Here for decades. Why haven’t Tarrant’s undocumented residents become U.S. citizens?
.JPG "A citizenship naturalization ceremony.")
Susana Nieto has lived in Fort Worth without authorization for over two decades. Maria Gabriela Cena was brought by her parents as a child 23 years ago. Fidencio Torres came a decade ago.
All three recently spoke to the Star-Telegram to express their reactions to the election of Donald Trump in light of his pledge to carry out mass deportations. Nieto and Cena fear the prospect of being deported, while Torres said he does not believe Trump will make good on his promise, citing the economy’s dependence on undocumented labor.
Readers who responded to the story via email and on social media asked why people in such situations have spent so much time in the United States but haven’t become citizens yet. Why would they come here without the intention to become citizens, some asked. Texas has an estimated 1.6 million undocumented people living here.
The Star-Telegram reached out to immigration experts and the undocumented themselves to answer that question.
‘No line for lots of people to get into’
While undocumented immigrants and immigration advocates would love for there to be a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally, the reality is that it has not been for lack of trying.
“I would love for there to be a way for people who have been here for 20 years to just become citizens, but that isn’t the law,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the nonpartisan American Immigration Council. “In fact, Congress has over the last few decades made it harder for undocumented immigrants to ever get their papers fixed.”
The options that undocumented immigrants have to gain legal status are few and difficult to obtain. Nieto and her husband have been hoping to avail themselves of one of those options when their oldest son turns 21 next year. Having been born in the United States, he can sponsor them as a U.S. citizen.
“That’s one possibility, but that requires having a child and waiting 21 years,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
Even then, this option could force some to leave the country and wait another 10 years before being able to re-enter, per U.S. immigration law, since they entered illegally.
Undocumented immigrants who have been the victims of a serious crime in the United States — such as rape, kidnapping, assault and others — can apply for U nonimmigrant status, or a U visa.
But the annual cap on U visas is 10,000, and the wait time is around 17 years, Reichlin-Melnick said.
And that is after approval. The processing time for U visas is around 54 months, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
A third option is what is called cancellation of removal, by which a person in the country without authorization can get their deportable status changed to permanent residency if they can prove that their deportation would cause them or an immediate family member “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship.”
“That’s a very high standard to meet,” Reichlin-Melnick said, adding that there are only 4,000 such cancellations available each year.
“So many people think there’s some sort of moral failing in still being undocumented after 20, 30 years, but that is the system Congress intentionally designed,” he said.
In recent decades, U.S. lawmakers narrowed the options people have for being in the country legally in hopes that it would deter others from coming.
“But what it did instead is trap people here so that now, if they ever leave, they’ll never be allowed to come back in legally, or they’ll have many fewer options for coming back in here legally,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “So we’ve actually created a system that incentivizes people to stay without status, because the other option is to risk never being allowed back in.”
Nieto and her husband have long hoped to see this system change.
“There hasn’t been a law that would help us get work permits or fix our status,” she said. “They should give us an opportunity.”
Cena declined to comment, and Torres was unable to be reached.
“The idea that the folks who are living in our communities in undocumented status are not interested in obtaining green cards and then citizenship is completely misunderstanding the situation,” said Denise Gilman, a law professor and director of the Immigration Clinic at UT Austin.
“Everybody who is here in undocumented status would love to be able to regularize their status, but unfortunately, those pathways just are not there for the undocumented population,” she said. “There is no line for lots of people to get into.”
The last major legalization program that allowed undocumented people to gain status was during the administration of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, Gilman said. Congress has not acted on the issue since, prompting the executive branch to attempt workarounds like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which allows adult undocumented people who were brought to the country as children temporary legal status and work permits, but does not lead to citizenship.
The Lone Star State has had a hand in opposing these executive actions in recent decades as well.
“When the executive branch has tried to create ways for people to move forward toward regularization, it gets challenged almost always by states like Texas,” Gilman said.
Do other countries tolerate undocumented immigrants?
Many readers’ comments noted how all countries regulate illegal entry and do not tolerate non-citizens living within their borders without authorization.
But one does not have to stray too far on the map to find a country that broadly tolerates foreign nationals residing in it illegally, Reichlin-Melnick pointed out.
The State Department estimates 1.6 million American citizens live in Mexico, and a large number of those are believed to be doing so without going through the proper legal process. Mexican immigration authorities have estimated that more than 80% of those Americans are not living there legally.
Mexico allows U.S. citizens to enter the country on tourist visas for as many as 180 days, and there are no restrictions on how many times someone can enter. (Mexican immigration authorities can deny a foreign national entry at their discretion if they feel someone has abused the system.)
“Plenty of Americans do it,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “There are many Americans who are living in Mexico right now as expats who haven’t filled out the proper visas, who are probably in violation of Mexican immigration law.”
