How a Dysfunctional Immigration System Keeps Hard-Working Families Apart

By Meredith Higashi and Ronald Lee, Immigration Impact. Posted October 28, 2009.

The U.S. immigration system has always promoted family unity by awarding the majority of visas to the families of current U.S. residents, which ensures that spouses, children, and parents are not kept apart. The principle of family unity has long been a central tenet of our immigration laws and has contributed to the economic and social prosperity of our country and immigrant populations.

However, the benefits of family-based immigration are undermined by the well-documented backlogs—backlogs caused by quotas in family immigration categories which fall far short of the number of immigrant visa applications. Repeated shortfalls have resulted in increasingly unreasonable wait times. For instance, the average current wait time for spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents (green card holders) is five years, and the wait time for adult children of U.S. citizens is six years for those still single and eight years for those who have married. Siblings of U.S. citizens must wait between ten and eleven years.

These waiting times are even more prolonged for immigrants from certain countries—such as China, India, Mexico and the Philippines—because the quota system is accompanied by per country caps that do not take into account the country’s size or ties to the U.S. For example, an adult child of a U.S. citizen from Mexico currently waits more than fifteen years; and a sibling of a U.S. citizen from the Philippines must wait more than twenty years. The disproportionate impact on Asian and Latin American immigrants is further exacerbated by the fact these countries together account for approximately 75 percent of all family-based immigrant petitions.

Meanwhile, family-based immigrants make vital contributions to the U.S. economy as productive workers and entrepreneurs. They play a key role in industries important to economic growth, start businesses and support communities. Family-based immigrants have a proven record of entrepreneurship and are more likely to be self-employed and to start small and medium-sized businesses than native-born Americans. The number of Hispanic-owned businesses, for example, has grown at three times the national average. Such entrepreneurship has been—and will continue to be—vital to job creation, economic growth and continued neighborhood revitalization across the country.

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Meredith H.S. Higashi is Staff Attorney and NAPABA Law Foundation Partners and In-House Counsel Community Law Fellow at the Asian American Justice Center. Ronald H. Lee is Senior Staff Attorney in the Immigration and Immigrant Rights Program at the Asian American Justice Center.

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