Today I had an experience that every adult U.S. citizen should be made to undergo.<\/p>\n
Gathered in a university cafeteria with a large group of students and community members, I was paired up with a young social work student and given a folder. It contained our names \u2013 Luc\u00eda and Juana Delgadillo \u2013 and information about us: I was Juana, a 16-year-old U.S. citizen trying to help my 20-year-old sister Juana, who had been brought by our parents to the U.S. at the age of four, get legal status. We then entered a Kafka-esque\u00a0network of people representing various aspects of the US immigration system: immigration officials, attorneys, judges, translators, smugglers and con artists. Our goal was to obtain US citizenship within eighteen years (in the simulation, each year was represented by six minutes).<\/p>\n
Beginning the simulation, I studied the background information on the characters we were playing. It suggested two options. The first was for my \u00a8sister\u00a8 to apply for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). This would not lead to permanent residency or citizenship, but it would allow her to gain a renewable work permit (valid for two years) and social security number. The second was to wait until turning 21 to petition for her (with a form called I-130, Petition for Alien Relative), a process that would take at least eighteen years before getting permanent residency and an an additional five after that for getting citizenship. Thus, given that the simulation only represented eighteen years in total, there was no way for the two of us to win this game.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I started the simulation with a certain amount of optimism. Like Sarah in the cult classic Jim Henson film Labyrinth<\/i>, I studied the maze before me and hoped for a Hollywood ending. \u00a8It can\u2019t be that hard,\u00a8 I thought. I immediately accompanied \u00a8Juana\u00a8 to a nonprofit lawyer, who charged us a $30 to fill the documents out for us. We then got in line for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. After a wait in which at least one year passed, we were informed that we were missing documents \u2013 I needed Juana\u2019s birth certificate \u2013 and sent off to get them. And thus began a wild journey of going from one office or agency to another, constantly receiving incomplete information, being attended to by overworked, disengaged officials, and constantly fearing a run-in with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). <\/span><\/p>\n Eventually, my \u00a8sister\u00a8 was indeed deported, and I was left feeling a deep sense of despair. \u00a8She hasn\u2019t been to Guatemala since she was four,\u00a8 I thought. \u00a8She doesn\u2019t even speak Spanish\u2026How will she survive?\u00a8 Initially, I tried to petition for her, but the game was nearly finished, and in my desperation I ended up hiring a coyote to smuggle her back \u2013 an act that I later learned amounted to a felony.<\/p>\n Even though it was only a game, the sorrow and desperation I felt was real \u2013 which was, of course, the whole point of this activity. As the immigration debate rages in the U.S., we hear many voices condemning \u00a8illegals\u00a8 and declaring \u00a8they should just get in line.\u00a8 I am quite certain that the vast majority of Americans have no idea how the U.S. immigration system works, how long the process takes, how hard it is to navigate, and how tempting it is to give up (the student playing my sister said that if she\u2019d been going through the process without me, she would have stopped playing after the first time her DACA request was denied)<\/p>\n My sense of bewilderment only increased when, upon finishing the game, those few of us who\u2019d managed to pass the citizenship test were sworn in as U.S. citizens. I shuddered as I heard the oath they were made to take:<\/p>\n I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A chill ran through me, as I\u2019d actually never heard this oath spoken. \u00a8Renounce and abjure all allegiance to any foreign state?\u00a8 Really? Does this mean that newly naturalized US citizens must give up all emotional ties to their country of origin? What if their families still live there? What does it mean to \u00a8bear true faith and allegiance\u00a8 to the US? What does such a statement mean for me, a U.S. born citizen? What about my ethnic heritage? I felt vaguely queasy and briefly wondered if my anarchist friends -who declare governmental authority to be a lie we\u2019ve bought into \u2013 might actually be right after all.<\/p>\n I seriously wish that every U.S. citizen I know \u2013 regardless of ideology, profession, socioeconomic status, or background \u2013 could engage in the simulation I was so fortunate to participate in today. If we all knew just how harsh, convoluted and dysfunctional our immigration system is, we\u2019d have a different collective attitude, and most likely a different country.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I had an experience that every adult U.S. citizen should be made to undergo. Gathered in a university cafeteria with a large group of students and community members, I was paired up with a young social work student and given a folder. It contained our names \u2013 Luc\u00eda and Juana Delgadillo \u2013 and information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2933,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1121,52,1],"tags":[1697],"class_list":["post-30083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-consistent-ethic-of-life","category-immigration","category-uncategorized","tag-undocumented-immigrants"],"yoast_head":"\n