You ever wonder why our immigration situation got so bad? You ever hear of the Mexicans working in a Kosher factory in Ohio? Or why you get your old passport back? You'll get answers to those questions and a whole lot more from our special guest and very dear friend, Nancy who is an immigration lawyer, on today's episode.
You ever wonder why our immigration situation got so bad? You ever hear of the Mexicans working in a Kosher factory in Ohio? Or why you get your old passport back? You'll get answers to those questions and a whole lot more from our special guest and very dear friend, Nancy who is an immigration lawyer, on today's episode.
Happy note.
drea-immigration:Oh yeah, I, she's the recordings in progress, you guys.
lisa-immigration:All right.
drea-immigration:Oh. So anyway. How was everyone?
meags-immigration:Hanging in there.
lisa-immigration:Good.
kathy-immigration:Very good.
drea-immigration:We have a very special guest tonight.
kathy-immigration:Very special.
drea-immigration:Very
meags-immigration:Super special. Extra, extra special.
drea-immigration:She's like, oh my God. Ok. So so for our listeners, I think most of you know that we are all in the same sorority. And then there's a Nancy was also in our sorority, and I also, she was my roommate, so I love her and adore her, and I'm visiting her in Tampa. Right. And so I wanted to invite her to come onto the show and be with all of us. And so she is our little, she's our guest presenter tonight. Nancy, you're the first guest presenter we've ever
lisa-immigration:Yay.
meags-immigration:We, yay.
lisa-immigration:Welcome to Best Friends, sharing
meags-immigration:Should we snap?
drea-immigration:Welcome. We are so glad to have you tonight. So
nancy-immigration:so glad to be here.
meags-immigration:Mm-hmm. Hey.
drea-immigration:So I am, so I asked Nancy. Nancy is she does immigration law. And so I asked
lisa-immigration:lawyer.
drea-immigration:I know another lawyer. All you fucking lawyers, man. I tell ya.
nancy-immigration:Never have too many.
lisa-immigration:Yeah.
drea-immigration:I know, I know. Like, well, you guys kept saying, you're like, oh, I'm go. Well, Nancy, you, you had decided to go to law school when you were in, still at Loy.
nancy-immigration:Yes.
lisa-immigration:Yes, I remember that. I was like, and I remember even thinking she's crazy to go to law school. She's nuts.
nancy-immigration:And I was,
lisa-immigration:And then like I graduated from college and I don't know, a year after I'm like, huh, I think I might go to law school. I'm crazy too.
drea-immigration:And then Carrie went and just, I don't know. I didn't, it, I, it didn't never occurred to me. I never wanted to, and especially after you all became attorneys, I was like, hell no.
kathy-immigration:Mm.
drea-immigration:So so I asked Nancy if she would be willing to talk about kind of like some immigration history for us. And so I will go ahead and actually start with a question, but I'd asked her a few years ago and I was, so, it was such an interesting answer that I was like, I've gotta ask, I've gotta ask this question. So and it is about like, It was about immigration law and how when it changed in the nineties, like what the effect was on like immigration in the United States. So, I don't know. Nancy, do you wanna take it from there?
nancy-immigration:Sure. So Mexican immigration to the US became pretty popular in the 1950s, and it remained. Sort of sim all the way through the nineties, a pretty similar activity. It was mostly young men who came without their families, and they would work the, the agricultural seasons and they would go home every year. So they'd come, they'd work six to nine months. They'd go home for three months, see the family come back. By the time they're in their mid 40 thirties to 40, they've saved enough money. They moved back to Mexico permanently. And this was sort of the. Standard immigration story from Mexico. In 1996, they changed the law and they made crossing the border after you had been removed an actual crime and not just a civil violation. The first time you entered the United States without permission. That is a civil violation and not a crime. And before they had always just treated every reentry. As a civil violation, but now they start saying, you're actually gonna do some serious jail time if we catch you after you've been, if you come back after you've been deported. This made crossing the border back and forth every year, much more dangerous and extensive for the migrants, and they began to change their patterns. So instead of going back and forth every year, they began to stay. And then they brought their families. So in 19, in the early 1990s, the number of undocumented workers in the United States was about 3 million. By 2007, it was 12 million. The law that had been intended to punish immigrants and to discourage them from coming had so changed their habits that it encouraged them to not only come but stay permanently and have their families here. So it entirely changed the culture of the Mexican American experience. Coming into the United States,
kathy-immigration:Interesting.
meags-immigration:So our. Are most of those people coming into California and Texas, or are they going farther?
nancy-immigration:most of them are going farther.
meags-immigration:Okay.
nancy-immigration:They. They still travel with the crops. So yes, they go to California, they go to Texas, but they come here to Florida, they go to New York, they go to Ohio, they go to Iowa. Wherever farmers are bringing in crops,
meags-immigration:Yeah.
nancy-immigration:they're going to be migrant workers. There.
meags-immigration:Yep.
drea-immigration:So I feel like you show there's like. Oh, there was like a map of the United States that shows like the number of, well, I guess the increase or decrease in immigration. And it was like really high in, in the Dakotas. Right. Why is that? Like, do they grow a bunch of stuff there?
nancy-immigration:I mean, they do grow stuff in the summer, but there's also the oil fields. In the Dakotas have, there's a huge amount of employment opportunity and they can't get enough workers there, and a lot of Americans don't wanna move to North Dakota.
drea-immigration:Yeah.
nancy-immigration:Migrants tend to be less picky about where they're gonna go. They're, they're following the jobs.
drea-immigration:Oh, interesting. So, but then like, how do the employers get away with. Like get away with employing them.
kathy-immigration:Make papers.
nancy-immigration:Sometimes immigrants have fake papers and the employer does, honestly doesn't know. Sometimes the employer knows and they pay a fine if they get caught, and if it becomes the cost in doing business.
drea-immigration:Oh, interesting. Cool.
nancy-immigration:depends on who the government is interested in pursuing. You know, there was a case out of Pottsville, Iowa. It was a kosher meat processing plant. And they had a lot of undocumented workers there. They were rated the trial was actually held. In a a corral where they held the rodeo,
drea-immigration:What.
nancy-immigration:they brought the judge in and they held the ki, the people in stalls where they kept animals. The only reason that we know about this is because the translators that the government hired, Were so appalled by the conditions that they spoke out, even though they were actually employed by the government. They said, this is crazy. There were a lot of allegations of sexual abuse by the workers against the employers there. It was as ugly as it could be. At the end of the day, the workers got deported, the employers got a fine. Nobody was prosecuted for any sexual.
kathy-immigration:When was this?
nancy-immigration:This was 2005.
kathy-immigration:Wow.
nancy-immigration:And ironic thing about it is the Kosher meat packing plant was owned by Hasidic Jews out of New York. And they obviously still needed workers, so they got Somali refugees who were Muslim. To come in and work at the meat processing plant because a kosher slaughterhouse is not a place that's easy to work in. They do not allow for the mechanized killing of the animal, so you have to stand next to the animal and slit its throat in order for it to be kosher. So you have to have a human being who's willing to do that. This is kind of the job Americans won't do. So the Somali refugees who were all Muslim, they did it. Then they wanted permission to stop five days, five out five times a day to pray to Mecca. The owners said no, and they sued. So it ended up being. A huge legal kerfuffle and the poor people of possible Iowa were just wishing they had their Mexican migrants back.
kathy-immigration:Yeah. Wow
nancy-immigration:So
kathy-immigration:Fucked up.
nancy-immigration:yes.
drea-immigration:Yes. Yes.
meags-immigration:So I, I grew up someplace that has always been someplace where immigrants came. And it's interesting because what we've seen as time goes on is that there is no one less sympathetic to new immigrants than former immigrants. Do you think that holds true across the board, Nancy? Like, I feel like that's, like, that's, that's an excellent example of the Hasidic Jews who clearly came to America at some point and created their own culture, being like, yeah, we don't really care about you creating your culture.
nancy-immigration:I definitely think that there is a dynamic of shutting the barn door once you are inside.
meags-immigration:Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
nancy-immigration:know, like everybody likes pulling up that ladder once they've made it. I, I think that, that, I've seen that in a lot of different immigrant communities. I wouldn't say that that is specific to Hispanics or specific
meags-immigration:no, no. I think, I think it's universal. I think it, it's pretty much across the board in my experience, but you have a much broader experience than I do, so I'm curious.
nancy-immigration:Right. Well, I definitely feel like, for example, Cubans, because they have historically had so much of an easier path of getting to the United States with the wet foot, dry foot policy that a lot that said that they could basically have asylum if they just stood up on US soil. They became as a, as a group judgy of other. Peoples that didn't have such an easy path, why didn't you just do it the legal way? Why didn't you just Well, because we don't all have the same op options that the, the Cubans had. So there, there is a lot of resentment.
lisa-immigration:I see that in St. Louis with me, have a large population of Bosnians. They're a big Bosnian refugee stream, came to us late nineties, early 2000 thousands. So I get a, I could hear a lot of that when I'm, that there are Bosnians on my street and yeah, they are definitely, Seem a little anti immigrant, like, you know, if they could, you know, do it legally or don't do it at all kind of thing.
drea-immigration:Is it like anti, like specific other immigrants, like more like.
lisa-immigration:I don't know. I wouldn't, hadn't had specific conversations. It's not like I sit there and have political, you know, once you, you kind of realize there's a little resentment, you don't really dig deeper. At least that's not what I.
meags-immigration:So, so where I grew up there, it's very specific to the idea. When the French Canadians and the Irish came to this part of the world, nobody did them many favors. And therefore, why do we need to do you favors? Because you're coming from the Middle East or Africa or somewhere else. There's, but you know, the people who are exhibiting those feelings are generally second or third generation. You know, established in the area who still consider themselves to have ties and consider that to be their, their family legacy is this, you know, this story of pulling up by the bootstraps and they want to they want other people to do the same thing regardless of the realisticness of that option or not.
nancy-immigration:Right. And I think that a lot of people, especially if they're not immigrants themselves, but they are first or second generation immigrants, they, they have this sense of we did it the right way. Why don't you do it the right way? But the reality is, for most people who enter without documentation, there is no reasonable legal. The reality is if you don't have a close family member, a spouse, parent, child, or brother or sister who is a US citizen, there is no family path for you and for employment. If you don't have a college education, there are 10,000 green cards a year available for people who don't have a college degree. If there are 12 million people without papers, It's a over a thousand year line for them to get a green card. If the line is a thousand years long, does it exist?
meags-immigration:Crazy.
drea-immigration:That's a very existential question there, Nancy.
lisa-immigration:For this podcast.
drea-immigration:We, we don't
kathy-immigration:just gonna go out on a limb and say, no, the line doesn't exist.
drea-immigration:Wow.
nancy-immigration:a lot of people really like the fiction, that there is this magical legal path that people are too lazy or greedy or stupid to use. And if they only did it the right way, we wouldn't have any problem with them. But that's just not true. We've drafted our immigration laws in order to be as restrictive as possible, and then we blame them when they come a different way, and yet we don't really punish employers for hiring without papers. You know it, if you follow the money. Business is who primarily wins in. Financial stakes of immigration.
drea-immigration:What? Why do you think businesses don't push to have more visas for these migrant workers?
nancy-immigration:I think businesses like a working a workforce with no right.
kathy-immigration:Mm-hmm.
lisa-immigration:Mm. Yeah.
meags-immigration:Yeah.
nancy-immigration:People can't get workers' comp. They can't file a complaint if they're, if they're not treated well or not paid, you know, they, they have to take what they can get. A permanent underclass of workers with no rights is very good for big business.
meags-immigration:They never, ever, ever unionize
nancy-immigration:Yeah.
meags-immigration:because just not, it's just not in the cards for them.
nancy-immigration:It's not.
drea-immigration:That's so creepy the way you said that May, I mean, it's just one step away from slavery really.
meags-immigration:Well, and the thing too is that like. Talking to people who, who live that life. Like where I grew up, we had lots of Jamaicans who came every year to pick apples. And you would see the same people year in and year out. And they were, you know, while they were not working in great conditions in comparison to what they were going home to and what they had available to them on their very small island, they were like, they felt like they were the kings of the hill.
nancy-immigration:Yeah. And
meags-immigration:there's a lot, there's a lot of like perspective involved.
nancy-immigration:They probably had an H two Visa, which is a seasonal agricultural visa, which there are not enough, but most people can't get those visas. And if they had them, then they did have some protections and their lives were so much better than people who were without documentation.
meags-immigration:yeah,
drea-immigration:Hmm. So crazy.
meags-immigration:yeah. It's nuts. All kinds of nuts.
drea-immigration:So what do you think, like if you were, if you had a magic wand to wave, to fix everything and it actually happened, what, what do you, what would you wanna do? I.
nancy-immigration:I would. An immigration system that was much more responsive to the actual needs of the economy, where the rights of the immigrants were considered as part of the equation. I think that our system is cumbersome. It's difficult, it doesn't meet the needs of business. You know, I think it was in 2012 that Microsoft opened a big headquarters in Vancouver because they couldn't get enough worker, they couldn't get the visas that they needed to bring workers into Seattle. So then rather than expanding in Seattle, they moved to Vancouver. I think that that's a, a shame, that's a loss. The American economy, a lot of these immigrant jobs on the higher end, you know, they're h1b. You have to make at least$60,000 a year to even think about getting an H one B. These are good taxpayer jobs. They're, they're gonna be benefit to the economy. I don't understand why there's only 65,000 available every year. That to me, if we have employers that can pay them and can prove that they're, they could have they, that there aren't US workers who could do the job if these jobs are going unfill. Why are we not, why are we limiting that visa? I think that we need a smarter system and a more compassionate system. I think that the fact that there's almost no forgiveness for making a mistake in immigration law creates a lot of tragedy. I, I think we used to have a system where if you made a mistake, you went out of status, you could pay a fine. And get back into status. Well, in 96 they got rid of that. So if you overstay for a year and you leave, you can't come back for 10 years. If you overstay for six months and you leave, you can't come back for three years. These are very harsh conditions to put on people for not realizing that the visa expired. Believing their employer when they told them that they extended it when they didn't.
kathy-immigration:Yeah, I think so.
meags-immigration:go ahead. Go ahead, Kathy.
kathy-immigration:Oh, I was just gonna say so the company that, that Nick works for, it's, it's a, it's a big global company, but they, they have consolidated what was, I think originally three, but for many years, just two American. Into one plant in North Carolina. And, but most of their stuff is made in Mexico. They built a plant a long time ago in Mexico, and when Nick goes to the plant in Mexico, he's like, there's, there's people. There's people there. They're working, they're happy to be working. They're, you know, Every station has multiple people at it, working, working, working. And when he goes to the plant in North Carolina, he's like, there's huge billboards on your way in advertising that they're hiring all the salaries, all the benefits. He's like, they can't get people to work and the plant in North Carolina and they're making everything, they're making almost everything outta Mexico. Because they just can't, they can't get people to work for the plant, North Carolina. And I was like, and he's like, they just, he's like, there's no one there that wants the jobs. And he's like, they're good jobs, good benefits, good stuff. And I was like, whoa, this sounds like they should just, you know, ring people from Mexico to come work in the plant.
nancy-immigration:Right, because.
kathy-immigration:they can't.
nancy-immigration:If the, if they came here and they worked in North Carolina, then they would pay taxes in North Carolina. They would pay federal income taxes. They would would
kathy-immigration:By property and.
nancy-immigration:buy property. They would invest in other things. They would live lives and, and be productive. And I just think. way the H1B program, which is a professional worker visa, you have to have a college education in order to apply for it. And like I said, you have to make at least$60,000 a year. The way that they work is you sign up for a registration and then the computer randomly selects the first, you know, 65,000. And if you don't get selected, you don't get an H one B for that year. You can try again a year later. So the, the lottery happened, the registration lottery happened. They're estimating 15% of applicants got a registered.
kathy-immigration:Wow.
nancy-immigration:So these means that they had an employer with an open job who had found an immigrant, who had a college degree, who could do the job, who wanted to come to America. And only 15% are gonna even get a chance to file for the h1b, and that to me is crazy. Why are we turning people away? Who would be such an asset to the country?
meags-immigration:I have a question, Nancy and I, it. Realize that you're probably the right person to ask. Is there a legal difference between an image, an immigrant and a refugee?
nancy-immigration:Yes.
meags-immigration:Can you tell me what it is?
nancy-immigration:Yeah. A refugee is a very specific kind of immigrant. It is somebody who has. Been forced out of their homeland and ended up in a un refugee camp somewhere in the world. That camp will talk to the people who were there and say, where do you wanna go? Do you wanna go to Germany? Do you wanna go to the United States? Do you wanna go to Canada? Where do you have people? Where do you have connections? What languages do you speak? And what countries are willing to take you? So they. Will, the UN camp matches the refugee with the country. It, the average length of time a person spends in a refugee camp is 10 years.
kathy-immigration:Wow.
meags-immigration:Crazy.
nancy-immigration:So, like for example, there were a lot of people out of Vietnam who went to refugee camps in Thailand and Laos after the Vietnam the war because they fought with Americans and then they were in a lot of trouble in Vietnam.
meags-immigration:Yeah.
nancy-immigration:The last of those came to the United States right around 1990.
lisa-immigration:Wow.
nancy-immigration:So that's a long time to live in a refugee.
meags-immigration:Yeah,
kathy-immigration:lot of them are. Texas and Houston, specifically
nancy-immigration:Yeah.
kathy-immigration:from Vietnam.
drea-immigration:Yep.
kathy-immigration:have a, a large Vietnamese population.
nancy-immigration:The next thing that's similar to that is an asylum seeker. An asylum seeker is somebody who approaches the US border and asks for asylum. They have not been prevetted by the UN or anybody. They come with a claim saying, I will suffer extreme hardship if I'm forced to return to my home. And then they ask basically to be allowed in the United States for a chance to go in front of the asylum office, and then usually the immigration judge as part of a removal proceeding to determine whether they have a credible fear of persecution.
meags-immigration:Okay.
nancy-immigration:about 97% of asylum cases are denied. If you have a really good lawyer, it's about 80% denial.
meags-immigration:Yikes.
nancy-immigration:So those are the people that show up at the border without papers and surrender themselves and say, I want to stay. I, I, I fear I have a credible fear, and it has to be very specific. It has to be either from your government or from a group. Your government cannot or will not control, and it has to be because of a, a specific thing about you, a membership in a politic, a particular social group, political opinion. They have to be deliberately targeting you, not. It sucks to be a woman in Honduras. That's not enough. It has to be. I was at a rally. They took my name, they beat me up, they tortured me. I escaped, and now I'm running for my life because they're hunting me because I did something.
meags-immigration:Right.
nancy-immigration:A case that I can tell you that was a, an assigned case that was approved is I was out of Eastern Europe. And a man was a journalist and he was set to interview a man who was running for the office of president in his country against the incumbent president, and they were set to meet in a hotel room, in a, in a conference room. And he's waiting. When the hotel for him, he looks out the window and he sees the street below and he sees the man he's supposed to interview walking towards the hotel when some men get out of a car and they shoot him.
meags-immigration:Oh my.
drea-immigration:wow.
nancy-immigration:my client saw the men and then the newspaper published his name saying he was a witness to the assassination of the political. Opponent of the president. So he
meags-immigration:your, there's your editor not liking you, and then there's your editor actually being out to get you.
nancy-immigration:Yeah. Well, I'm not sure if it was his paper or a competing paper, but at his asylum hearing, we had a tran, you know, we had the original paper and the translation that said he witnessed this political and he saw the.
meags-immigration:Yeah,
nancy-immigration:And that was an approvable case.
meags-immigration:yeah.
nancy-immigration:A case that wasn't approved was out of South America. It was another journalist. It was a, there was an on-air personality and then the camera name. And they were doing stories about the farc, which is a not great group out of Columbia. And. The on-air personality disappeared.
drea-immigration:Hmm.
nancy-immigration:ever saw him again. He never used his bank accounts. His wife never saw him. So the cameraman who had been receiving death threats, but they were all on the phone, they didn't send it on like far stationary. Dear sir. But he would get these phone calls that say you're dead and things like that. So he. He got into the United States and he claimed asylum. He was denied. They said he couldn't prove that the on-air personality was dead. He could be living somewhere else and be fine. And so he was deported back to Columbia.
drea-immigration:Oh my God.
nancy-immigration:So asylum is not an easy, Burt an easy standard to meet.
meags-immigration:No, clearly not.
drea-immigration:Wow.
meags-immigration:not.
lisa-immigration:I have a question, and I don't know if you can speak to this. This is definitely, it's a claim. You hear in news a lot from people, certain people in this country that think that these immigrants are coming into our country and committing crime after crime, after crime. What is your response to that?
nancy-immigration:A lot of that is they're saying, The fact that they entered is a crime. So if you exclude immigration violations, it's just factually not true. Statistically, immigrants, both documented and undocumented, commit crimes at a much lower rate than US citizens. They are much more concerned about being removed from the country, so they're going to be more careful. About following the law and doing what they're supposed to do. The last thing an undocumented person wants to do is draw attention to themselves and committing a crime in most states is a really good ticket to get yourself in removal proceedings. Obviously there are organized drug gangs and there are, you know, criminal elements in any group, but statistically it is lower than. A general pool of US citizens.
lisa-immigration:Okay. That was my understanding. But then I keep hearing it come up on certain
nancy-immigration:Well, the, again, the way they play that is they're including immigration violations as crimes. So if you include that, then a hundred percent of undocumented people have committed. An infraction, and therefore, you know, you can say a hundred percent of immigrants are not law abiding because the very fact that they're here without papers means they have violated a law. But if you exclude immigration violations, it just isn't true.
meags-immigration:Very logical. That makes perfect sense.
lisa-immigration:Yes. Makes a lot of sense. Thank you. Confirming my thought on the matter. I just wanted to make sure I was right.
nancy-immigration:Yeah, you're, you're almost always right, aren't you, Lisa?
lisa-immigration:Yes, I'm Thank you. Thank you for confirming that. If only others, my husband would agree if he agrees to my face, I don't know what he says behind my back.
drea-immigration:That's awesome. You know, I don't, this is kind of a. W like, so, you know, I, I live in Houston and I was driving this, this is kind of like a random thing, but I was driving down the street and I, I remember, I recall there was a woman like a, she looked like she looks south American at least, I don't know, like Hispanic, and she was in a car and like I was trying to do a turn and she, it was like very clear that she had the right of. But she seemed afraid to like do it because she was afraid of per pissing me off. Do you know it? And I was like, it has to be. And I don't know if it's true, maybe it was just my perception of it, but it really, you know, it was almost like she was trying to hide herself. And I was like, it's so sad that people feel that way. You know? Like they feel like they're afraid to just be out there cuz. Or to drive normally. I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Like to, to just to like, to follow the laws. That would be normal and to turn when she would turn because she's afraid that I might like turn her in or I don't know.
nancy-immigration:Well, cuz if
kathy-immigration:beyond that unfortunately, because I think a lot of times they're also afraid to report crimes when they happen to them because they're, they're afraid, even if they're here legally, having a spotlight shown on their greater family, you know, most likely, like they might be legal, but. Uncle, you know, uncle whoever who's living with them may not be. And so they're, they're afraid to report crimes when they happen to them. They're afraid to seek other types of services, even whether they're here legally or not. You know, again, for that scrutiny because maybe they have family members who aren't. But also, you know, just, I think there's just a fear. Of government and government services, even when the service might, you know, they're not gonna it, they're just there to help, like a health service for the, for their kids or whatever. Right. Or like, you know, free clinic aid and things like that. Like they're just afraid to use it. And you see that all the time, especially here in Houston and Texas because we have a high percentage of, of all kinds all kinds of, of immigrants and. You know, whether legal or not legal or H one B, I mean, I know tons of people in, in my industry here or here on H one B. So I, I think there's just this kind of distrust that, that comes along with it. That is, Unfortunate. Because, you know, there's all kinds of things that happen where, you know, they may live in an apartment complex and I, you know, there, there's violations that the owners, the owners know this, right? And so they're like, yeah, we're not gonna fix, you know, the shitty, you know, plumbing or, you know, whatever, sewage leaks and whatever happens because like, they know that no one's gonna turn around and, and contact the government for, you know, for help.
nancy-immigration:Right. And even if you're here legally, if. To be able to sponsor a relative to come, you have to prove that you know, they're not gonna be a public charge, that you would have to be able to sponsor them. If you have received benefits in the US then it's gonna be very challenging for you to then turn around and say, I can sponsor my mom. I can sponsor my sister. Whatever, because the government will say, well, you know, how can you vouch for them? How can you say you'll take care of them when you can't even take care of yourself? People are very afraid to take any kind of government aid even people who are legal, who have the right to it because they're just afraid that it's going to, even if it's not. Part of the consensus, the what they look at today, that it will be in the future. And Trump did that when he changed a lot of the immigration protocols and asked a lot of questions about what types of benefits have you received as a sponsor that had never been asked before. And that had a real chilling effect on legal immigrants. Getting help they need for their US citizen children for other, you know, because they were just afraid this is gonna mess up my petition that I have pending for mom or you know, that I have for my sister. Cuz it takes such a long time for family immigration. Like the, right now, if you're not from China, India, Mexico, or the Philippines, which runs slower, it takes about 17 years to petition for a brother or. So.
drea-immigration:Wow.
meags-immigration:Yeah, like I don't, I don't think as, as you know, I'm fairly certain that all of us were born here. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think we realize how valuable American citizenship is considered to be. I have a very good friend from when I worked in Virginia, who did not find out from her husband until after they were engaged, that his mother was actually American and that he had dual citizenship between here and the Philippines, and therefore they could move to the US because. Her husband never disclosed that to anyone he was dating because he was so concerned that they would turn on the charm just to get to America. And I was like, Maria, is that like a, like, I can't, like, they're like super duper close and, and it's like, she's like, no. She said, I had no idea. He did not tell me until we were already engaged. I was like, I just can't, like that's crazy to me. But I mean, it's a very, it's a very valuable piece of paper. It's a very valuable opportu.
lisa-immigration:I remember the first time traveling in. And reading about different stuff and saying how like to keep that American passport like close to you, like with you everywhere you go because it's, you know, so valuable, you know, on the red market to just sell an American passport. So
nancy-immigration:And
lisa-immigration:I fully understood at the time what that
nancy-immigration:you will get hassled at the border until the end of time if your passport is stolen and used by someone else.
meags-immigration:I.
drea-immigration:Hmm.
lisa-immigration:I'm. Like you did it like you were sharing your
nancy-immigration:Well, no. Well, every time you come in, you're gonna have to confirm it's you. So that goes to secondary inspection. They're gonna have to fingerprint you. They're gonna take your picture. They're gonna confirm in their records that you are you. Well, if you are on a plane with, you know, a big international flight, let's say, it could easily have 500 people. They're gonna clear that whole plane out before they deal with the secondary inspection people, of which they'll probably be 10 to 12. So you will wait in a room waiting to talk to somebody for that whole time. If there's a connection, you're gonna miss it,
lisa-immigration:Hmm.
nancy-immigration:and it's a huge hassle.
meags-immigration:Yeah,
nancy-immigration:So keep your passport safe.
meags-immigration:Well, and the other thing that I learned and I dre, I actually learned this from Mike. Mike was telling me this at one point keep your elderly relatives passport safe. Because one of the biggest issues with fake passports is like one of the biggest places that they get them is elderly people who just have them in a drawer. That are, you know, they're not gonna use them. They're just laying around and like, we always just assume my grandmother's was lost cuz like, you know, we never saw it. And Mike was like, no, you can't just assume it's lost because like, it could definitely be stolen. Like, that's, that's how a lot of these get onto the market. I was like, I never, it never occurred to me that you needed to be that careful with it.
nancy-immigration:if you are missing your passport in a suspicious circumstance or the passport of a relative or whatever, you need to report that to the Department of State as soon as possible because that will put it on a watch list that other people can't use it. But you need to, you need to notify them because you do not want someone else coming in on your loved one's name
meags-immigration:No,
nancy-immigration:and using their identity.
kathy-immigration:Why did they return the passport? That has expired when you get a new passport.
nancy-immigration:They return it because it may very well have a visa stamp from a different country in it that is still valid. So it, it's very common for me as an immigration lawyer that I will have to have more than one passport for my clients because, They may have a tourist visa to the United States. It's good for 10 years, but maybe there was only eight years left on their passport when they got it. So they have a 10 year visa in an eight year left passport. Then when they get a new passport, they'll enter on the new passport, but they'll have to show the visa from the previous country from the
lisa-immigration:Hmm.
nancy-immigration:previous entries. So they end up entering with both passport. So since it's too much of a administrative burden for them to figure out who's really gonna need that passport back and who's not, that's why they send it back.
drea-immigration:I wish they would tell you that. Why? I mean, cause I got mine back. So, you know, I changed my last name and I got my. You got my old one back and I'm like, am I supposed to sell this now? Which I mean, I know I'm not.
nancy-immigration:No, don't do that. No.
lisa-immigration:I don't think, and don't think Nancy, Rick gives that legal advice to people. Nike makes some extra money.
nancy-immigration:Next
drea-immigration:I
lisa-immigration:Hello, passport.
drea-immigration:this is like gold. What
kathy-immigration:Well, I mean we just got, you know, we just got, Charlie's renewed his, cuz he was, you know, his expired and then they.
lisa-immigration:know, when they're young, they expire quickly, don't
kathy-immigration:They do. Yes. And it's a whole new passport. It's not actually officially a renewal. You have to go through the entire process all over again, just fyi, for those out there with juvenile passports. Mm-hmm. But then they send it, and then they send the old one back and it's like, okay.
drea-immigration:Yeah,
meags-immigration:I guess if you're a scrapbooker, maybe you want all those stamps.
nancy-immigration:Well, some people keep them, some people like to keep them, some people like to destroy them. I, I would keep all your pass if you're keeping it, keep it together with your new existing passport. Don't get sloppy about guarding the old one.
drea-immigration:Oh, okay.
nancy-immigration:it can still be used for identity. It's better to keep it safe, so either destroy it or keep it safe with your existing passport.
drea-immigration:do you think that on the black market, so well, like, you know, on, on the not black, on the not black market, like on a regular market, Zla will rent like prom, not prom dresses, but like dresses to go to formals and then sh you know, and then like send it back. And so do you think that you could, like people might on the black market do that with passports? Like, you could rent my passport for X amount of dollars and then give it back to me?
nancy-immigration:I'm certain that they do that. Organized gangs use passports of people that you know, ha either have they been stolen them or that people are part of the gang, and you get the passport at the airport in your country. So let's just say, you know, you're in Helsinki and you get. You meet the coyote and he hands you the passport and then there will be somebody to meet your plane once you've cleared customs in the US and they will take that passport from you it will disappear.
kathy-immigration:Hmm.
nancy-immigration:But it
drea-immigration:So I was right.
nancy-immigration:yeah, it's very common.
meags-immigration:Is it me
nancy-immigration:is illegal. Don't do it
meags-immigration:I don't, I did not have any money on. Nancy actually ending up living in the born identity and I feel like I pretty should have put money on that cuz it's clearly coming be true. She knows all this stuff and all these people all over the world. I just never saw it coming. Nancy. I think it's awesome, but like I never saw it coming.
lisa-immigration:your clients like the drug cartel or something and you know, are you learning
nancy-immigration:actually not. I have great clients.
lisa-immigration:to know.
kathy-immigration:Well that brings up another, that brings up another point, like all the people out there with all the fake passports. Think of like if you've got six fake, like really good though, but fake passports. They all have to have fake expirations on them. So you gotta keep track of like all of those fake passports and they're like, man, my German passport's about to expire. Now I gotta go back to the fake passport guy and get it.
lisa-immigration:Right. You gotta be really organiz.
nancy-immigration:Usually you don't use the fake passport more than once you get in,
kathy-immigration:Oh,
nancy-immigration:back from you, and you are just here now. You're here undocumented. You live your life. You're not gonna travel again.
kathy-immigration:well, I'm talking about like the Jason Bourne types who have like a secret saved deposit box somewhere
nancy-immigration:I don't have those clients.
kathy-immigration:passports. Yeah.
lisa-immigration:Come on me.
drea-immigration:I've heard though, so Mike I was really, I always feel like I have to say like Monkey Mike, but you guys did what I'm talking about. He, so he does do passport fraud, like in his, his job, and he told me it's incredibly difficult to counterfeit or a, a passport like that. It's not like it's mu it's, it would be much easier to like steal one and use a, a real one than it would be to try to create.
kathy-immigration:You should see these brand new ones. These brand new us ones. The one that Charlie just got. I mean, I, I mean you, you'd basically have to be someone that works at the passport office and somehow be able to fake one and without someone noticing, because I, I mean the, what they're doing now to these passports, it's like, it's impressive. It's not just like little pieces of.
nancy-immigration:passports. The passports need to have a machine readable strip on them. So it's no longer a question of the border agent looking at you, looking at the picture and the passport and saying, yeah, it looks like you go on in, they're gonna swipe your passport. And if it doesn't, if the strip doesn't read right, you're not coming in,
drea-immigration:Oh.
kathy-immigration:Well, and now they have. Now they also, in addition, they have a QR code and they have. The, one of the pages is like, like a heavy laminated type of page, almost like
nancy-immigration:and they'll have holographic images also that are very hard to duplicate. And the same with green cards. They change the green card every few years. They add security features. If you keep a green card, you have to renew it every 10 years, and that's really just because they think any green card that's been on the market for 10 years has been successfully counterfeited and they ha they've added security features and they've done things to make it more difficult to counterfeit over the time. So every few years there's some little change or some variation in the green card that it, as the counterfeiters get better. Then the green card has to adapt and the same with the passports. So it's, it's one of the reasons that passports expire is they do want to keep up with the modern technology and make sure that they have the passports as difficult as possible to counterfeit, which is why people steal them. And it's why sometimes us citizen will sell them you know, A pass, a valid passport is an incredibly valuable document
drea-immigration:Hmm. So our green card's really.
nancy-immigration:at the moment. Yes, they weren't for the,
drea-immigration:they could fake you out in the future and make
nancy-immigration:were green in the fifties when the name came. The legal term is lawful permanent resident, but green card's easier to say. But they were pink and then they were yellow, and now they are gr they have a different colors on them, but green is definitely a primary color. So
lisa-immigration:Hmm.
nancy-immigration:are always excited to.
drea-immigration:question.
meags-immigration:It is a good question. I liked it.
drea-immigration:Yeah.
meags-immigration:I feel I feel more knowledgeable already.
drea-immigration:I know Nancy, you've filled our brains with a lot of extra good information.
meags-immigration:It's true.
nancy-immigration:I'm
kathy-immigration:I have, so I have a question for Nancy. If you, if you could wave a wand and enact three immigration rules, laws, what would they be?
nancy-immigration:I would go back to allowing people to pay a fine to fix their immigration status rather than face the three and 10 year bar. I think that that is a lot more commiserate with the severity of their offense. I mean, cuz the Pine Pine used to be$1,500, it wasn't cheap.
kathy-immigration:Yeah.
nancy-immigration:with the fine being expensive, but I think a fine is a more fair punishment for messing up your immigration than a 10 year bar. I would increase the family quota so, PAMs would Beit more quickly. I think the, the length of time that that takes is very sad, and I would increase the number of H one B visas.
kathy-immigration:Do we have enough people working in in immigration? In the government?
nancy-immigration:No. Especially the Department of State that runs the embassies.
kathy-immigration:Yeah.
nancy-immigration:There was a major gutting of the consular services while Trump was president. Not to get too political, but 60% of the consular workers who were there at the beginning of his presidency were not there at the end, and they were not. The understaffing at our embassies is crazy.
drea-immigration:Sounds dangerous too.
meags-immigration:Yeah.
nancy-immigration:causes major delays and people wait and wait and wait for an appointment. You know? I have a client from Jamaica whose sister has qualified for the visa. I mean, she waited the 17 years. Okay. And the Visa became current in 2019. And we filed all the paperwork. We have done everything. We have kept up with the case. We have done every single thing we needed to do on time. She, her sister's still not here. We're hoping maybe this summer, but 2019 to now after waiting the 17 years for the visa to become current is a crazy length of time, and that's purely because of staff.
kathy-immigration:Wow.
lisa-immigration:Wow. And you know, they say there's this immigration crisis. It's like, well if you staffed the agency that's trying to, you know, manage that, it might help.
nancy-immigration:But they don't want it. They want the crisis because both sides campaign on the crisis.
drea-immigration:Mm.
nancy-immigration:Nobody wants to fix the problem because everybody's making hay off the problem.
lisa-immigration:Stupid
meags-immigration:And like there's no impetus to fix it on the federal levels because the states are the ones who end up paying for a lot of the aid for these people when they. At least that's the situation where I live. And that's always like the, the rub is that the, the state representatives are talking about immigration and it's like you guys, the federal people are talking about it and it's like, you guys don't pay any of this. Like, it's all the city and the state who's paying for
nancy-immigration:Right
kathy-immigration:Well, my state just decided to bus bust them away.
lisa-immigration:Right.
meags-immigration:Yikes. Well, my, my state at one point the city that I grew up in, mayor who's, Husband of one of my father's, former long-term employees published an open letter saying, listen, y'all need to stop inviting your families to come cuz like we can't take any more of you.
kathy-immigration:Wow.
meags-immigration:Which was like a huge deal when it happened and rightfully so. But at the same time, like it's a relatively small town in central Maine. Like they are, they were not set up for not just immigrants, but non-English speaking. Muslim immigrants with, you know, a completely different, like, who had never seen cold weather, who had never like, you know, like it was just, it was a lot. It was definitely a lot. So yes, like I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think there's any state that has an unblemished record on being nice to immigrants. I think they're all, they all have their moments where things get a little,
lisa-immigration:Oh, I'm
meags-immigration:dicey
nancy-immigration:Well, it's easy to be compassionate until you've got the budget in front of you and then you gotta disappoint somebody. And people who aren't voters are easier to disappoint.
meags-immigration:True.
lisa-immigration:that's Sure.
meags-immigration:true. Very true. And the other thing is that, you know, like, like all things, like when you get right up close with people, it's easy to it's easy to make judgements, shall we say. And it's like, you know, like immigration at like, you know, refugees as a concept is like, yeah, we should help those people. And then it's like, oh my God, like three quarters of the kids at my kid's school don't speak English. Like, oh, like maybe I feel slightly differently about this. So like, I can see where like, you know, up close and personal is always a little bit different than the theoretical concept.
nancy-immigration:Yeah.
drea-immigration:Yeah. All right. We have time for one more question. If there are more questions. We totally I had two subjects that we were gonna go over, but and the other one was basically immigration racism over the last, you know, 300 years.
nancy-immigration:Since that hardly exists, it's really not worth.
lisa-immigration:not at all. Actually, I've been kinda bit my tongue to, I was gonna make some historical references. I'm like, well, that's off topic. I'm not gonna go there.
drea-immigration:Well, well we need to ha, what we need to do is have Nancy back
lisa-immigration:There you go.
drea-immigration:she, you are a font of knowledge be. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I have learned quite a bit and I talk to Nancy frequently.
lisa-immigration:I do, I know nothing about immigration laws, so it was very interesting.
drea-immigration:So,
lisa-immigration:you, Nancy.
nancy-immigration:You're welcome.
drea-immigration:all right, well I guess maybe there are no more questions.
nancy-immigration:Now I've depressed you enough for one night.
drea-immigration:No, you have educated us and we really appreciate it. So
meags-immigration:I have, I do have one more question. I'm sorry, Nancy. Why did you pick immigration law? Cause clearly it's not the most uplifting option.
nancy-immigration:no, two things. One. I graduated from law school and my husband still had a semester left of college, and we knew we were moving to Florida. So I flew, I went to Florida, I took the bar, and then I went back to Oklahoma to be with him until he graduated. I needed something to do that I wasn't a licensed lawyer yet, so I couldn't do much, but I didn't wanna have six months of dead time on my resume. So I looked around for what my options were and Catholic Charities needed help. And they have an immigrant assistance program, so I had taken immigration law in law school and hated it. But I.
lisa-immigration:Hello.
nancy-immigration:I'm gonna do this. And I found out that when it was really helping people, that I liked it, that I respected immigrants, that one thing that really bothers me and people in general is when they're unhappy and they won't do anything to fix it. They just wanna complain and blame other people. And whine about it, but they don't wanna make the hard choices and the changes that would actually make their lives better. And there's a bravery to immigrants where they weren't happy in their life, whatever reason they have for coming to the United States, whether it's economic or freedom or love, whatever, they weren't happy where they were, and they're willing to take a chance on something better. And I can really respect people who have that mentality that they're gonna try and it may not work. But you know, they're not gonna just sit home and cry.
meags-immigration:Excellent reasons. Well done. Okay. I feel, I feel I feel well answered. I'm always curious how people end up, where they end up. So like I, that's a very logical way to end up there.
drea-immigration:Absolutely. All right, well, it's been awesome. Thank you guys for you know, all getting together. So goodnight and we'll
nancy-immigration:Great to see
drea-immigration:week. Bye.
meags-immigration:night.
lisa-immigration:Hey, Nancy, see you soon.