American Families United to be featured in the NY Times this Sunday Nov 12th

[Randall Emery 0]

The focus of the story is on US citizens who marry people from other countries. My wife and I are one of four couples profiled.

Randall

http://www.americanfamiliesunited.org

[Randall Emery 0]

Immigration, a Love Story

WHEN Kenneth Harrell Jr., an Assemblies of God minister in South Carolina, invited Gricelda Molina to join his Spanish ministry in 2000, it didn’t take him long to realize he had found the woman he had been waiting for. On the telephone and during romantic strolls they talked about their goals, their commitment to God and how many children each would like to have. Six months flew by, and he asked her to marry him.

“She’s a beautiful woman with a beautiful spirit, very gentle, very sincere,” Mr. Harrell said. But Ms. Molina, a factory worker, was also an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, who had crossed into the United States twice, having once been deported. Mr. Harrell, the pastor of Airport Assembly of God church in West Columbia, said he was not too concerned. “Whatever came, we would walk through this path together,” he said.

Mr. Harrell and Ms. Molina, both 35, married in 2001, in a large wedding attended by family from both sides and blessed by pastors in English and Spanish. But the Harrells no longer live together, not because of divorce, but because Mrs. Harrell, now the mother of two sons and four months pregnant with their third child, has been deported. She had applied for legal residency, or a green card, with her new husband as her sponsor, Mr. Harrell said, but she was sent back to Honduras 20 months ago because of her illegal entries and told she would have to wait 10 years to try again.

Full Story here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/fashion/12green.html

[LaL 418]

I wrote to the author. I feel blending legal and consequences for illegal prior presence takes full away from the issue.

Ms. Navarro,

While I so apreciate the light you have brought to the Immigration debale thousands of us are experiencing, I cannot help but be dissapointed again in the "blending" of topics.

Consequences to previous illegal presence does NOT equate to individuals who have gone the legal route. Couples who have filed their paperwork, paid appropriate fees, waited and waited and STILL have a beaurocratic nightmare should NOT have their stories soiled by talking about illegal consequences in the same article.

I have been dealing with USCIS on behalf of my husband for 921 days now, and are still pending status, which essentially IS no status. We went through a lengthy security clearance for my husband prior to his entry to the US and now again, stuck in namecheck stateside. Redundancy? Yes. Typical? Seems so. But we are not dealing with ANY consequences of having prior illegal status.

Just wanted to point out that the general public knows extremely little about the rigors of this process, and it is grossly unfair to present a sympathetic article on legal immigration when including issues that deal with prior illegal presences.

Thank you,

Laura H