Legal Immigration; The Real Deal

By: Sumedha Mahesh

The local news media portrays two extremes of our current world situations, especially on the issue of immigration. Many of us may be confused on what the true issue is and may have assumptions on what immigrants actually go through, their intentions, and the individuals in general. These assumptions must be addressed and acknowledged by our news media and communities, but sadly, they are not. So what is the other side of immigration? 

What is the difference between illegal and legal immigrants?

One major issue that our country faces is the lack of distinction between illegal and legal immigrants. Much of our community doesn’t understand the difference between both groups. The names of both groups suggests the difference. Illegal immigrants are individuals who have not legally entered the country but have rather entered through the borders illegally. A legal immigrant, on the other hand, is an individual who has legally entered the country and is legally allowed to live inside the borders of a country. 

How can an individual legally enter a country?

Many individuals who have not experienced any aspect of immigration in their lives are unfamiliar with how an individual can legally enter a country. All legal immigrants are required to obtain a visa and declare the purpose of their visit. The visa that a legal immigrant obtains is one that is specific to their purpose of visit. An individual that enters a country without a visa is identified as an illegal immigrant. This means that they have not attained the proper documentations and status needed for an immigrant to legally enter the country. 

Once an individual attains his visa and enter the country legally, are they safe to live in the United States forever?

A simple answer to this question is a plain no. Many individuals who are not familiar with immigration do not know that a legal immigrant’s journey does not end with a visa. While the visa is a certification of an individual’s legitimacy and right to be in the United States, or any country, these are not granted permission to reside permanently in the United States. Due to this, the next step for a legal immigrant who wishes to reside in the country permanently is to apply for permanent residence or green card, a legal certification allowing an individual to permanently reside in the United States without any problems or issues. 

How does an individual become a legal permanent resident and how long does it usually take?

To become a permanent resident, an individual must first apply for the green card through USCIS or the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS will then review all the applications and decide whether or not one’s application should be approved or declined. The process is a lot more complex than just sending an application as it involves multiple approvals for multiple documents, interviews and much more. The wait time for this process varies greatly based on the applicant’s country of origin and between the applicants themselves. However, the average wait time for applicants is under two years for most countries and above 100 years for two countries. 

What causes and individual’s application to take longer than the average wait time?

Many factors play into the wait time of an individual’s application to be evaluated. One of these major factors include country of origin. For example, currently, individuals applying from India and China’s application are in a limbo. The reason for this is that too many individuals from these countries have been applying for employment-based immigration or visas. These visas require approval that the individual’s talent is useful to the United States. Most of the applicants from India and China have been approved by the USCIS as having talent that is useful to the country. The downside is, though, that too many people have already been approved and the country’s quotas, or amount of people allowed to be admitted to the country for that specific year, has already been reached. Due to this, many of the qualified applicants from China and India are unable to be admitted into the country even though they are qualified enough to. 

Many questions still exist about immigration and its process that have not yet been addressed in this article. However, I would highly urge every single one of you to explore and research more from a variety of news sources to attain answers to your questions rather than making assumptions from many of the biased sources that exist. Next time you go to read a new article, make sure that you read multiple news articles on the issue you are reading about and then make conclusions.