Immigration reform: Put people above bureaucracies
The U.S. evacuation effort in Afghanistan wasn’t a total failure; we rescued many vulnerable Afghans, including a significant number of those who served our armed forces as translators and local allies.
But we left behind far too many others, and maybe even the majority of our Afghan allies.
What went wrong? Why couldn’t America, with all of its expertise, resources and power evacuate known allies from a foreign country? What does our failure in Afghanistan reveal about our immigration system?
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As a Christian, I think these questions need to be asked. I believe that every human being is made in the image of God and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. If our government is failing to treat people humanely, we need to get to the bottom of it. A broken immigration system isn’t just a political problem, but a moral problem as well
At the heart of the Afghanistan crisis was a bureaucracy that put outdated, clunky processes before people. Afghans at risk of persecution because of their service to the U.S. military or other parts of the U.S. mission qualified to apply for a Special Immigrant Visa. The evacuation should have been a relatively simple matter of processing Afghans through our immigration system. We may have needed to work hard, but it’s work that we should have been able to do.
Unfortunately, that simply wasn’t the case.
In hindsight, the dysfunction should have been more obvious going into the Afghanistan crisis. Even though the law requires that Special Immigrant Visas be processed within nine months, nearly endless bureaucratic delays regularly lead to applications taking three or more years to be approved. In times of urgency, this kind of unpredictable lag in the process would obviously cost lives.
Why didn’t and why doesn’t our system work more efficiently? Some of the most common delays are the result of our technically complex and outdated immigration processes. Our immigration system is stuck in 1965, when the backbone of our current immigration legal framework came into effect. That’s why we still have no option for an online application or remote interview for Special Immigrant Visa applicants.
But other delays are frequently the product of political ill-will; a former Trump administration official has already gone on the record saying that the Trump administration intentionally slowed down the approval process. Our system is ostensibly neutral; in practice, it’s subject to partisan manipulation.
But here’s the thing: the backlogs, delays and political confusion that were on display regarding Afghan immigrants is actually emblematic of how our immigration system works more broadly. Aspects of our immigration system remain completely broken, yet we struggle politically to even get immigration reform on the table. While the consequences of this dysfunction are not always life or death, they are still very profound.
Consider the example of Edilsa, a member of my church in Austin, Texas. Her ability to work and reside lawfully in the United States is dependent upon the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Edilsa did everything that was asked of her by our immigration system, including paying a hefty fee, completing her DACA renewal application and showing up in person for her lengthy biometrics appointment. But, ultimately, none of that mattered.
Delays at USCIS, the government’s immigration agency, caused her work authorization to lapse in spite of what she had done. Her employer, following the letter of the law, had to let her go. Now, this ambitious University of Texas graduate is unable to work lawfully; she will struggle to pay off her student loans, cover her rent or even just help support her family — all because of a dysfunctional immigration system that puts process and bureaucracy over people.
It should be absolutely maddening to every American that people who have followed the rules and done everything in their power to jump our government’s arbitrary and confusing hoops could still end up in trouble because of some minor technicality or some unavoidable bureaucratic delay.
We need our elected officials to lead the way in finally reforming immigration laws — including a permanent path to legal status and citizenship for Dreamers like Edilsa who live in constant bureaucratic torment. But we also need extensive reforms to the Special Immigrant Visa system, and really our immigration system as a whole. Our processes are dysfunctional because of the choices we make, or refuse to make, about funding, accountability, modernization and oversight. If we start to put people first, recognizing each one as made in God’s image, we can have a system that works when we need it to.
Aaron Reyes is pastor of Hope Community Church in Austin, Texas.
