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 [转帖]Is America shutting the door on expats? |
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cbp
头衔: 海归少校
声望: 学员
性别: 
加入时间: 2005/02/12
文章: 768
来自: 加拿大
海归分: 11291
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作者：cbp 在 投资移民 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
Is America shutting the door on expats?
After an eight-year battle to become a US citizen, London-born Sebastian Doggart looks at how the Obama administration has tightened the defences of Fortress America
A surveillance tower stands on the American side of the border fence that separates the United States from Mexico Photo: Sipa Press/Rex Features
9:49AM GMT 18 Jan 20128 Comments
I was sworn in as an American citizen in November 2008, just too late to be able to vote in the presidential election that swept Barack Obama to power. I was as aware then as I am now that I was one of the lucky ones. There are between 11 and 18 million people living in America without a visa or passport, most of them deprived of health care and education, all of them living in fear of being torn from their homes and manhandled back to their birth countries. I hoped that Bush’s departure would herald a kinder, gentler era in American immigration.
Obama promised whole-scale immigration reform in his electoral campaign. Once in office, he introduced only a modest proposal, known as the "Dream Act" that would allow illegal immigrants who had entered the country as children to attend university. In 2010, the bill failed to garner even enough votes in the US Senate to bring it to the floor for debate.
“This should have been an uncontroversial law,” my immigration attorney Ralph Ehrenpreis told me. “But it’s now all but impossible to pass new legislation. When you ask an average American what they think about immigration, they don’t think about the skilled workers who build hi-tech companies, or those who make medical breakthroughs. They think of the masses that come in illegally. They think of the laws that allowed the 9/11 terrorists in on student visas. As a result, no politician wants to look soft on immigration.”
Although five Democratic senators voted against the Dream Act, the "war on immigration" has been most forcefully waged by Republicans, whose congressmen have countered Obama’s “yes we can” with their very own “no you can’t”. They compete feverishly on how to keep out the huddled masses, as demonstrated by the recent debates between Republican presidential candidates. When Newt Gingrich proposed that “illegal aliens” should be incorporated into American society, his rivals jumped down his throat. Mitt Romney pledged to build a wall down all 1,969 miles of the border with Mexico. Herman Cain trumped him by promising an electrified fence that would kill any “alien” who touches it.
Obama has been as unwilling to attack the Republicans’ jingoism as he has been incapable of overcoming their obstructionism. As a result, his administration has made things harder for immigrants than under Bush. The clearest evidence of this is that the pace of deportations has increased dramatically. Over one million non-Americans have been “removed” over the three years of Obama’s presidency, compared with 1.57 million during Bush’s entire eight years in office.
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Supporters of this policy say it is necessary to protect the homeland because of harsh demographic and economic realities. According to the Census Bureau, the US population will grow from 281 million in 2000 to 397 million in 2050 with immigration, but will rise only to 328 million with no immigration. With resources stretched already, this argument goes, we have to recognise America has already reached saturation point.
The motive for treating immigrants like cockroaches on a wedding cake is not just ideological, it’s also financial. Locking up and deporting non-Americans is a lucrative business. The US spends $1.8bn a year in immigration detention. According to the National Immigration Forum, every individual who goes through the deportation process costs the US taxpayer $23,000. On any given day, some 30,000 “illegal aliens” are in custody, at least half of whom are held in privately run prisons that have been popping up along the Mexican border. For the biggest private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the Obama Administration’s detain-and-deport policy has been a godsend. Its stock price increased from $9.80 three months after Obama’s inauguration, to $22.64 today. In return, the Tennessee-based firm has spent at least $19mn to lobby federal officials, and make campaign donations to friendly congressmen.
The influence of corporations like the CCA on creating the law of the land is far greater in the US than it is in the UK. A recent TV documentary, Billions Behind Bars, revealed that the CCA has actually drafted legislation for politicians in border states, including a law in Arizona that allows the police to stop and detain people on suspicion of being Mexican.
The Obama administration has overseen an escalation of America’s greenbacks-for-Green-Cards policy. These visas are called EB5s, and getting them has become a whole lot easier recently. Their cost has dropped from $1million to $500,000. The requirement that an EB5 investor should employ at least 10 workers is rarely enforced. EB5s have been used to refinance troubled schemes, including, in my own neighbourhood of Brooklyn, the blighted Atlantic Yards project. The subject of a powerful, new documentary called Battle for Brooklyn, this highly controversial scheme was backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and sought to evict local residents to build high-rise buildings and a new stadium for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. When financing dried up after the 2008 financial crisis, developer Bruce Ratner had to find new financial instruments to pay for construction. These included raising $249 million from 498 investors, mostly from China and South Korea, in exchange for EB5 Green Cards, as well as the sale of the Nets to Russian oligarch and presidential candidate, Mikhail Prokhorov.
For anyone not in the one per cent, the locks on the gates to America have been fortified. Expensive and cumbersome rules have been introduced for student visas, which are sparingly granted. Overstaying such a visa results in immediate deportation. This causes heartbreaking dislocations. One such tragedy is dramatised in the new romantic drama Like Crazy, released in the UK next month, where a British college student embarks on a passionate love affair with an American classmate, causing her to stay in California a few days longer than her visa permitted. When she tries to return to her boyfriend’s arms in the US, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (aptly abbreviated ICE) denies her re-entry, orders her never to return, and plonks her on the next plane back to Blighty. Without spoiling the plot, neither transcontinental lover ends up a big fan of ICE.
Even worse, the US government has reneged on its own promises to issue visas. Most egregiously, a number of Iraqi translators, who risked their lives working for the US military, with the incentive of a Green Card at the end of their service, have subsequently been denied residency. That was the case for Saman Kareem Ahmad, who received commendations for bravery and hard work from numerous colleagues, including then-Major General David Petraeus. After four years dealing with neighbours’ death threats, Ahmad was allowed to travel to the US, along with 50 other Iraqi translators, on a temporary visa. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services then turned down his application for a Green Card on the grounds that he had once been a part of an “undesignated terrorist organisation”, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) – even though the KDP helped US forces to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and now holds seats in the Iraqi parliament.
The story that has affected me most personally concerns a friend and colleague, Ling. A native of Singapore, she worked on the post-production of two of my films, which helped her to secure an H1-B visa. In October of last year, she returned to Singapore to visit her parents for 10 days, and have her visa renewed. An interview at the US Embassy led an unnamed official to question her visa status, without saying what her concerns were. Ling would not be allowed to return to the US until these unspecified fears were allayed. No timetable was given as to when she would hear from them again. Meantime, Ling was paying rent on an apartment in Queens; she had a hard-won job, on which she had paid heaps of taxes to the US government, that was now jeopardised; and she had friends in New York. Her life in America had been indefinitely frozen. Our film could not be finished without her.
Ling emailed me from Singapore: “It’s really inhumane to subject people to such emotional torture with no progress updates. To put people in a 'country-arrest’ situation indefinitely, to pull people out of their routine lives by surprise, is just so wrong for a country that has been invading/fighting in other countries based on human rights. It’s just so hypocritical for a country that is basically made up of immigrants… I thought Singapore is the only country that does guilty unless proven innocent. I guess the US is no different… No wonder there are so many illegal immigrants because nobody dares ever venture out of the US after entering it, because you never know what's going to happen when you leave. It feels like an entrapment because there are no criteria to go by, no progress, no update, no warning, no rules, no standards…. no nothing. I can't even imagine what it’s like for people who have kids and family. I shudder at the thought of that.”
I appealed to Ralph, our immigration attorney, to help Ling. We both wrote letters to the US consulate, but have received no reply. I cursed both the US Consulate in Singapore and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, but Ralph told me they were not entirely to blame. “These are agencies that are understaffed and inundated with individuals wanting immigration benefits. They become hardened. Institutionally, they have no leeway to be charitable when it comes to adjudications. Occasionally, they can grant 'humanitarian parole’, but they have to obey the law. Congress makes the laws, so they’re the ones to blame.”
Ling is lucky to have an attorney representing her. Most immigrants can’t afford one.
In all this darkness, there are a few points of light for wannabe expats in America. Draconian rules that once penalised immigrants for sickness have been relaxed. If an American spouse dies during a Green Card or naturalisation application, the would-be immigrant no longer has to start the process again, but can continue as if the spouse were still alive. HIV-positive applicants are also no longer excluded, as long as they can show proof of medical insurance, or the resources to pay for anti-retroviral drugs.
If you’re Australian, you’re also more welcome in American than ever before. Australia is the only country that has provided material support to the USA in all its wars over the last century. In 2005, the US expressed its gratitude by creating a visa especially for Australians, the E3 visa, which annually allows 10,500 Aussies, plus their spouses, to come to the US for at least two years.
More good news: detentions of Mexicans on the border are now at their lowest level in 40 years. But this is not a reflection of the successful border patrols; it’s because the US economy is so bad that job opportunities are better in Mexico. This reversal of fortune calls to mind a blissful scene in the disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow, where a sudden ice age in the northern hemisphere prompts Americans to flee for the Mexican border, only to find the fence that they themselves erected firmly closed.
Immigration problems have been a cash-cow for immigration attorneys like Ralph Ehrenpreis, the midwife of my US citizenship, whom I have learned to like and respect over the 10 years since I have known him. I asked him recently how he felt about his job. “Most lawyers deal with the worst parts of life,” he reflected, “people suing each other, criminals, divorces, fighting over corporations. But immigration is inherently positive. It allows people to start over, it encourages ambition and confidence. I love watching people found new ventures, become successful. I sit here at my desk and the world comes to me, London, Tokyo, Cape Town. I love the people I meet, and I love it when I hear them thank me for what I’ve done for them.”
Still, Ralph believes the prospects are bleak for the immigration system in America. “It’s really broken,” he says. “We need a responsible, rational Congress to encourage artistic activity, and high-skilled industry, but the Republicans consider anything favourable to immigrants as an invitation to terrorism. So there’s not much hope on the horizon.”
Ironically, the best prospect for immigration reform may lie in the hands of a Republican, the party’s probable presidential candidate Mitt Romney. On the campaign trail, he’s had to appease his right wing by strongly opposing any amnesty for “illegal aliens” living in the US. But Romney, whose father was born in Mexico, recently said he has a “plan in mind” to simplify the immigration system. To avoid alienating hard-liners, Romney will wait to unveil this plan until after he is confirmed as the Republican candidate. If he then wins the White House in November, and if Republicans secure a majority in Congress, President Romney has more likelihood of negotiating new legislation than a “Kenyan communist” like Barack Hussein Obama.
Perhaps the most frightening representation of the future of US immigration can be seen in the blueprint for the new US Embassy in London. Building is due to begin next year, at an estimated cost of one billion dollars, on the banks of the River Thames in Wandsworth. At first glance, the planned building – a 12-storey glass cube, surrounded by 30 metres of water and landscaping features – looks bright and accessible. Its chief architect, James Timberlake calls it a "open and welcoming [with] no fences and walls... a beacon of democracy – light filled and light emitting.” He could be describing the Statue of Liberty herself.
But look closer, especially via this street-side view, and the edifice starts to resemble what US immigration itself has become – impregnable, opaque, prickly, isolated. The central building looks like a medieval keep, protected from the main road by a moat-like stretch of water. The glass is all blast-proof. When the Embassy finally opens, in 2017, I would not be at all surprised to see a quote from Nancy Mitford inscribed in the entrance hallway of this perfect incarnation of Fortress America: “Abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends”.
My two-year-old son and I recently returned to the same District Court room where I was sworn in as a US citizen in 2008. We were there to support a family friend, Lynne Stewart. Lynne was a lawyer who devoted her career to representing poor defendants, many of whom were immigrants. In 1994, Lynne agreed to represent Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric convicted of planning attacks on New York. After her prison visits to Rahman, she broke a pledge to the US authorities not to publicise any of his statements, and issued a press release about Rahman’s views.
The US Attorney went after Lynne, using wiretaps, hidden cameras and some “special administrative measures” that were cooked up in the 1990s to prevent gang leaders and mafia bosses from communicating with their underlings. Lynne was prosecuted and convicted of “conspiracy”, “providing material support to terrorists”, and “defrauding the US Government”. In 2005, a judge sentenced her to 28 months in prison. That was bad enough, but the prosecutors appealed the sentence, arguing that she had perjured herself in the trial, and had “failed to show sufficient remorse”. In order to deter other attorneys from doing anything similar, the US Attorney argued, this 71-year-old grandmother should be locked up in federal jail for at least 30 years.
My son and I watched, along with Lynne’s husband, children and grandchildren, as a weary lady who had spent her life fighting for the underdog pleaded for clemency on the grounds that she had already been disbarred and had spent six months in jail. Horrified, we listened as the judge ignored her call for the mercy of a non-custodial sentence, and sent her to jail for 10 years. Suffering from cancer, Lynne is unlikely ever to come home. The Christmas card that arrived at our home last month, addressed from a federal prison in Texas, is all the communication we now have with her.
Watching Lynne being led away to prison reminded me of the naturalisation oath I had made in the same room, two years previously, to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
The laws I had just seen perverted, like the torture, civil rights abuses and xenophobia I had discovered over my 10 years living in America, did not belong to the nation I had once imagined I was joining. I loved much about this country, especially its fascinating and welcoming peoples, but I fantasised of doing exactly what the authorities most feared from its new immigrants: overthrowing the US government.
Now, as I look at the blue passport that I spent eight years and $10,000 winning, I see only a booklet of tragic fraud. And I wonder: was it all worth it?
If you really want to move to the US, you can find out more about applying for visas here www.unitedstatesvisa.gov
Telegraph readers also receive a free phone consultation on US immigration with Ralph Ehrenpreis. Call + 1 310 553 6600 or email [email protected]
作者：cbp 在 投资移民 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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