Welcome

Published on January 3, 2000
Author: RINALDO DEL GALLO III

The Buffalo News

Ulysses Grant once said, "I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their astringent execution." It's as if the general's epigram was written for an old soldier by the name of David Bianche and a law called the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IRAIRA), passed into law in 1996.

Why IRAIRA? Rep. Lamar Smith decried, "Illegal aliens take jobs, public benefits and engage in criminal activity." Why not combat illegal immigration by making it utterly impossible to immigrate legally? So Congress went after foreign-born spouses and children of U.S. citizens with a butcher's knife. In 1967, Dave finds himself in Vietnam. He comes inches from making the ultimate sacrifice, and he has a hole in his leg for a souvenir. How is the country that asked so much going to repay him? They are going to take away his wife and children.

On Friday, Dave's wife, Marina, and his 14-year-old daughter, Alexandria, are being given a one-way ticket back to Russia. According to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, "Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, . . . and there shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of that right." No help for Dave. The United States is not a signatory.

Dave submits an I-130, a form to get your spouse into the country, to the Moscow Immigration and Naturalization Service office. Like any agency operating on a shoestring budget, INS forgets to ask for certain documents. Visas are approved, but Dave isn't informed until they expire. A year goes by and his wife is still stuck in Russia.

Such would not always have been the case. Prior to IRAIRA, Dave would have spent a few hours at the U.S. embassy or consulate and have hopped on a plane with his wife. Before IRAIRA, the spouses of U.S. citizens were allowed into the United States without undue complication through a process known as "parole." Under IRAIRA, Immigration officials have the right to bar entry indefinitely, and the process can take years. In every other industrialized country, citizens are free to pass the borders of their respective countries accompanied by their foreign-born immediate family.

The Washington Post noted that IRAIRA "is a system that often forces people to choose between their marriage vows and U.S. immigration laws." Dave finds himself in that very predicament. Out of desperation, he obtains a Mexican visa for his wife and daughter, and brings them into the country from Mexico. He immediately contacts the Helena, Montana, INS office. The wife and daughter are tossed in jail. INS promises to process a second I-130 that would stop the deportation, but reneges.

Desperate and nearly broke, Dave flies back to Moscow for resolution. No luck. Ironically, at the airport, Dave meets an Italian man who had spent all of two hours to get his new Russian wife into his own country.

I ask that you call your congressmen and senators and ask for their support of the Freedom of Marriage and Family Life Act. It would preserve the fundamental rights of marriage and family integrity. Under the proposed legislation, no immigration law would force the lawful spouse or children of a U.S. citizen to be outside the United States pending investigation. If you would like to learn more, go to http://www.aasr.org.*

RINALDO DEL GALLO III is an attorney practicing in Rochester.

* As of 2008, this group is now defunct.