We recently learned that U.S. immigration policy is, in fact, capable of fast action and flexibility. It just depends on who the immigrant is. In December Congress speedily passed special immigration legislation to benefit just one person: an ice dancer. As a Canadian, she couldn’t join the 2006 U.S. Olympics team. But a law was written that lasted exactly two days, long enough for her to be fast-tracked for citizenship and sent to compete for the United States.
Perhaps Teresa’s biggest crime is being a 14-year-old from Guinea. She can’t skate, and she’s not White, so of course no one’s going to pass a law for her. In this case, it’s good to be Tanith Belbin, a strikingly beautiful and impressively talented and graceful Canadian ice dancer. So who’s going to say that there are no double standards at work here? I’m not blaming Belbin, who’s simply the beneficiary of a miscarriage of justice, but someone’s priorities are horribly out of whack.
No, it’s not Belbin’s fault that she’s stunning, White, and fabulously talented. If immigration laws can be bent for her, though, then why not for a family looking to regroup after fleeing the ravages of war and genocide?
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…just as long as they can skate….
Around the same time, we at the Safe Harbor Project at Brooklyn Law School received notice that the U.S. immigration system had denied entry to Teresa, a 14-year-old African girl who has been stranded as a refugee in Guinea almost all her life. She is trying to join her adoptive mother, Momara (no real names are used here, as is generally practiced with asylum), a refugee from Sierra Leone who was granted asylum in the United States. But in this girl’s case, there is no fast track, only the rigid application of a procedural rule….
The law permits immediate relatives of refugees — spouses and biological and adopted children — to come to the United States. Momara’s three biological children were recently granted derivative asylum and are waiting for visas. But Teresa is another story. Since she is not Momara’s biological child, she can qualify for a visa only with proof that she is adopted. The Department of Homeland Security denied her application because she does not have an “official adoption decree” from Sierra Leone.
As Momara’s lawyers, we explained to DHS that Sierra Leone was devastated by a 10-year civil war. Many children have been orphaned in the war, and it is customary for other families to adopt and raise them, albeit without official adoption papers. The country does not have a functioning government, much less a formalized adoption procedure.
To expect a refugee from a war-ravaged country such as Sierra Leone to have all of the paperwork that DHS requires is simply not reasonable. When people flee war and brutality, they tend to be more concerned with their safety and the lives of their loved ones, not legal papers and official documentation. Of course, Canada isn’t exactly a war zone (unless you happen to be smuggling cigarettes into Cornwall, Ontario, I suppose….), so Tanith Belbin never had much to worry about.
At some point, the bureacracy needs to understand that being a refugee means often not having all of the “official” papers that would normally be required. In addition, at some point, compassion needs to become a primary focus. Yes, government needs to ensure that those who claim asylum have a legitimate need for shelter, but it ‘s been well-documented that Sierra Leone has been a brutal, nasty place to be over the past few years. Yet DHS bureaucrats are concerned about missing paperwork?
Momara is pleading to be reunited with all of her children and to know that they are finally out of harm’s way. But the DHS stated in its denial of Teresa’s visa application that “[s]ince there are no formal adoption decrees in Sierra Leone then you are unable to provide a copy of the final adoption decree … which has been registered with the proper civil authorities.” This is a new version of Catch-22: We know it’s impossible for you to get the proof we request; nevertheless we will withhold the relief you seek because you cannot obtain the proof.
The DHS’s flat denial shows an all-too-familiar inflexibility in the administration of U.S. immigration policy and frustrates one of its most fundamental stated goals: family unification. Our nation’s consensus, derived from international norms, is that innocent families, survivors of terrorism and brutality elsewhere in the world, be granted asylum here. Yet the DHS has chosen to bar a victimized and vulnerable girl from rejoining her family for the flimsiest of reasons — lack of an unobtainable document.
The machinery of Congress was geared up to make it possible for an ice dancer to bring Olympic glory to the United States. Why can’t it be set in motion for humanitarian cases such as that of Teresa and her mother? That would bring us a measure of glory, too.
Thankfully, there’s an easy solution close at hand: Teresa just needs to learn how to skate.
