ABS-CBN North America News Bureau
WASHINGTON DC. Filipinos with close relatives in the United States now have to wait from five up to 20 years for immigrant petitions to push through. But now, the White House wants to scrap the practice altogether, triggering a howl of protest from the immigrant community here.
US President George Bush will reportedly move for the elimination of all family-based immigrant visas as part of "draconian measures" to reform the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA).
The White House’s hardening stand clashed directly with US House Resolution 1645 which provides for comprehensive US immigration reforms. The US measure aims, among others, to eliminate the backlog in family-based visa applications, especially for spouses and unmarried children of legal residents (so-called "green card holders") 21 years old and younger.
Jon Melegrito, executive director of the National Alliance for Filipino Veterans Equity (NAFVE), warns the White House move will have severe repercussions for the Filipino-American community and their families in the Philippines.
Stephen Legomsky of the Washington University School of Law told a hearing of the US House subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law Thursday afternoon, "these separations virtually invite illegal immigration".
Melegrito accuses US President Bush of "playing politics" with the proposed immigration reform package by offering to scrap family-based visas. Many see it as old-fashioned DC horse-trading to prod hard-line Republicans to support the reforms.
Curiously, much of the Bush package such as a guest worker program and allowing undocumented workers to stay in the US after paying fines, have drawn wider support from Democrats than from his own party.
Republicans have taken the tack that prevention and intensified enforcement – like building a wall across the Mexican border – was the way to go. There’s an estimated 250,000 undocumented Filipinos in the US and they would obviously be anxious about any fresh crackdown on illegals.
Muzzaffar Chishti, Director of the Migration Policy Institute, testified, "With very few options for entering legally through employment-based visa categories, intending immigrants could try to enter through the family-based categories…but the wait list for many of these categories are prohibitively long."
"In the absence of legal channels, immigrants entering our labor market have come to rely on illegal channels," Chishti told the solons.
The pressure is only sure to mount as so-called Baby Boomers near retirement. This and a combination of normal attrition and economic expansion are expected to create 65 million new jobs by the end of the decade, a demand the local workforce can barely fill.
Fil-Am groups are joining a large immigration rally here on May 1, dubbed the "Great American Boycott". Organizers are asking protesters to stay off work and shopping malls and march on the streets of D.C. The divergent immigrant groups are driven by their own agenda and priorities.
For the Fil-Am community, protecting their right to bring spouses and children here is top on their list. "Families should be together as soon as possible, and they should shorten the time between applying for the visa and getting it here," explained Rozita Lee, vice chair of the umbrella National Federation of Filipino-American Associations (NaFFAA).
