ALL POSSIBLE RESPONSES TO "THEY SHOULD GET IN LINE AND DO IT THE RIGHT WAY, THE WAY MY FAMILY DID," WITH CITATIONS (ALSO JOKES)
Hello, it's your friendly neighborhood immigration attorney back again to provide you with everything you need the next time someone starts trying to tell you about how their family came "the right way" and anyone who wants to do it like their ancestors did should "get in line." (TL;dr: there's a really good chance that at least some portion of your family came to the U.S. without a visa, and the "right way" from 1790–1965 has nothing to do with how things are done now.)
1/"MY FAMILY DID IT THE RIGHT WAY"
(A) Did your family do it before 1776?
- They didn't "immigrate," they colonized
(B) Did your family do it before 1790?
- Same. And the United States didn't even go to the trouble of defining who was or wasn't a citizen until then.
(C) Did your family do it before 1875?
- The federal government wasn't actually regulating immigration at allbefore that year
- The states were each trying to do it their own way, it was a mess
(D) Did your family do it before 1882?
- If they were Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or from another East Asian country there was no "right way" for them as of 1882. The Chinese Exclusion Act would officially keep those nationalities from immigration and/or gaining citizenship until (on the books at least) 1952.
(E) Did your family do it before 1906?
- There were no records kept of immigrants at the federal level before then(and even barely then), so pretty much anyone* could get themselves in front of a judge and naturalize to citizenship in an hour or two for many years after that based on their word
(F) Did your family do it before 1917?
- This was the first actual serious legislative attempt to screen all* intending immigrants for criminal records, unpopular political beliefs, and other individual traits.
- That was only *carefully checks math* 101 years ago
- Even with these restrictions there was no way to actually confirm identities, criminal histories and/or security threats
- We have really only cared in any even credibly serious way about regulating immigration for a century or so
- Even then no visas were required to come to the U.S. and there was no reliable way to internationally verify identities, criminal histories and/or security threats… so it was basically de facto open borders anyway
(G) Did your family do it before 1921?
- Hey, mine too! And it's a good thing they did because
- That's when national origins quotas were introduced for the first time.
- Again, to be clear: we didn't have any limits whatsoever on how many people from most of the world* could come to the United States before then
(H) Did your family do it before 1924?
- Very lucky for them, because
- IMMIGRANTS DID NOT NEED VISAS TO ENTER THE UNITED STATES BEFORE 1924
- That's the year that Ellis Island closed as a port of entry and immigrants were required to apply for visas at U.S. consulates in their home countries*
- Symbolically, as Ellis Island was closing, Border Patrol was (barely) established and began operations at a time when the country was only finally beginning to notice that it had a southern border.
(I) Did your family do it before 1929?
- Visa quotas tightened again heading into the Depression.
- For context: There were only ~38,000 deportations from the U.S. for the entire decade from 1919–1929.
- This was also the first of several times that Congress would pass a "registry" provision — the earliest and simplest form of "amnesty" which simply allowed anyone who couldn't account for their immigration status but could prove lawful presence for since 1921 to come forward and receive lawful permanent residence.
- Ironically, some of the people most firmly opposed to a path to citizenship for the undocumented on the grounds that "my family did it the right way" may well be U.S. citizens today because of this or one of the several subsequent registry bills.
(J) Did your family do it before 1965?
- Congratulations, your family made it in before the creation of the modern American immigration system.
- It was essentially open borders to other nations in the Western Hemisphere before then, and not all that difficult from Europe either
- Until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, there was a fairly free flow of migrant labor back and forth across the southern border to meet the demands of the agricultural and service industries.
- After 1965, the concept of "undocumented" immigrants was drawn much more sharply, and many more of them were created as Western Hemisphere visas (especially from Mexico) suddenly went from being an unlimited to a far more scarce resource overnight and the border was no longer permeable
- After 1965, the system changed over from a generalized "take a number and wait in line" visa system to one which heavily favored immediate family ties and some (but not most) employment.
(K) Did your family do it before 1997?
- The single biggest change to immigration law after 1965 suddenly left a lotof people ineligible for legal status, and made it much harder for everyone else going forward
(L) Also, and nothing personal here, but are you SURE your family did it the "right way"?
- Seriously, do you have copies of their papers? Are you sure about that? Because
- The "right way" was very often nothing more than going down and registering for citizenship after many years of unlawful (or at least unaccounted-for) presence and
- Even then, the system was rife with fraud and abuse. You might just want to check on that, is all I'm saying here.
- Like all immigrants of his time, President Donald Trump's great-grandfather Frederich came to the U.S. without a visa. Unlike most, he made his fortune doing some things — including running a brothel and a restaurant where gambling was allowed — which would absolutely have gotten him deported and likely barred from re-entry to the U.S. for a long time.
- Census records show that White House chief of staff John Kelly's Italian great-grandfather did not apply for citizenship after decades of living in the U.S., and that he could not read, write, or speak English at least 18 years after he immigrated. (This is, to be clear, not a problem. It's also not John Kelly's fault. But it does make his claims that Latino immigrants can't or won't assimilate in the way that past immigrants have during the Golden Age of open borders that his family was able to benefit from… perhaps somewhat less credible?)
- You can whitewash your own family history all you want, but it's alwaysbeen this way.
(M) THERE IS NO LINE**
2/ "THESE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE JUST GOTTEN IN LINE, AND IF THEY WANT A CHANCE NOW THEY CAN GO TO THE BACK OF THE LINE!"
(A) A line, you say?
- Where is this line
- Where does it start
- How long is it
- Are there bathrooms?
- It seems like maybe there should be bathrooms.
(B) THERE IS NO LINE
- For real, I promise.
3/ "WHATEVER, THEY SHOULD DO IT THE RIGHT WAY AND GET THEIR PAPERS NOW"
(A) Which way is that?
(B) Like, how do you *actually* do it
(C) No, please, go ahead you were saying
- How does it work
- How much does it cost
- What are the exact legal requirements for applying
(D) Which papers?
- What are they
- How long do these papers allow them to stay
- What do they look like
- How does one get them
- What are they called
(E) Did you mean a greencard (aka "lawful permanent residence"), because there are really only a few narrow and often lengthy paths to those as of 2018 and most of them are unavailable to people who have ever been undocumented or out of status, and never would have been available to them before they came here.
- We can debate the merits of how visas should be awarded and how many should be available, but I'm really over doing that with anyone who doesn't take the time to understand the system that we actually have and just wants to keep going on about "the line."
(F) Did you mean citizenship, because immigrants have to have been a greencard holder for at least five years (three if married to a U.S. citizen) before applying, so see above.
- Literally, though, for most of American history anyone present in the country (lawfully or otherwise) just needed to file a simple declaration of intent after two years and appear before a judge to be formally naturalized three years later
- That's just not how it works anymore.
- Any of it.
(G) Do you think it's possible that you've never actually given any serious thought to how the modern American immigration system actually works in practice and have just always assumed that it's something like how it worked at Ellis Island back when your family immigrated — or at the very least had something to do with generally applying for an immigrant visa
- No?
- What if I told you that… it seemed like maybe you hadn't?
- That's totally okay! If you were born here, you've probably just never had to think about it before. I didn't either before I started doing this work.
- And now I get to think about it 24/7, so here we are.
(H) THERE IS NO LINE
3/ "WHY DON'T THEY STOP COMPLAINING AND JUST FILL OUT THE FORMS AND PAY THE FEES"
(A) It's not "complaining."
- It's correctly pointing out that the law does not allow nearly all aspiring immigrants (including those who have been here for many years, have fully complied with all U.S. criminal and tax codes, and have U.S. citizen children) a general path to lawful status or citizenship, and that there was never any such path available to them even if they had tried to come "the right way"
- Even as a significant portion of the native-born US population seems to assume that the law does work this way
- We can certainly discuss the merits of the underlying policy but the non-existence of the general path to citizenship that anyone could have gotten themselves onto if only they had the time/patience/money is not up for debate.
- If you're continuing to argue this point, you are actually worse than a Flat Earther. A flat-earth theorist would have to go to space for definitive proof that the world is round. Immigration laws are public documents that anyone can read.
(B) There are forms, but not for them
(C) There are fees, but not for them
(D) THERE IS NO LINE
4/ "IF DREAMERS WHO CAME TO THE US AS KIDS HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO IT THE RIGHT WAY BY NOW THEY DON'T DESERVE TO BE HERE ANYWAY"
(A) You must know better. You're trolling here, right?
- I really want to believe that you know better
- If you really just stopped and thought about it you'd see the problem with your assumption here
- Like, for real: is this something that you actually believe?
- Why?
(B) There are approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. who would be eligible to gain lawful residency if the DREAM Act passed. Do you actually believe that they all just passed on the chance to regularize their immigration status another way and would instead rather spend years of their lives organizing and fighting for the DREAM Act when they could have just "gotten in line" and "done it the right way"?
- Don't you think they would have already done whatever it took, paid whatever we asked?
- I mean, you would if you were in their situation — right?
- Right.
(C) This is really just an unspeakably ignorant thing to say, and a painful thing for anyone who came to the U.S. as a child who will not be able to stay here without a major change in the law to hear.
- It's like asking a cancer patient if he'd ever considered simply *not having cancer*
- It just makes no sense at all
- Please stop saying it
(D) THERE IS NO LINE
5/ "MY WIFE DID IT THE RIGHT WAY, THEY CAN TOO!"
(A) You, sir, are my favorite.
(B) Marriage to a U.S. citizen is by far the easiest way to immigrate, and it can still be pretty hard
- *Especially* if that U.S. citizen is *you,* bruh
(C) Anyway, if I understand you correctly you're saying that anyone who wants legal status in the U.S. should… marry you.
- That might take awhile?
(D) Uggggggh and there is *such* an easy joke here
- Would you like me to make that joke?
- Would you *really,* though
- Well you literally asked for it, so:
- Like so many immigrants willing to do whatever it takes to stay in this country, your wife is doing a job that no American would do
- This post will be here anytime and you are welcome to read the rest while you make your recovery in the burn unit
(D) THERE IS NO LINE
6/"THEIR EMPLOYERS COULD JUST SPONSOR THEM FOR WORK VISAS"
(A) Probably not.
(B) At least not in any permanent way that would put them on a path to citizenship.
(C) I have met dozens of American employers who would do nearly anything to keep their best employees on in jobs that they haven't been able to get American workers to stay in, and have had to tell them that this is almost certainly not going to be possible
(D) This is complicated, and a lot more than I'm going to be able to get into an already-very-lengthy post
(E) But *very* generally: Unless they meet certain qualifications to fall within a partial (but still very difficult) amnesty program which ended on April 30, 2001, anyone who has ever entered the U.S. without inspection, had any period of unlawful presence, worked while on a tourist visa, and/or previously overstayed a visa is almost certainly either not going to be able to get any employment-based visa which might otherwise be available to them or is going to have a very long road ahead of them.
- Fun fact: Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted in his autobiography well after he had become a citizen that he worked as a professional bodybuilder in California while visiting the US on a tourist visa. Given that he had to lie about this fact to obtain residency and citizenship, he should now be subject to denaturalization by the tough new terms recently announced by the Trump administration.
- Also almost certainly in this category: Melania Trump.
- I absolutely don't actually want to see either of them lose their citizenship. Just making a point here.
(F) THERE IS NO LINE
7/"ANY UNDOCUMENTED PERSON COULD JUST HIRE A LAWYER AND GET THEIR PAPERS"
(A) That… would be me. Hi.
- Like, literally this is all I do
- I'm sitting in my office right now writing this
- It's 11 PM on a Saturday
(B) Any immigration lawyer who is practicing honestly (by no means assumed!) has to turn away *nearly all* of their general-inquiry "I'm ready to get started on the process for getting a greencard now!" consultations
- If I could actually take on the cases of everyone I meet who wanted some form of legal status, I'd be making actual lawyer money
- We all would
- We're not
- There would also be many more practicing immigration lawyers to handle all of that demand
- There aren't
(C) THERE IS NO LINE
8/"BUT I KNOW A GUY WHO GOT A LAWYER, WAITED IN LINE, AND DID IT THE RIGHT WAY"
(A) Good for him!
(B) Every individual immigration scenario is *totally different* and immigration is one of the most complex and constantly-changing fields of American law there is.
(C) Some people now seeking status can still benefit from older lawswhich were far more (to paraphrase JFK) generous, fair, and flexible
(D) Your "friend" almost certainly either:
- Received a visa through parents, siblings, a spouse, or the asylum process
- Came to the U.S. decades ago and benefited from one of the many immigration amnesty (and quasi-amnesty) programs introduced since the first major modern immigration amnesty (under Reagan in 1986) since the original "registry" provisions of earlier laws
- Doesn't exist
(D) THERE IS NO LINE
9/"ARE YOU SERIOUSLY DEFENDING PEOPLE WHO CAME TO THE UNITED STATES WITHOUT A VISA?"
(A) Well, yes. That's my *actual job*
- But that's not the point
(B) The point is that if you are a third (and, in many cases, second) generation American your family almost certainly didn't come with a visa.
- And even if they did, before 1965 it was as simple as applying for and receiving one from the general pool of available visas from your country when your number was up.
- Either way, all of this was so totally different from today's system that "my family did it the right way" as a response to those who came without inspection or overstayed their visas as if that ends the argument is… not helpful.
- Imagine bragging that "My family has been using iPhones for four generations!"
- Or "My family in the U.S. goes back to the Mayflower, and we've always paid our income taxes every generation since then" (there was no annual federal income tax until 1913)
- Or "After extensive genealogical research going back to 1636, I am proud to announce that *none* of my ancestors were *ever* convicted of carjacking!"
- To anyone who knows anything about the actual history of U.S. immigration law and policy, that's pretty much what "my family did it the right way, why can't these people?" sounds like.
(C)There are serious, adult conversations to be had about immigration policy, and I'm always down to have them.
- It is not at all necessarily racist, bigoted, or xenophobic to want to consider different policies which would regulate how many people should be allowed to come to the U.S. each year, and to debate what should disqualify applicants from a visa.
- Like every public policy issue, there is certainly a reasonable range of opinion to be had here and so long as your arguments aren't based (explicitly or implicity) in prejudice against race, religion, or national origin I'm here for that.
(D) But it's just extremely unhelpful to bring up your family's immigration history as some kind of argument-ending objective fact to demonstrate that your family was better or more law-abiding than today's immigrants.
- Seriously, it just makes no sense at all, and I would be very happy if everything I just wrote above convinced even one person to stop doing it.
(E) THERE IS NO LINE
*MAJOR AND VERY IMPORTANT CAVEAT: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other East Asian immigrants were excluded from immigrating to the U.S. as of 1882 and had to fight every step of the way to gain immigration equality until the law barring them from visas was formally repealed in 1952. I have purposely geared this post toward white European immigrants, as those are somehow almost universally where families of people who insist that their families "did it the right way" came from. (This caveat applies to anything marked with a single asterisk.)
**To be clear, because I'm going to be saying this a lot here: there are waiting times for many different types of visas, but these visas generally are are far less available than the general public seems to believe and there is no general visa application process for anyone who wants to apply (no matter their individual merit, ties to the U.S., or other favorable factors) and no "line" for them to wait in.
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