised if they are detained and placed in removal proceedings."
A fear of separation is what led Dusty Perez Chajchalac not to petition for residency on behalf of her husband, Erick, a Guatemalan who entered the United States illegally nearly nine years ago.
When they got engaged in 2000, Dusty assumed that once they were married, he'd be able to get his green card. But each lawyer she contacted said the same thing: There was nothing that could be done.
The couple and their two children found themselves living under the radar, knowing their happy life could crumble with just one knock from immigration officials. That day came last summer when Erick, a construction worker, showed up for a job at Dover Air Force Base. He couldn't provide proper identification, and immigration officials nabbed him.
Erick left the country voluntarily so as not to have a deportation black mark against him, enabling him to apply for a waiver to re-enter the country. His first interview at the embassy is scheduled for June 21.
Unwilling to be separated, the family moved in with Erick's parents in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala in February.
"We thought it would be better if we stuck together, and showed that we are a real family and we stand by each other and want to face this together," said Dusty, who grew up in Maryland.
'I need them with me'
Marrying a U.S. citizen doesn't automatically get someone a green card. In 1996, new measures, such as the 10-year re-entry ban, were passed, making it more difficult for spouses to obtain residency.
American Families United's Emery and his wife are proof. After they married in 2002, his wife, who entered from Colombia legally to study at Drexel University, didn't get her permanent residency card until January of this year -- after the couple won a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In 2006, 339,843 spouses of citizens received green cards, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In total, about 1.26 million people were granted green cards last year.
In Delaware, the typical application time is running about six months, said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Shawn Saucier. But that doesn't take into account the time spent waiting for FBI background checks, which are backlogged. Legal permanent residents wanting to bring over a spouse face five-year waits.
Time passes quickly in Guatemala, Dusty said. But life there is difficult.
"The kids don't speak the language, so they can't just go outside and play like they would at home," she said.
With his wife's chances for residency bleak, Zarco said, he'll probably sell their home and possessions and return to Mexico. But it's a tough choice: He's a U.S. citizen now, and he's been in the United States longer than he lived in Mexico.
But he's miserable without his family, he said.
A Winnie the Pooh high chair sits empty and clean next to the unused dining table. Photos of his wife and children line the entertainment center, reminders of what he's missing: his youngest learning to talk, his oldest celebrating her first double-digit birthday in June.
"I need them with me," he said.
Contact Summer Harlow at 324-2794 or sharlow@delawareonline.com.
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