The Case for Immigration Reform:
The Armando Blas Garcia Family

Armando Blas García is an immigrant from Mexico. He and his wife have lived in the United States for 17 years. He believes strongly that each one of us has a responsibility to give back to the community and lives this belief. Armando has been active in ISAIAH since 1998, serving as chair of his core team at the church of Sagrado Corazón de Jesús and being a leader on ISAIAH’s Immigration Committee. Armando and his wife, María Luisa, are also very involved in their community outside of ISAIAH. María Luisa is one of the religious educators at their parish and Armando has been the parish bookkeeper for years. Both are volunteers at their children’s schools. The family tradition of community involvement also continues into the next generation of the Blas family. The oldest of their three children, Angeles, is organizing the youth in her school around the issue of access to higher education for all immigrant students.

But none of this matters to the Bureau of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) which has demanded that the entire family leave the country before May 17. Armando’s case illustrates much of what is wrong with our current system of immigration. He made the decision to come to the US without permission because he was unable to provide for a family in Mexico due to a lack of jobs. Under current law, he has no way to obtain legal residency.

In 1994 Armando filed all the required paperwork and apparently met all the legal requirements to be a permanent resident. In 1999 the application was denied. Armando does not know why he was denied and Immigration will not tell him. Thanks to the intervention of Senator Paul Wellstone and pressure from ISAIAH, Immigration agreed to review the case and granted Armando and his wife work permits.

Having a work permit opened doors for Armando to better employment. He got a new job at a printing company filling a position that had been open for a long time. Because they had been unable to fill the position with a U.S. citizen, Armando’s employer filed a petition requesting legal residency for Armando for reasons of employment. In 2002, Armando received a letter from Immigration stating that he and his family had three weeks to be ready for deportation, even though a decision had not yet been made on his employment petition. Again, thanks to Senator Wellstone and ISAIAH, Immigration agreed to not deport the family until the Department of Labor made its decision.

Unfortunately, ICE has decided not to honor that agreement. Once again Armando has been told that he and his family must leave the country. There is still no decision from the Department of Labor. It makes no difference that Armando and his wife have worked and paid taxes for 17 years; it doesn’t matter that they are home owners and have never collected welfare; it doesn’t even matter that Armando may be eligible for legal residency based on his work petition. The only thing that matters according to ICE, is that Armando violated the law when he came into this country without permission.

Armando is stuck in a system of immigration laws that reflect neither the economic nor the social realities of this country. These are unjust laws that allow employers and our country as a whole to benefit from the labor and taxes of more than nine million workers without ever providing them with a path to become full, legally recognized members of our society.

So why didn’t Armando just "wait his turn" and come to this country legally?

ISAIAH, and the Gamaliel Foundation are working to change our immigration laws by pushing our lawmakers for comprehensive reform of the immigration system. Here’s why:

The idea of waiting one’s turn to come to the United States is based on the idea that there is actually a process for people to get permission to come to this country. For most undocumented immigrants, there is simply no process for them to follow to get that permission.

The legal ways of immigrating to this country fall into a few broad categories:

• Family petitions: U.S. citizens can petition to bring their foreign born family members here. Approval of the petition may take years, there are more than 6 million cases backlogged. Once approved some family members have to wait up to 15 years or more before actually being allowed to come to the US. Armando has no citizen family members who could petition for him.
   
• Employer based petitions: These apply primarily to seasonal farm workers or high tech workers. Getting approval of any other kind is a difficult and lengthy process which is almost impossible to do from outside the country. As of today Armando has been waiting for five years to hear on his labor petition.
   
• Diversity lottery: This is what people are talking about when they say immigrants should just get in line and wait their turn. In this lottery, a set number of applicants are allowed to immigrate legally to the U.S. from a designated list of eligible countries. The U.S. sets the number each year. Residents of Mexico, including Armando, as well as those from most of the countries in Central and South America are excluded from the lottery.
   
• Refugee status:  For refugee status, an individual must be emigrating from a country or area of a country that the U.S. designates as a refugee sending country. Mexico is not one of those countries. Asylum cases are decided on a case-by-case basis based in part on whether or not the applicant can prove that he or she was tortured or otherwise persecuted in his or her home country and are extremely difficult to prove.

For many people faced with raising families in extreme poverty, there is no line to stand in to get permission to emigrate to the U.S. Many decide that they have no choice but to cross the border without permission. As Armando states: "It is a bigger crime and a much greater sin to stand by and watch your family slowly starve."

Legal Ways to Immigrate to the United States

So why didn’t Armando just "wait his turn" and come to this country legally?

ISAIAH, and the Gamaliel Foundation are working to change our immigration laws by pushing our lawmakers for comprehensive reform of the immigration system. Here’s why:

The idea of waiting one’s turn to come to the United States is based on the idea that there is actually a process for people to get permission to come to this country. For most undocumented immigrants, there is simply no process for them to follow to get that permission.

The legal ways of immigrating to this country fall into a few broad categories:

• Family petitions: U.S. citizens can petition to bring their foreign born family members here. Approval of the petition may take years, there are more than 6 million cases backlogged. Once approved some family members have to wait up to 15 years or more before actually being allowed to come to the US. Armando has no citizen family members who could petition for him.
   
• Employer based petitions: These apply primarily to seasonal farm workers or high tech workers. Getting approval of any other kind is a difficult and lengthy process which is almost impossible to do from outside the country. As of today Armando has been waiting for five years to hear on his labor petition.
   
• Diversity lottery: This is what people are talking about when they say immigrants should just get in line and wait their turn. In this lottery, a set number of applicants are allowed to immigrate legally to the U.S. from a designated list of eligible countries. The U.S. sets the number each year. Residents of Mexico, including Armando, as well as those from most of the countries in Central and South America are excluded from the lottery.
   
• Refugee status:  For refugee status, an individual must be emigrating from a country or area of a country that the U.S. designates as a refugee sending country. Mexico is not one of those countries. Asylum cases are decided on a case-by-case basis based in part on whether or not the applicant can prove that he or she was tortured or otherwise persecuted in his or her home country and are extremely difficult to prove.

For many people faced with raising families in extreme poverty, there is no line to stand in to get permission to emigrate to the U.S. Many decide that they have no choice but to cross the border without permission. As Armando states: "It is a bigger crime and a much greater sin to stand by and watch your family slowly starve."