The Messy Truth about Immigration

Being a member of an immigrant family in the United States is often politically challenging. Especially when you are an Indian immigrant. Unlike previous waves of immigration to the United States, most Indian immigrants came here voluntarily. They were not forced by communal strife, famines or violence. Due to these circumstances, a majority of Indian immigrants fall into the “skilled worker” category of the Department of Homeland Security. Reading these seemingly irrelevant details, one may ask, how does it matter?

Even though my family has been in this country for six years, paid taxes, contributed to American society in numerous ways, we are still on the path to a green card. The immigration system is awfully slow for legal immigrants like us. The green card may take 3 years to arrive after which citizenship will take another 5 years. This translates to three years of me being barred from working or doing internships and eight years of me not voting for a country which I call home.

However, the interesting bit is that illegal immigrants can obtain these documents much faster than we can. Now don’t get me wrong, I am a supporter of asylum seekers and peoples from troubled countries, but what I cannot stand for is the outright discrimination against tax-paying, law-abiding, and qualified legal immigrants. This often puts me at odds with my fellow Democrats. They see this as an attack on illegal immigrants, but, in truth, it is anything but an attack. Rather, it is a defense of legal immigrants. I am not saying that illegal immigrants should be disadvantages, but instead, legal immigrants with notable contributions to society should be honoured for what they are. Interestingly, most Democrats ignore legal immigration. This is simply to gain political mileage. For this reason, many legal immigrants detest the Democratic Party, but personally, I have stuck with them for their ideals. Nevertheless, if the Democrats don’t act soon to pay attention to legal immigration, I am afraid that even liberals like me will be forced to possibly switch sides.