Would You Wait Over a Century to Reunite With Your Family?

Would you wait 131 years to reunite with your brother or sister? How about 112 years to see your children, or mom or dad, again? Probably not ... since at that point, barring any astounding medical advances in the intervening time, you'd be dead.

Prakash Khatri, attorney, Homeland Security consultant, and former Citizenship and Immigration Ombudsman in the Department of Homeland Security, recently issued a press release to call attention to the ludicrousness of the American immigration system. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will take the money of hopeful Mexican immigrants with family in the United States, but fails to let them know they're going into a line they'll most likely die before seeing the end of. *cough* scam *cough*

While for these family members a "line" does exist (which many people who want to immigrate don't even have), it's an absurd one. The State Department reports that the family visa backlog for Mexico's FB 2B category (over-21 unmarried children of permanent residents) goes back to 1992, but Khatri reveals that those applying today can expect to wait rather more than a couple decades under our current country-based cap on immigration.

The press release provides a handy chart with the estimated wait time, calculated based on the number of family visas we've issued annually over the past five years. At our current rate, the wait for a FB 2B visa for a Mexican family member is 112 years — as in, you'll be dead before your kids can join you. Khatri also crunches the numbers looking at 10 years of visas, which makes the the picture slightly rosier, but not much: the expected wait is 95 years. And if the child gets married in that time, you're out of luck: unless you become a U.S. citizen, there's no longer a way for your offspring to immigrate through you.

Another quirk of immigration law is that an "intending immigrant" can be (and often is) denied a visitors visa. So for the next 112 years, not only can't your kids immigrate, they can't even make a short visit for a family reunion, an additional insult. Even the spouses (heterosexual couples only, of course) or children under 21 of permanent residents wait 3.5 years, which is of course lightening speed in comparison, but because that ban on visiting still applies, also a long time to go without even a visit, especially if the children are little.

For U.S. citizens, your over-21 children can immigrate from Mexico within a short 40.1 years. Oh, unless they got married in that time: then tack on another 6.5 years on to the delay. In any case, you might all still be alive then — important, since if the sponsor of an immigration application dies, so does the application. A citizen's siblings, however, can hop onto the 131-year line. (For perspective, the oldest living human being ever confirmed died before she hit her 123rd birthday.) Why don't they just say there isn't a snowball's chance in hell your brother or sister will be permitted to immigrate?

If I were a U.S. citizen trying to bring my family to join me in America, I'd be deeply infuriated with the current dragging of heels on immigration reform. This is why comprehensive immigration reform that emphasizes family-based immigration is so vital; we must get rid of the unjust system that keeps families apart. When the system is designed to take people's money, but never offer a real chance at entering the United States and seeing their family again (ahem ... scam), it's no wonder people go through the ordeal of immigrating without authorization. If we provided a way for them to get in line and legally rejoin their families before being delivered in a coffin, they would do it in a heartbeat.

Photo credit: bunnicula