By Robert J. King
Faculty Member, Religious Studies, American Military University
I met a young Hungarian woman at a hotel in Miami Beach several years ago. She was a recent international exchange worker in Connecticut who was on vacation prior to her return to Munich, Germany.
During our conversation, she told me that she had been denied a travel visa after her temporary work visa had expired. The U.S. Consulate in Munich had denied her renewal request because there were only 3,000 euros in her mother’s bank account. No matter that her father was a professor and a former Hungarian Freedom Fighter who fought in the 1956 Revolution against the invasion of Soviet-backed forces. Emails to the U.S. Consulate in Munich, to Florida Governor Rick Scott and follow-up correspondence, all proved to be of no avail.
Last year, with a new 10-year renewable travel visa in hand, this youngest daughter of a Hungarian Freedom Fighter professor is now a budding documentary filmmaker with established, but tentative roots in a country she has grown to love. I say tentative because immigration policy bars her from working in the U.S. Without the support of her Congressman, Charlie Crist, she could be deported if her paperwork is not in order.
No drug cartel connections. No Dreamer act anchor babies. No attempts to break the law by entering or staying illegally.
I Am Reminded How Complex Issues Such as Immigration Reform Are
Reflecting upon my friend’s story (and stories similar to hers) I am reminded of how complex issues such as immigration reform can easily be reduced to sound bites calling for blunt enforcement of border security law as it is written (as expressed by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen).
As Nielsen adroitly points out, asylum seekers are a different category than either the perpetrators or victims of human trafficking. Similarly, those who commit criminal acts, even if they are U.S. citizens and the parents of illegal immigrant children, would be separated from their children when they went to prison.
Thus, when viewed more holistically, is the immigration reform debate about paths to citizenship, enforcement of existing laws, protection of the sovereign borders of the U.S., or is the debate about something entirely different?
For example, if financial litmus tests are used to determine who may enter the United States, whether from the former Soviet bloc or from other regions marked by extreme poverty, has the United States become a functional oligarchy no longer rooted in free market equal opportunity? Or has the U.S. instead become ensconced in the same rigid class structures of old Europe and Asia that resulted in the communist purges of the 20th century?
Securing the U.S.-Mexico Border Is Essential in Stemming Narcotics and Human Trafficking
Securing the U.S.-Mexico border is essential in stemming the tide of both narcotics and human trafficking. But, in doing so with such extreme due diligence on all applicants at the border, perhaps other issues such as geo-political zones and the potential assets of the applicants might be overlooked. As my Hungarian friend’s own story has demonstrated, when complex life stories are reduced to several lines on an immigration form, the unique tapestry of the United States might lose a valuable strand.
Thankfully, many individuals in the U.S., including a retired military intelligence colonel and a curator at the Florida Holocaust Museum, have taken an interest in her story. So, perhaps, humane aspects of the immigration debate will not be lost as many within the European Union demonstrate to the U.S. that immigration and border enforcement involve more than simply securing a border.
U.S. immigration reform should provide entry for honest, hard-working immigrants to stay legally with financial means gained through legal employment. That will prove to all that what the U.S. protects is equal opportunity for all. My hope is that such free market considerations will be included in upcoming congressional debates on U.S. immigration reform.
About the Author
Robert J. King is a member of the Religion Faculty at American Military University. He spent seven months studying the refugee crisis in Germany. King received a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology from Duke University, and has completed Ph.D. studies at Notre Dame. He received two NEH research grants to study U.S. labor history and military veteran underemployment (presented at Harvard).