Posts Tagged ‘U.S. Ministries’
I Survived the Vietnam War to Become a Proud American
I was born in Southern Vietnam in 1953. I grew up just like any other boy in my country and had a happy childhood.
Then news about war in Vietnam gradually appeared on the front pages of newspapers in the 1960’s, and things began to change
Like many young men in wartime, I reported for military service in South Vietnam at just 18 years of age. I learned we’d be fighting alongside our American allies, which filled many of us with hope. Little did we know, however, that the war in Vietnam would carry on for 19 years and four months. It finally ended in April of 1975, and I was sent to prison for a year for fighting on the South Vietnam side. Afterward, I was told to relocate to a wild area of the jungle called the “New Economic Zone.” Instead, I went to my mother’s hometown in the countryside and made my living as a farmer.
As a former South Vietnamese soldier, I knew I couldn’t stay in the country. My children would not be allowed to pass high school education. They would be barred from being successful people in society. But escape was difficult, very difficult. People who were caught trying to escape would serve long prison terms. After several failed attempts at escaping by myself, I paid a local fisherman to smuggle me out in his boat. Two days after we left, the boat’s engine failed, and a navy ship from Malaysia rescued us.
I was placed in a refugee camp in Malaysia, where I volunteered to work as part of the camp government. It was there I learned that because of my background, I would be resettled as a refugee in the West. As part of the U.S. refugee process, I was sent to the Philippines, where I learned that my future life would be in the U.S.
I finally entered America for the first time in August of 1989 and was welcomed by volunteers from a local church community. They gave me a room to live in and assisted me in acclimating to life in a strange new country.
At first, I was intimidated. Life was fast-paced, and there was a lot to get used to. For instance, coming from a tropical country, I was terrified of the cold. I didn’t have a TV so I never knew the weather report for the day. I would stick my hand out the window in the morning to see what it felt like so I knew what to wear. When winter came, I made the mistake of washing my winter coat and then hanging it outdoors to dry. When I brought it in at the end of the day, it had frozen to ice.
I was also mistrustful of Christians when I first arrived in America. To my knowledge, the Vietnamese kings did not like Christianity when it first spread to Vietnam. In the late 19th century, the French army came to “protect” new Vietnamese Christians from persecution, which eventually led to the French colonization of my country, and that lasted for almost a hundred years. Growing up a Buddhist, I was naturally suspicious of Christians.
But then I came to America, and people who didn’t share my religion or language – people who had nothing in common with me – went out of their way to help me.
They helped me simply because they cared about me, a stranger, and that caused something to change in me. I wanted to know what this religion was that inspired people to care for me like that so I began attending church. Eventually I, too, became a Christian.
Today, I am a leader in my church. I am also a father and grandfather. My son became a U.S. Marine and is now a junior pastor. I work as a social worker for World Relief, helping other refugees adjust to life in the U.S. I feel blessed to be able to do this work. I understand that many refugees have survived harrowing ordeals and are skeptical of receiving help at first. I use my experience to help them regain their trust in people. I love the work I do.
My brother and sister also became U.S. citizens, but my 94-year-old mother still lives in Vietnam. In 30 years, I have only been able to visit her there four times. My heart aches from missing my mother, but I still don’t feel safe going back there.
When I was in prison in Vietnam, defeated and suffering, I never imagined I could have this kind of life. I want Americans to know how truly blessed they are. Here, we pursue the ideals of freedom and equality. In this country, the poor and the rich shop side-by-side at Walmart. No one is above the law. If people disagree with the government, they can voice their opinions and not be afraid of retaliation.
This is the United States I love and am proud to belong to. I appreciate the opportunity to live in freedom. I hope that by coming together, embracing the American ideals of freedom and equality, and shouldering our societal responsibilities, we can assure the American public refugees and other immigrants are worth welcoming.
Some people say what I endured as a young man, and my experience as a refugee, is remarkable. But I disagree. Living in this country – a country where people are willing to step forward and help strangers simply because it is good and right – that is the remarkable thing.
Chau Ly is a former refugee and social worker at World Relief.
Take a Number
People around the world are fleeing violence, oppression and poverty. I visited Tijuana in early October to get a firsthand look at what asylum seekers experience when they reach our border.
U.S. asylum law states that any individual arriving in the United States is allowed to request asylum, whether or not they have arrived at a designated port of arrival. Anyone wishing to claim asylum has historically been referred to an asylum officer who could then process their claim.
In 2018, however, things changed. The government instituted an informal immigration process known as metering. Under this metering process, rather than hearing the claims of asylees who arrive at the U.S. border, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents are stopping families and individuals at the border, assigning them a number and returning them to Mexico to wait until their number is called. Once their number is called, only then can they claim asylum and begin the immigration court process. Hundreds of immigrants and asylees wait months in Mexico, with no way to know when their number will be called or if their request will be approved.
CBP claims this unofficial policy was put in place to assist with the backlog of asylum claims. However, fewer claims have been processed since metering was enacted and there has been little effort to hire more claims officers. This has left me to wonder whether the process was actually put in place to help, or to deter vulnerable people from seeking the protection they so desperately need. It’s also made me wonder, “Is stopping an asylum seeker before they cross the border to make their claim even legal? Moreover, is it a violation of human rights, US immigration and international law?”
Like those waiting to seek asylum, my morning in Tijuana started early. Each day, asylum seekers gather near the border in hopes that their number will be one of the few called that day. Those who are called will finally have a chance to formally claim asylum. On this particular day, only eight numbers were called. On World Refugee Day this past summer, not a single number was called.
I arrived at 8 a.m., just as the metering process was beginning. I waited just beyond the huddle of asylum seekers and met a young man whom World Relief was representing in his asylum claim. As a university student in Venezuela, this young man had joined a group of protestors who were demonstrating against the Maduro regime. As a result, he was followed by Maduro’s men, attacked and beaten for speaking out. Sadly, this is a common story in places like Venezuela.
Fearing for his life, my new friend fled Venezuela and arrived at a legal port of entry in Tijuana in May 2019. He took his metered number and returned to Mexico to begin his wait. Two months later, however, the US government changed course and decided that anyone who had passed through another country on their way to the U.S. needed to first claim asylum in that country, before claiming it in the U.S.
Although my new friend had arrived in the U.S. before this rule was put in place, he couldn’t officially claim asylum until his number was called. Had he not been stopped at the border and forced into the metering system, he could have claimed asylum as soon as he crossed into U.S. territory. What may feel like a technicality to you and me, could drastically alter this young man’s future. It’s highly likely his claim will not be granted because he did not seek asylum in any of the countries through which he had passed. My friend had followed the rules. He had taken a number, and now he’d likely be told to go back home.
In the midst of my sadness and frustration, I visited a small Baptist church on the Mexican side of the U.S./Mexico border and found some glimmer of hope. This small church had become a safe haven for many of the brave individuals and families who have traveled to the U.S. seeking asylum. On a typical Sunday, this congregation of only a 100 people or so, shelters up to 40 asylum seekers, whom they call “guests” rather than “immigrants.”
This church had taken spaces that they likely needed for their Sunday morning programming and turned them into dorm rooms. I walked through the church and saw the most beautiful wooden bunk beds I had ever seen! They may not have been much, but they were a sign of the local church in action.
This church had become God’s grace to people in need. While I found myself so saddened by the stories of asylum seekers and frustrated by the “take a number and then go back” procedures, I left feeling a sense of hope after seeing a clear picture of what God’s people, his church, could be.
Mark Lamb previously served as the Partnership Director at World Relief .
Reflections on Belonging
photo credit: Rebecca Bustamante
My heart is heavy for my country, the place I call home.
I’ve often wondered, where do I fit in?
Am I wanted here?
Do I even belong?
I’ve been plagued by these questions for most of my life. Though, it was only recently that I decided to engage them. As a Hispanic-American woman, the answers rarely seem straightforward, yet I feel a growing tension that I really need to get them right.
Just the other day, for example, I went to make a payment on my credit card. I received a pop-up message that I had never seen before.
“We need to verify your information,” it said. “Are you a U.S. citizen?”
A yes or no checkbox was located beside the question. I browsed the screen, looking for a way to opt-out, when I saw the notice: failure to answer this question could lead to my account being limited.
A flood of emotions consumed me — sadness, anger, frustration.
Was this question legal?
Why now after being a cardmember for so many years?
Are they asking every cardmember for this information, or just those with Hispanic sounding names?
Are they asking me because my last name is Lopez?
Experiences like this often send me spinning. But I’m learning to take comfort in the knowledge that my identity is in Christ.
You see, I was born in Chicago, on the Southwest side to be exact. My father is Mexican/Puerto Rican, and my mother is Puerto Rican. I’m proud of my heritage. The more I learn about my familial history the more grateful I become. My ancestors made so many sacrifices so I can live the life I have today.
My paternal grandmother’s entire family crossed the border together when she was just a toddler. As a kid, she had a knack for making things and finding items to sell. My dad once told me he was really inspired by the way his mother could figure out creative ways to make money for the family. He said I reminded him of her because I own a small, creative business. I had always wondered where my creative business skillset came from, and now I know.
My maternal grandparents moved to the United States in their adulthood, in pursuit of a better life just after my grandfather served in the war. I’m still not sure whether he served in WWII or the Korean War. He was too traumatized to ever talk about it. But I do know that Puerto Rico has a long history of serving in the U.S. military. WWII and the Korean War each saw around 60,000 Puerto Ricans fighting alongside the American military, my grandfather being one of them.
He had dreams of working in the chemistry field, and my grandmother dreamed of being a model. Both ended up working in factories, as did my mom. I am the first daughter in the family to graduate from college. I have the freedom to be my own boss, something my maternal grandparents never had the opportunity to do.
I sit in the tension of my privilege as a 3rd generation Latina whose first language is English. I struggle to speak Spanish fluently, which leaves me feeling isolated in some Latino circles. I’ve longed to connect with the parts of me that feel so foreign. Assimilation is real, and the pressure to fit into American culture often results in denying one’s cultural heritage.
Finding freedom in my cultural identity, in its totality, has been a journey. It’s been filled with therapy, processing with my close friends and partnering with Jesus to discover the truth of who I am. I heard once at a conference that your culture isn’t a curse, it’s a blessing. Who I am and where I belong isn’t dictated by what others say about me or who they say I am. I am a child of God, and my cultural identity matters to Him. My skin matters to Him, and my native tongue matters to Him. I belong here, and my voice matters.
I think, at our core, we all long to belong. Yet fear tends to divide us. It draws lines and forces us to pick sides. It’s “us versus them”, and those of us with a multicultural identity get caught in the crossfire. Am I Mexican? Am I Puerto Rican? Or am I American? The answer is I am all of it. I am proud of who I am and I am proud of where I came from. I’m proud of this country where I live and I am grateful to call it home.
I have high hopes for our nation and the place we can become. I see a nation that moves forward in love rather than fear, that celebrates diversity rather than denies it. I want our country to be a place of belonging, where people can thrive — people who look like me and people who don’t.
Jasmine Lopez is the founder of The Firehouse Dream, a creative arts healing center located in Maywood, IL. She is passionate about being rooted in our God-given identities and believes everyone’s story matters. She is a mental health advocate and shares her story in hopes of inspiring and encouraging others. Jasmine has been married to her high school sweetheart for 13 years and they have 3 girls: Dakota, Savannah and Emery. Together, they love dance parties, having fun and going to theme parks.
Stories from the Border: Jose
Over the last few weeks the news has been filled with stories of what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many of these realities are not new to our U.S. offices, who regularly work with immigrants and asylum seekers. Our offices provide legal services and vital programming to hundreds holding onto hope for a better future. In this series, Stories from the Border, we’ll be highlighting a few of these brave men and women, and their journey with World Relief.
Jose* was granted asylum in the U.S. after fleeing from Central America. When he first arrived at the local World Relief office in Spokane he was homeless, jobless and struggling to process past trauma and the reasons for leaving his home behind.
In just one year, Jose has learned English, began processing his past through Mental Health assistance, found community and support and was accepted into a year-long job training program.
Because of the World Relief staff, volunteers and church partners, Jose feels empowered to pursue his dream of having a stable and secure life here in the U.S.
Together we’re restoring hope and rebuilding lives for the millions fleeing persecution and violence in search of refuge.
*Name has been changed to protect Jose’s identity.
Dana North serves as the Marketing Manager at World Relief. With a background in graphic design and advertising and experiences in community development and transformation, Dana seeks to use the power of words and action to help create a better world. Dana is especially passionate about seeking justice for women and girls around the world.
Stories from the Border: Josef and Moses
Over the last few weeks the news has been filled with stories of what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many of these realities are not new to our U.S. offices, who regularly work with immigrants and asylum seekers. Our offices provide legal services and vital programming to hundreds holding onto hope for a better future. In this series, Stories from the Border, we’ll be highlighting a few of these brave men and women, and their journey with World Relief.
Josef and Moses* are two young professionals who lived in a small African nation. They worked in government until a change in political leadership put a brutal new leader in power. Not long after the new regime took power, they learned that some of their colleagues and their family members had disappeared. Fearing for their lives and the lives of their own families, the two men fled, leaving behind their homes, belongings and, more importantly, their spouses and children.
Eventually, they ended up in Washington where a friend encouraged them to reach out to World Relief. They were connected to the pastor of an African church who provided them with support and hope. World Relief staff and volunteers helped the men navigate the complex legal process of asylum and transition their education and experience into marketable skills within the local economy.
Today, they are active in the community and looking toward a bright future.
Together we’re restoring hope and rebuilding lives for the millions fleeing persecution and violence in search of refuge.
*Names have been changed to protect the individuals’ identity
Dana North serves as the Marketing Manager at World Relief. With a background in graphic design and advertising and experiences in community development and transformation, Dana seeks to use the power of words and action to help create a better world. Dana is especially passionate about seeking justice for women and girls around the world.
Stories from the Border: Annette
Over the last few weeks the news has been filled with stories of what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many of these realities are not new to our U.S. offices, who regularly work with immigrants and asylum seekers. Our offices provide legal services and vital programming to hundreds holding onto hope for a better future. In this series, Stories from the Border, we’ll be highlighting a few of these brave men and women, and their journey with World Relief.
Annette* is a 57-year-old woman who came to America seeking asylum. When she arrived in the U.S. she was able to find a job but her employer took advantage of her. He paid her so little that she could barely meet her basic needs.
Eventually, she was connected to World Relief and that connection changed her life. She left her exploitative employer and is now earning a living wage. She has earned her driver’s license, enrolled in classes at a local community college and recently, she passed the exam to become a Certified Nursing Assistant.
Annette’s asylum case has still not been approved but she waits in hopeful expectation. Not long ago, she was gifted a car and her joy could not be contained. The car will give her more freedom to pursue her goal of nursing without having to spend time on the bus or money on rideshares. The sense of stability and safety created by the car and consistent employment has filled her with faith as she waits and prays for asylum approval.
Together we’re restoring hope and rebuilding lives for the millions fleeing persecution and violence in search of refuge.
*Name has been changed to protect the individual’s identity.
Dana North serves as the Marketing Manager at World Relief. With a background in graphic design and advertising and experiences in community development and transformation, Dana seeks to use the power of words and action to help create a better world. Dana is especially passionate about seeking justice for women and girls around the world.
Stories from the Border: Marty
Over the last few weeks the news has been filled with stories of what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many of these realities are not new to our U.S. offices, who regularly work with immigrants and asylum seekers. Our offices provide legal services and vital programming to hundreds holding onto hope for a better future. In this series, Stories from the Border, we’ll be highlighting a few of these brave men and women, and their journey with World Relief.
Pastoring and planting churches can be difficult no matter where in the world you live. For Marty, a pastor and church planter in rural Kenya who also runs a non-profit focused on women’s rights, this proved to be true when his ministry became the target for violence and hostility.
Marty was nearly killed because of his work, yet, he persevered and was eventually invited to speak at a Christian conference in the U.S. After the conference, he realized returning to Kenya would be too dangerous and sought asylum in the United States.
For nearly a year, Marty relied on the help and generosity of others for basic needs such as food and housing, while he waited to be granted asylum. The World Relief team in Spokane learned of Marty’s situation and reached out. They helped meet his basic needs and connected him with a welcoming church community who provided much needed social and emotional support.
Marty, who was once alone, unable to return to his home, has found a new life in the U.S. and a safe place to live out God’s call on his life, thanks to his church community and World Relief volunteers.
Together we’re restoring hope and rebuilding lives for the millions fleeing persecution and violence in search of refuge.
Dana North serves as the Marketing Manager at World Relief. With a background in graphic design and advertising and experiences in community development and transformation, Dana seeks to use the power of words and action to help create a better world. Dana is especially passionate about seeking justice for women and girls around the world.
The Potential End to the U.S. Refugee Program Is More than a Political Crisis – It’s an Identity One
America is facing an identity crisis.
It’s a crisis that threatens to undermine an identity painstakingly forged over hundreds of years — years during which America became a haven of hope for those seeking a safer, more promising place to build a future.
The United States recently proposed a plan to effectively eliminate asylum opportunities for those arriving at the U.S. border. Likewise, talks of zeroing out the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. coupled with Ken Cuccinelli’s recent remarks that the Statue of Liberty’s welcoming inscription was directed solely towards “people coming from Europe” and those “who can stand on their own two feet,” mark a clear rejection of the compassionate identity that once distinguished the United States in the world.
A Symbol of Freedom
Few Americans recall the unifying details behind the Statue of Liberty’s creation in 1875. Though France financed the statue, the U.S. agreed to provide the site and build the pedestal. A lack of funds for the pedestal, however, put the project in jeopardy until Joseph Pulitzer started a fundraising campaign. Emma Lazarus’s famous poem welcoming “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” which Cuccinelli referenced, was penned as part of this fundraiser.
More than 120,000 people contributed to the pedestal project, most of them giving less than a dollar. Donors, many of them immigrants themselves, didn’t have much, but they gave what they had to the cause of liberty and inclusion. This legacy continued when President Reagan commissioned Lee Iacocca, then Chairman of Chrysler Corporation and himself a child of immigrants, to raise funds from the public for the restoration of the same statue. Again, the American people contributed hundreds of millions to repair the symbol of freedom.
A Place of Asylum
America has historically viewed itself as both a home for immigrants and a place of asylum. Many of the first American settlers came to escape religious persecution in Europe. In 1776 Thomas Paine argued that America should be a place that embraces the persecuted, explaining that “This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.”
We lived up to this calling during the Cold War, when we admitted over 3 million refugees impacted by Soviet repression, and during the 1960s, we admitted over 14,000 unaccompanied children from Cuba.
In contrast, the times in which our country has excluded immigrants and refugee seekers are among the most shameful in our history. When Nazi racial policies first began expelling non-ethnic Germans, U.S. immigration laws were restrictive, limited by a rigid quota system. As a result, the U.S. turned away the St. Louis, a ship carrying nearly one thousand German Jews, essentially sending them back to die. And when a bipartisan bill requested the admission of 20,000 Jewish child refugees, it didn’t even make it out of committee.
The remorse that ensued haunted our country and was largely responsible for what became the new, more open refugee policies that have rescued thousands from persecution and death around the world since World War II.
Today, we’re being called to defend the cause of liberty and sanctuary again. Refugees and asylum seekers from around the world have long looked to America as a place to raise their families in safety after enduring extreme violence and persecution.
Here’s the problem: As a nation, we’ve been comfortable for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to struggle for necessities like food, clothing, shelter and life. We’ve forgotten that small acts of kindness aren’t small to those in desperate situations. And, most importantly, we’ve forgotten how these acts define us as a nation.
A Nation of Immigrants
We also seem to have forgotten America’s immigrant history. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services recently changed its mission statement to remove a phrase describing America as “a nation of immigrants.” And yet we can’t deny that immigration is woven into the very fabric of our nation. The diversity that has shaped our identity as a “melting pot” has enabled us to assume our place of leadership in the world. More than half of America’s billion-dollar startups, for example, have immigrant founders, and immigrants now create a quarter of new businesses in the U.S. One in eight members of our current Congress are immigrants or children of immigrants, and one in six U.S. health care workers are immigrants.
America has long set the standard of refugee resettlement for the rest of the world. We are not arguing in favor of open borders, but if we close our doors completely to immigrants and refugees, the rest of the world may well follow suit, exacerbating the global crisis and erasing the identity our country has worked so hard to build.
While we cannot take on the responsibility of solving all the world’s problems, we owe it to ourselves, and to all who came before us, to embrace our identity as a nation of immigrants — a nation of hope, safety and refuge. If we don’t, we will lose something inherently American. We will become smaller, not just to those outside our borders but to those inside as well.
We must decide, once again, what kind of people we want to be, and who we will become.
Tim Breene served on the World Relief Board from 2010 to 2015 before assuming the role of CEO from 2016-2020. Tim’s business career has spanned nearly 40 years with organizations like McKinsey, and Accenture where he was the Corporate Development Officer and Founder and Chief Executive of Accenture Interactive. Tim is the co-author of Jumping the S-Curve, published by Harvard Publishing. Tim and his wife Michele, a longtime supporter of World Relief, have a wealth of experience working with Christian leaders in the United States and around the world.
Stories from the Border: Sim
Over the last few weeks the news has been filled with stories of what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many of these realities are not new to our U.S. offices, who regularly work with immigrants and asylum seekers. Our offices provide legal services and vital programming to hundreds holding onto hope for a better future. In this series, Stories from the Border, we’ll be highlighting a few of these brave men and women, and their journey with World Relief.
Sim* arrived at the U.S. Southern border last November. Originally from Belarus, which is a part of the former Soviet Union, Sim had worked in the agri-business industry. His work connected him with people from all over the world. Some of them shared what life was like in their home countries, where people lived in democratic societies and had personal freedoms. This sparked Sim’s imagination. He found others who were covertly talking about democracy and personal freedom in the city where he lived and joined them, dreaming of a reality different from his current experience.
These conversations, however, led to trouble for Sim. In a dictatorship, like the one under which he lived, ideas and talk of democracy are not welcomed, and people who discuss them are considered political dissidents. The government found out about Sim, and listed him as a political enemy. Sim knew he had to flee and used what savings he had to travel West. By the time he got to the U.S.-Mexico. border, his resources were mostly spent. He approached the United States port of entry with hopeful timidity, and presented his legal case for asylum. Sim was detained from December 2018 to May 2019, when his case was finally approved.
Through World Relief’s immigrant integration program, Sim has started rebuilding his life in the U.S. Volunteers have helped him practice English and find appropriate clothing for job interviews. After just a couple of weeks in the U.S., Sim had multiple job offers in hospitality. His English improves daily, and Sim has dreams of utilizing his business and agricultural skills for employment in the future. Though the last year has been difficult, Sim has found support, friendship and hope through volunteers, churches and the staff at World Relief.
Together we’re restoring hope and rebuilding lives for the millions fleeing persecution and violence in search of refuge.
*Name has been changed to protect Sim’s identity
Dana North serves as the Marketing Manager at World Relief. With a background in graphic design and advertising and experiences in community development and transformation, Dana seeks to use the power of words and action to help create a better world. Dana is especially passionate about seeking justice for women and girls around the world.
Your Border Crisis Questions, Answered — Part 2
As the crisis on our southern border continues to grow, the debate around asylum and immigration divides our nation. Whether you know all the heartbreaking details of the situation, or are just now seeking out information, this two-part series will equip you with the facts and figures you need to speak truth and relevancy into the crisis:
PART 2:
What makes someone “illegal”? Are the terms “undocumented” and “illegal” the same?
If an individual either enters the country without inspection, overstays, or violates the terms of a temporary visa, they could be considered unlawfully present or “illegal”. While definitionally correct, a better term to use in reference to these individuals is “undocumented” or “unauthorized.” While a person’s mode of entry may be illegal, that does not define their personhood, any more than someone who speeds on the highway is “an illegal.”
It’s also worth noting that about half of those who are currently unlawfully present in the U.S., including a majority of those who have arrived in recent years originally entered lawfully, on a valid visa. For many undocumented immigrants, the process of becoming ‘undocumented’ happens without their knowledge upon the expiration of their original visa. Even those who have crossed a border unlawfully are explicitly allowed by U.S. law to request asylum at a port of entry. Likewise, most of those crossing the border unlawfully are not trying to evade detention but are, in fact, looking for the Border Patrol to request asylum.
How many immigrants already in the USA are unlawfully present?
The non-partisan organization, Pew Research Center,estimates that there were 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. as of 2017, down from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007. Whereas Mexican nationals were the majority of unauthorized immigrants at that time, they are now in the minority, as the share of unauthorized immigrants from Central American and Asia has increased over the past decade. Two-thirds of these individuals have been in the U.S. for at least ten years. Governmental estimates of the number of unauthorized immigrants are similar to that of Pew: as of 2015, the last date for which they have published data, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimated that there were 12 million immigrants residing unlawfully in the U.S.
Unauthorized individuals today account for roughly one-fourth of all immigrants residing in the U.S., significantly outnumbered by naturalized U.S. citizens.
Are unauthorized immigrants more likely to commit a crime than native born Americans?
No. While some immigrants in the country unlawfully have committed crimes, they actually do so at rates significantly lower than native-born U.S. citizens. One way to measure this is by analyzing incarceration rates: among adults ages 18 to 54, about 0.76% of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. were incarcerated in 2017, compared to about 1.5% of native-born U.S. citizens. That discrepancy is also notable because the share of immigrants who are incarcerated includes asylum seekers and others held in immigration detention facilities, who in many cases have not been charged with any crime at all (unlawful presence in the country is a civil, not criminal, violation of law, though unlawful entry can be a criminal charge).
The fact that immigrants (whether lawfully present or not) are less likely to commit crimes than native-born U.S. citizens is not necessarily evidence that they are more virtuous, but it is important to note that immigrants who commit crimes (even those with legal status) risk deportation if they commit even minor offenses, whereas U.S. citizens risk only the criminal penalties. Therefore, immigrants may have even more motivation to avoid committing crimes than native-born U.S. citizens.
Do immigrants overwhelm our social services and take resources away from U.S. citizens?
Immigrants in the country unlawfully do not qualify for most public benefits, nor do most family-sponsored immigrants in the country lawfully (for the first several years they are in the U.S.) Refugees and individuals granted asylum (but not those with pending cases) generally qualify for the same social services and public benefits as U.S. citizens with the same income levels. And it is worth noting that immigrants, regardless of legal status, have access to public education (kindergarten through 12th grade) and emergency treatment at a hospital, and that certain states provide additional benefits beyond those offered at a federal level.
However, immigrants, whether with or without legal status, are also paying taxes, and most economists believe that they actually contribute more than they receive economically. A survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal, for example, found that 96% of those surveyed believed that the net economic impact of illegal immigration on the United States was positive.
Can you be pro-immigrant without being in favor of open borders?
Absolutely. Our position at World Relief has long been that we should have secure borders; in fact, our government has a responsibility to citizens to do everything reasonably possible to ensure that no one seeking to harm the U.S. is allowed to enter the country. But we can also be pro-immigrant, living into our country’s legacy of welcoming people from throughout the world who want to become Americans. We’ve long championed policies that would make it harder to immigrate unlawfully but easier to immigrate lawfully.a We also support policies that create processes by which those living unlawfully in the U.S. could admit their violation of law, pay an appropriate penalty and then earn the chance to remain lawfully in the United States.
Why do immigrants and asylum seekers need legal representation?
The Immigration & Nationality Act of the United States is incredibly complicated; lawyers have compared immigration law to tax law in terms of complexity. Very few U.S. citizens have a firm grasp on how immigration and asylum law functions, as is the case with most immigrants.
While a good legal representative never coaches a client to say anything other than the truth, they can take the time to hear the client’s full story and help identify elements of their story that are legally relevant. For example, if an asylum seeker asked why he has come to the U.S. responds, “to be with my mother,” that is not a valid reason to request asylum. However, if the young man has also fled political persecution from an authoritarian regime and has evidence verifying the persecution he’s experienced, it’s important that he present this relevant evidence, rather than merely mentioning his desire to be reunited with his mother.
Does legal representation make much different to the outcome of hearings?
Yes. Those represented by legal counsel — by an authorized expert in U.S. immigration law — are understandably far more likely to win their cases. In fact, asylum seekers represented by legal counsel are roughly four times more likely to be granted asylum than those without it.
Asylum seekers, however, are not provided legal representation by the government, so unless they have the financial resources to hire representation, or a pro bono or non-profit legal professional such as World Relief steps in, they must represent themselves in court. Not surprisingly, those representing themselves are far less likely to be approved for asylum.
Why are families being separated at the border?
In 2018, a new “zero tolerance” policy was implemented that required all individuals who crossed the border unlawfully to be charged criminally with unlawful entry. Previously, it was typical for our government to exercise prosecutorial discretion, charging some individuals who crossed unlawfully and not others. Generally, those who were actually looking for the Border Patrol to request asylum were not charged, nor were those accompanied by children, precisely because when a parent is criminally charged, children have to be separated from them. As a result of the zero tolerance policy, everyone, even those accompanied by children, were criminally charged. Children were then separated from their parents, recategorized as “unaccompanied minors” and treated as children who had been apprehended at the border without a parent.
In response to significant outcry over this policy, the president signed an executive order in June 2018 that effectively ended the practice of charging all adults apprehended along the border criminally.
However, some families have continued to be separated along the border, particularly in cases where a grandparent, uncle or aunt is traveling with a child and has no evidence of legal guardianship.
It is also worth noting that children have long been separated from parents when a father or mother is deported, leaving U.S. citizen children behind with a remaining parent. In 2011, under the Obama Administration, roughly 92,000 parents of U.S. citizen children were deported. With threats of significantly increased levels of deportation, the possibility of family separation on a large scale is, again, a very real danger.
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