A life in the shadows: Confronting the challenges of immigration

When listening to right-wing immigration rhetoric, it’s not uncommon to hear the phrase “Just come here the right way.” Beneath these five words lie a myriad of myths and misconceptions about what “the right way” is and whether it’s attainable. The phrase disregards the barriers migrants face and reveals an ignorance of the stories of people who have tried.

And people do try. Many of those who come to America for a better life would be happy to acquire citizenship and live freely, without fear. But the citizenship process isn’t as simple as it’s made out to be.

The following are stories of those attempts.

These interviews have been edited and condensed for length and clarity, as told to ACPC from each interviewees’ perspective.

Giovanni

I’m a first-generation Mexican American, so pretty much everyone I grew up with was either undocumented or an immigrant. I grew up with a lot of, “Hey, we might get deported one day.”

The day after America elected its new president, we had meetings to plan for certain situations. I have two younger siblings; if my parents were to leave, they would take them with them. And conversations like that are never fun, they’re pretty heavy. You feel every bit of it.

But I guess as a kid, I never really felt the gravity of it all until sometime in middle school [when] my uncle got deported off of a traffic stop for not wearing a seatbelt. It’s kind of crazy that that simple act has completely changed his life.

We don’t really have that much family now, because a lot of people have either been deported or willingly gone back to Mexico to live there — back to the motherland.

Both of my parents have tried to get their citizenship. It’s more complicated than people tend to realize. My parents talked to lawyers, and they spent a couple thousand dollars on it. It’s also time-consuming. 

Growing up, both of my parents worked all the time, so there wasn’t really time at all for that. In their eyes, it’s just easier to work here and kind of live that low life under the radar.

A few years ago my grandma managed to acquire a visitation visa — my mom hadn’t seen her since she came here 20 years ago.

Not that long before that, my dad’s father got his visa, and they reunited. My mom was super excited, like, “Oh, it’s my turn now.” 

We were all excited. My grandma got on that plane, came over, and we were all patiently waiting at the gate for her. We saw more and more people come out, and we were still waiting. We didn’t see her.

And then we got a call from my grandma, who said that she was stuck and they were interrogating her on why she was here. 

My grandma doesn’t know any English. They did not offer an interpreter or any sort of translation for the conversation or the documents that they presented to her. Because of this, she unknowingly signed an admission of working intention. That would invalidate her visiting visa, because it didn’t allow her to work here in the States, which forced her to get back on another plane to go back to Mexico.

We never even got to see her. My mom never got to hug her or anything. It was a very heartbreaking and emotional moment. My mom definitely cried. She cried a lot. 

That was the catalyst for my mom’s yearn to return, because she really misses Mexico. 

That’s a whole other struggle that immigrants face: they do miss their own land where they grew up. It’s just certain circumstances, whether it be finances or whatever is going on back home, that force them to come to America. People don’t know that it’s not a choice a lot of the time. 

In reality, the majority of the immigrant community is here doing goodwill. They have families to feed, jobs to keep, a future to uphold. But like I said, they stay under the radar. Immigrants can’t afford to do crime.

Both of my parents have paid taxes all the years that they’ve been here, and they don’t receive Social Security or anything. They’re pretty much paying the government for no benefits. 

That’s a big backbone to the economy, and if we were to get rid of immigrants, that’s a big chunk of change that’s gonna go missing. And I don’t think a lot of people are ready for that.

Yasmin

Everybody who doesn’t understand the system wants to say, “Just come here the right way, just get legalized, it’s not a big deal.” It is totally a big deal. 

There’s so much misinformation about that. My mom has been trying to find a way to get legalized after being here for over 25 years and it’s always turned up with nothing. I’m 32 and the process began when I was a child, going back at least 15 years.

Her only option is to leave the country for more than 10 years and then maybe apply. And that’s just not a feasible option. So, she started living in the shadows.

There is nothing anybody can do to help her.

She has paid so much money just for consultations — around $5,000 on consultations alone, no paperwork. I personally know people who have gone through the process who have spent about $15,000 to become a citizen. And everybody wants money up front.

So not only is it costly, it’s impossible.

She’s a productive member of the community, but she can’t drive, she can’t go to certain events, she can’t fly — all for fear of leaving this country, leaving her children here, leaving her grandchildren here.

She’s built a life here, and now she’s stuck between choosing to be in the shadows or facing deportation. Those are her only choices.

Matéo

I work as a paralegal in the court department of an immigration firm, so I help get people out of removal proceedings and file special immigration statuses for children who came in unaccompanied. 

The immigration courts are extremely backlogged. Georgia has one of the lowest asylum acceptance rates in the entire nation; it’s around 6%. 

If you don’t have guidance, an attorney for legal assistance, your first language isn’t English, or you don’t have the time to fill out all this paperwork, it’s very difficult. 

Just getting a work permit renewed can cost up to $600. These are small things that they use to lock people out of getting status, which is really frustrating. 

You constantly hear this rhetoric of “doing it the right way,” but it’s extremely difficult to do things “the right way.”

Juan

I was approved for DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — in high school. I got so excited because I was afraid that I was not going to get hired anywhere [because of my immigration status]. When I got DACA, I came to tears.

But I didn’t give up, I continued to fight to see if I could become a U.S. citizen. And I’m a citizen now. 

I came to America with my parents when I was two years old. Thank God they have their citizenship. Because right now, [if they weren’t citizens,] they would be very afraid of what’s going on.