This feature article was co-written with another Silver Chips staff member, Khusboo Rathore. It was awarded a 2019 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Award Honorable Mention. See the PDF here. Sitting down with her sister and friends for dinner, senior Eve Kuo listens as they discuss green cards and citizenship. Their friends had just received greencards, which was a long and complex process, as it had been for Kuo’s family. Green cards, officially known as Lawful Permanent Resident Cards, are permits that allow immigrants to permanently live in the U.S. Though she has lived in the U.S. for thirteen years, at 17, Kuo remains a permanent resident and plans to apply for citizenship once she turns 18. She does not know how long the process will take; it took her parents a decade to obtain green cards, and half a year to renew her own green card. The path to citizenship has been a long one for Kuo’s family in the past, but the advantages that come with being a citizen keep her on the path to citizenship. World of Difference
Although both U.S. permanent residents and citizens may legally reside in the country, they receive different privileges, from jobs to voting. Permanent residents, for example, cannot travel outside the country for more than 364 days at a time, or two years if approved beforehand. Permanent residents are also limited in job opportunities. Many federal government jobs are not as easily available for permanent residents as they are for citizens. Blair parent Suman Mukhopadhyay, who works at the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), realized this as he was looking to leave his university job for a high-paying one. “The best options I was having at that point were U.S. Federal Government jobs in and around this area,” he says. “They had good salaries, so to get a certain job, I had to get the citizenship.” Kuo, too, feels that non-citizenship significantly limits employment opportunities. “When I was looking for internships, [I found that] some of the federal government-related organizations won't take you if you're not a citizen,” she says. Furthermore, permanent residents cannot vote in federal U.S. elections. Claudia Rodriguez, resident in the Blair area, became a citizen 11 years ago so that she could voice her opinions to the government. “[Without citizenship] you cannot elect officials, you cannot… petition for relatives to come to the country, but once you are a citizen then you have full rights,” she says. Kuo, too, hopes to gain citizenship to become a more active citizen. “I'm most likely going to be living here for a large part of my life… it's nice to be able to vote,” she says. Path from Permanency Permanent residents can apply for citizenship after living in the U.S. for at least five years, and it generally takes about half a year after applying to receive citizenship status. To become a citizen, many immigrants must prove their potential to contribute to the U.S. government. Mukhopadhyay, who originally entered the country on an EB1 Outstanding Researcher green card, used his career background to also obtain his citizenship. “You have to provide evidence in terms of scientific qualifications and other work… especially from the Western countries,” he says. “[You] have to provide letters of recommendation to prove you are truly an exceptional person and you are going to contribute to United States science and economy in a great way.” Other permanent residents can obtain citizenship through a parent. Junior Zelalem Wondu held a green card for her entire life until her mother decided to apply for citizenship last year. Wondu’s mother, like Mukhopadhyay, works in a STEM field and therefore could be fairly confident that the government would grant her citizenship status. Still, the year-long process was long and arduous. “She had to take a test… it cost hundreds of dollars,” Wondu recalls. As Rodriguez says, many residents must dedicate time to studying for the citizenship test, either through online practice tests or classes offered by immigration organizations. Though the process was tedious for Wondu’s mother, it was comparatively simple for Wondu herself. She found that the naturalization process required little information on her end. “It literally just takes some confirmation that I’m actually her daughter,” Wondu says. “I didn’t have to take any tests or anything.” Wondu was able to get her citizenship status within just two months of her application. Another path to green cards is through a spouse, which involves completing interviews. “They have to do an interview together, and then do an interview separately,” Kuo says, based on the experiences of her sister’s friends. Interview questions range from the significant other’s toothbrush color to what kind of slippers they wear in order to confirm that the relationship is genuine. The process can involve multiple sets of documents and proving that a person is of good character. “You want to get all your records and look at all your forms, and make sure that they all make sense,” Ayuda Pro Bono Managing Attorney Lindsy Miles-Hare says. “The other thing that can sometimes trip people up is if they've had any sort of criminal activity, or anything that might call their moral character into question.” Ayuda, a Spanish word which translates to help in English, is a non-profit organization that provides legal assistance to low-income U.S. immigrants from anywhere in the world. Those without green cards may have a more difficult time obtaining citizenship. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is granted to people who are facing emergency situations or upheaval in their home country, such as war or natural disaster. As Miles-Hare says, TPS is “renewed periodically” and lasts for as long as it takes for one’s country to become safe again. However, TPS alone is not a path to citizenship. “It's not a way for people to stay here permanently. You can end up getting your green card, and eventually, if you want to, you can naturalize,” Miles-Hare says. “[TPS] does allow people to work, which is great, but it's not going to help anybody stay here.” As a local resident, Rodriguez has acquaintances who are currently applying for asylum, which can take years to obtain, in order to remain in the U.S. Although similar to TPS, asylum differs in that it can allow people to remain in the U.S. permanently. Those who apply for asylum generally have already lived in the country for some time. “It may be because something has changed and now they have a claim for asylum, or the situation they were fleeing was so desperate that they needed to get here first and then sort it out,” Miles-Hare says. Asylum applicants cannot be sure if and when they will ever get permanent residency or even citizenship. Thus, the only ways for Rodriguez’s acquaintances to gain permanent residency are a grant of asylum, a job offer and sponsorship by a U.S. employer, or marriage to a U.S. citizen. Mukhopadhyay and his wife, who applied for citizenship at the same time, enjoyed a relatively smooth citizenship application process. Their only issues came at the final stage: the citizenship oath. “The oath… says… that you have to protect United States against all enemies… [even if] you have to pick up arms against your former country,” Mukhopadhyay says. “My wife was not comfortable with it, and I was not very comfortable with it either, but since I was looking for a better salary job, I did not care at that point.” Miles-Hare notes that there is no one simple way to obtain citizenship. “Immigration law is complicated and convoluted, policy is complicated and convoluted and constantly changing, and the last thing is, of course, that the facts change,” she says. “It's not just a matter of filing your paperwork and getting in line… you can follow all the rules, and you can still be in a very precarious situation for a number of years.” Life as a Citizen To Mukhopadhyay and Rodriguez, citizenship status means additional rights and privileges. To second-generation immigrants like Wondu, however, citizenship is no more than a status on a piece of paper. “I never really had any setbacks because of my citizenship status,” she says. “It really didn’t make much of a difference other than on the paper.” Nonetheless, citizenship can provide a feeling of increased security to U.S. residents, particularly in a time when the country faces tension and division surrounding the issue of immigration policy. The Trump administration has established immigration policy as a key part of its political agenda. The administration has banned citizens from eight countries and pushed to end the designation of TPS for citizens from Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, and El Salvador. The push, however, was blocked by a court injunction issued to the Department of Homeland Security. According to Miles-Hare, these proposed policies may force people who have already established lives in the U.S. to leave the country, especially if they are unable to obtain a green card or visa. “If you previously had Temporary Protected Status and it ends, we believe you need to either go home or find another path to legal status,” she says. “We know that a lot of folks cannot go home or it would be incredibly unfair—they've been in the states for decades, their children may be citizens, they've built lives here, they've started businesses.” Those with TPS are not the only ones who face uncertainty under these new proposals. The Trump administration’s proposal of new immigration policies can be cause for worry, even among permanent residents. “It's still a little bit of that fear where [the government has] the power to do something to me, even though I'm legally living here,” Kuo says.
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