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When is Hardship Extreme Enough?

No one would ever claim that our immigration laws were easy these days, even under the best of circumstances. However, when an individual who is a good human…

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No one would ever claim that our immigration laws were easy these days, even under the best of circumstances. However, when an individual who is a good human being has violated our laws USCIS has become increasingly unforgiving. Last Thursday as I sat in a local Philadelphia hospital I was reminded of this and how our immigration policy wreaks havoc on families. I arrived that morning at 8:30 a.m., prepared to keep a promise that I hoped never to have to fulfill: to serve as the birthing coach at the delivery of a client, now a good friend and an almost adopted daughter. She, a naturalized citizen and a tremendous asset to the U.S., had made a fatal mistake: she had fallen in love with a wonderful, caring man from her home country whose immigration history prior to meeting her was one of a series of violations, all committed in an effort to escape the repressive political climate in his home country.

 

In many cases, the immigration law allow for the forgiveness of an individual’s immigration violations through the vehicle of a waiver of excludability if that individual can establish that his spouse would suffer “extreme” hardship if the pardon, the “waiver”, were not granted. Unfortunately, USCIS interprets the word “extreme” to be well beyond what the normal couple would face if they were forever separated and not permitted to live together in the U.S.

After many years of infertility, Miranda and Alex learned that she was, at last, pregnant. The couple’s joy was tempered by the fact that Alex’s lawyer had told him that his case was most probably not winnable because of his past history and the current immigration climate. Still, hope springs eternal so Miranda and Alex prayed and believed that somehow fate would intervene and save Alex from the jaws of deportation. Fate, unfortunately, was not so kind and the very day of Miranda’s amniocentesis Alex was forced to leave the U.S. Miranda, a school teacher, spent summer break with Alex in their home country where he watched their child grow inside of her. At the end of summer, Miranda was forced to return to the States for there was no work in her native country for either her or Alex and she was thus the sole breadwinner. In addition, Miranda, after over 10 years in the U.S., many as a teacher working in our inner city classrooms, no longer was able to cope with the traditional role of a good Moslem wife and felt depressed, cornered and overwhelmed in her native country. Of equal importance, due to the fragile nature of this pregnancy and the lack of adequate health care in her home country, Miranda and Alex could not risk having her give birth to their precious child back home. Thus, Miranda returned to the U.S. in September, with a heavy heart, leaving her husband behind because she had no other true choice.

When she arrived at the hospital on the day of her induced delivery, the nursing staff fired questions at Miranda: Where is your husband? Why is he not here? When is he coming? Their looks and disapproving clucking sounds all through the delivery caused Miranda’s eyes to helplessly well with tears. After 12 hours at the hospital and watching the baby’s heartbeat dip and sometimes disappear altogether from the fetal monitor, the situation worsened:  Miranda was told that a cesarean section might be imminent to protect her health and the health of her unborn child. A series of cell phone and skype calls were placed to Alex, who was frantically sitting, equally helplessly, next to his computer and phone, wanting, with all of his heart, to be at the side of his wife in order to comfort and hold her as she suffered through labor and the uncertainty of a safe delivery. When at last little Ian was born, I and another girlfriend, wrongly, were the ones to hold this miracle baby in our arms, rather than Alex, who longed to share this special, unrepeatable moment with the woman he loved. Ironically, in the room next door Miranda’s best friend was delivering her own child, a little girl. Unlike Miranda, whose own mother had died only three months ago, Linda was surrounded not only by her mother and father but by her husband.

As I left the hospital at 1:30 in the morning the next day, still in awe  over the miracle of birth, I asked myself: How much more extreme must hardship be before USCIS grants Alex’s waiver and allows him to return to his wife and newborn son in the U.S.? Perhaps someone above will hear and grant my one wish for this special Christmas and New Year’s prayer: to reunite this family and put an end to their suffering.

 

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