Immigrants’ journey is long, hard and worth it all

The “world-wide welcome” inscribed on the Statue of Liberty notwithstanding, if you want to legally come to the United States, you need a lot more than a yearning to breathe free.

“No, that hasn’t been the case for at least 50 years,” says Fort Myers attorney Tulio Suarez, who knows better than most that immigration is a complex, costly challenge with no guarantee of success. “The idea that it’s as simple as a choice? That’s naive,” says the board-certified immigration attorney who works for Henderson Franklin in Fort Myers. “People need to realize that nobody is coming here and becoming citizens overnight. That just doesn’t happen.”

Instead, people from other countries who want to live here legally must navigate what’s almost always a multiyear maze of paperwork, petitions and interviews for which they spend a steady stream of fees that usually adds up to many thousands of dollars. Peril awaits around many corners, Suarez says, and once an applicant’s in trouble, it’s tough to get out.

“The reality is with immigration, once things go wrong, they’re very hard to correct — in some cases, impossible and in almost all cases, very difficult,” he says.

All of which is pretty common knowledge among would-be legal immigrants like Albanian-born Armid Metohu but did that stop him — or the thousands like him who apply every year? Hardly.

Almost 20 percent of Floridians are immigrants, according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan Immigration Policy Institute, totaling 3.8 million in 2013, up 42 percent since 2000.

When the reward is U.S. citizenship, it’s easy to keep your eyes on the prize, says Naples real estate agent Metohu. “This is the best country,” he says. “The best. Freedom and rights are what make this country great.”

Metohu has never met Estero seamstress Rosie Perez, but they sing from the same hymnal. Like Metohu, Perez, who came here to escape Colombia’s violence with her husband and three boys 16 years ago, has a green card and is eagerly awaiting citizenship.

“I love this country,” she says. “There is no better place.”

Perez owns Rosie P Tailoring and Alterations in Estero, which she started on a shoestring and a prayer, using skills her mother taught her.

“When I opened this business, oh, the economy was terrible. But I trust in America,” she says. Now she has two employees and plans to expand. Perez also volunteers at the Amigos Center and one day hopes to open a free school.

As far as Lindsay Ray is concerned, Perez epitomizes the America dream: proud parent, hard-worker, business-owner who educated her children and gave them a better life.

Like Suarez, Ray, staff attorney at the nonprofit Amigos Center in Bonita Springs, knows firsthand what a slog legal immigration can be.

Not only must applicants deal with U.S. bureaucracy, the process often involves embassies in their home countries, with scarce resources and capricious schedules.

“Depending on where the embassy is, it can involve a lot of travel and appointments are hard to come by and sometimes get canceled,” Ray says. “There’s a lot that goes on that can trip you up in other countries.”

Sometimes, would-be immigrants think they can go it alone, but wind up in a legal quagmire over seemingly simple mistakes.

“It’s hard to know always what immigration terms mean,” Ray says. “For example, I’m working with someone right now who is a U.S. citizen, born and raised here and he is married to a woman in Haiti. I’m doing the petition for her.”

Another thing Ray and her colleagues do is help warn about scams and traps, like “notario fraud” – committed by shady businesses that claim to be able to help people quickly gain legal status.

“They charge thousands of dollars for things that go nowhere, or even worse, get people deported. So they’re losing their money — they’re being robbed — and then they’re being deported,” Ray says. “And it’s horrible. They can report it, of course, but it doesn’t help them.”

Yes, it’s his business, but Suarez says it’s almost always in an immigrant’s best interest to get professional help. “For me to say ‘Hey, you need a lawyer’ when I’m a lawyer – I don’t like to be in that place,” he says with a chuckle. “But the reality is, in most cases there’s going to be a benefit to having a lawyer ... You can do your own taxes, you can do H&R Block or you can get a CPA. I like to think I’m smart enough to do my own taxes, but I don’t,” he says. “If you do it by yourself, you’re going to have to figure out what to do yourself, and that’s always harder if you’re doing it just one time as opposed to hundreds or thousands of times.”

Metohu will vouch for that. When he was 13, his parents sent him to the U.S. from Albania, one of Europe’s poorest countries, to live with a cousin.

“I came by myself, and I did not really know what that meant,” he says. “I didn’t even know what my status was until I started trying to do normal teenage things like get a license, get a job and they told me I needed certain documents that I didn’t have.”

Metohu had, in immigration-speak, fallen out of status — a precarious position to be in, because one brush with the law or officialdom could have sent him spiraling toward deportation.

“It could have cost me my wife, my friends, my lifestyle here. This had become my home,” he says. “I’d been staying low, being a good resident, not getting into trouble, but one day, one little mistake ... it could all be gone.”

Then he heard about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The 2012 program gives some undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. before they were 16 exemption from deportation and a renewable work permit, though it offers no assurances.

“I didn’t know if I should go for it or not,” Metohu says. “But I’d been here for 13 years and had not been able to legalize myself, so I really had no options”

Immigration categories

There are a variety of ways to enter and remain in the United States legally, from getting a short-term, conditional visa to obtaining citizenship. Here are some of the most common types.

Family-Based Immigration

This allows U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to petition for immigrant visas on behalf of certain family members, generally from one of two general categories: immediate relatives of citizens, and family-based preference immigrants.

Immediate relatives under the Immigration and Nationality Act are defined as children, spouses, and parents of citizens, subject to certain conditions. There isn’t a limit to the number of immediate relatives who may immigrate and they can get a visa or adjust their status to that of lawful permanent resident once approved.

Family-based preference categories: Four categories of immigrant visas are also allotted for people with other ties to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, including adult children and siblings, but they’re limited per country, resulting in backlogs that can be years long.

Marriage-based immigration

A citizen or lawful permanent resident petitioning for a spouse must show they have a legal marriage that wasn’t done to evade immigration laws. Marriage-based immigration is controversial because the truth of a marriage relationship often can’t be objectively measured. A legal marriage is considered to be valid for immigration purposes if the couple intended to establish a life together and assume certain duties and obligations. There are stiff penalties for marriage fraud, including five years of jail time and fines up to $250,000.

If the marriage is less than two years old when permanent residence is granted, immigrants receive “conditional” permanent residence for two years. To get full permanent resident status, a conditional resident and spouse must file a joint petition 90 days before the second anniversary of the grant of conditional status. Failure to file a timely petition leads to the automatic termination of conditional residence and deportation.

Employment-based immigration

Some 140,000 immigrant visas are available each year for aliens and their spouses and children who seek to immigrate for a job. People with the right combination of skills, education, and/or work experience may be able to live permanently in the U.S., though there are some annual limits limits and, like some family-based categories, the wait can stretch for years.

Visas for victims

People who have been victims of crime, abuse, human trafficking or political persecution also may be able to get special category visas.

Sources: Henderson Franklin attorneys

at law, Amigos Center, United States

Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Department of State, Visa Bulletin

Common immigrations terms

The government admits it right up front: “Immigration law has a number of highly technical terms that may not mean the same thing to the average reader,” is how it begins a long web page devoted to defining common phrases, often shortened to an alphabet soup of acronyms. Here’s a selection:

Alien: Any person not a citizen or national of the United States.

Asylee: An alien in the United States or at a port of entry who is found to be unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality, or to seek the protection of that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution.

Conditional resident: Any alien granted permanent resident status on a conditional basis (for example, a spouse of a U.S. citizen or an immigrant investor) who must petition to remove the conditions of his or her status before the second anniversary of the approval date of his or her conditional status.

DACA: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program launched in 2012.

DAPA: Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, a program launched in 2014.

Deferred action: A use of prosecutorial discretion to not remove an individual from the country for a set period of time, unless the deferred action is terminated for some reason. Deferred action does not provide immigration status or benefits of any kind. DACA is one type of deferred action.

Lawful permanent resident: Any person not a U.S. citizen who lives here under legally recognized and lawfully recorded permanent residence as an immigrant. Also known as “Permanent Resident Alien,” “Resident Alien Permit Holder,” and “Green Card Holder.”

National of the United States: Someone who, though not a U.S. citizen, owes permanent allegiance to the United States (e.g., persons born in American Samoa or Swains Island).

Nonimmigrant: An alien who is admitted to the U.S. for a specific temporary period of time. There are clear conditions on their stay. There are a large variety of nonimmigrant categories. Nonimmigrant classifications include: foreign government officials, visitors for business and for pleasure, aliens in transit through the United States, treaty traders and investors, students, international representatives, temporary workers and trainees, representatives of foreign information media, exchange visitors, fiancé(e)s of U.S. citizens, intracompany transferees, NATO officials, religious workers and some others.

Refugee: Generally, any person outside his or her country of nationality who is unable or unwilling to return to that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution. Persecution or the fear must be based on the person’s race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

Temporary protected status: The Secretary of Homeland Security may designate a foreign country for TPS due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately. The Secretary may designate a country for TPS due to the following temporary conditions in the country: ongoing armed conflict (such as civil war); an environmental disaster (such as earthquake or hurricane); or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. Grants of TPS are initially made for periods of six to 18 months and may be extended.

Visa: A U.S. visa allows the bearer to apply for entry to the U.S. in a certain classification but a visa itself does not grant the bearer the right to enter the U.S. The Department of State is responsible for visa adjudication at U.S. embassies and consulates outside of the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection immigration inspectors determine admission into, length of stay and conditions of stay in, the U.S. at a port of entry.

See the complete list: uscis.gov/tools/glossary

Get help, learn more

• amigoscenter.org

• henlaw.com/practices/immigration-law/

• catholiccharitiesdov.org/services/programs/immigration_services.html

Costs

In addition to paying lawyer or immigration service fees, the government charges at a number of steps along the way (though fees may sometimes be waived for financial hardship). Some filings and forms are free, like a change of address, but others can run to the hundreds of dollars. This is a sampling:

• Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker: $325

• Petition for Alien Fiancé(e): $340

• Petition for Alien Relative: $420

• Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker: $580

• Application for Permission to Reapply for Admission into the United States After Deportation or Removal: $585

• Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur: $1,500

• Application for Status as a Temporary Resident: $1,130

• Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: $465

• Application For Regional Center Under the Immigrant Investor Pilot Program: $6,230

• Application for Naturalization: $595

• Application for Certificate of Citizenship: $600

See the complete list:www.uscis.gov/forms