Tag: immigration

Here is an update on the military family that has been trying to adopt their Korean niece in order to give her citizenship in the United States:

That was when the former Army lieutenant colonel and his wife Soo Jin were informed by the Federal District Court of Kansas that their adopted daughter Hyebin will be deported back to South Korea due to U.S. immigration law that cuts off the age when foreign-born adopted children can become naturalized U.S. citizens at 16.
The Kansas court ruled that Hyebin must return to Korea after she finishes earning her chemical engineering degree at the University of Kansas, which she will do in December. Schreiber and his wife are appealing through the 10th District Court of Appeals, though they are not optimistic about their chances of winning.
“We have no delusions that everything’s going to come out like a flowing bed of roses,” Schreiber told the Military Times. “We’ve always planned for two courses of action. So it was never something that we thought, ‘Yeah, things are going to work out the way we wish they would come out.’”
The immigration policy that is forcing Hyebin to leave the U.S. is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A spokeswoman for USCIS told the Military Times via email that “it is USCIS policy not to comment on ongoing litigation, nor will we speak to individual cases due to privacy concerns.”

Army Times

You can read more at the link, but this is a really tough case because LTC Schreiber missed the cut off date because he deployed to Afghanistan. When he came back to do her citizenship he found out it was too late for Hyebin to receive citizenship.

I am a bit surprised she not able to get a work visa sponsored by an employer considering she is about to graduate with a chemical engineering degree.

What is amazing about this is if she was a child of illegal immigrants she would be allowed to stay, but since she is a daughter of American citizens she will likely get deported.

I would not be surprised if there is more to this story then what is being reported:

The U.S. government deported a Mexican woman on Friday who had lived in the country illegally for nearly two decades despite efforts by lawmakers to keep her in Florida with her husband, a Marine Corps veteran, and her two American children.

Alejandra Juarez, 38, was joined by her family and her congressman, Darren Soto, at Orlando International Airport for tearful farewells before her flight back to Mexico.

Juarez sought to illegally enter the United States in 1998 and was ordered to be removed, precluding her future chances at getting a visa or becoming a citizen, according to Soto and media interviews Juarez has given.

She illegally re-entered the country in 2000, the same year she married Temo Juarez, a Mexico native who went on to serve in the war in Iraq with the U.S. Marines and is now a naturalized U.S. citizen.

After being discovered in the country during a 2013 traffic stop, she had been required to check in every six months with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.  [Reuters]

You can read the rest at the link if you want to read all the anti-Trump stuff even though her deportation process began under the Obama administration.

I feel bad for the kids, but their parents had nearly 20 years to work on her immigration status which leads me to believe there is more to this story.  With that said should illegal immigrant wives of US military servicemembers receive special immigration status?  That is basically the argument being made here.

I can’t help but think that there is more to this story:

A U.S. Army specialist born in South Korea has sued asking for a response to her American citizenship application after the military moved to discharge her.

Yea Ji Sea, a 29-year-old from Gardena, California, who has served four years and is assigned to the duty station at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court.

She came to the country as a child on a visitor visa and held other visas before enlisting in 2013 under a special government program for foreign citizens who want to serve in the U.S. military. Under the program, recruits agreed in their enlistment contracts to apply to naturalize as soon as their honorable service was certified.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but the article states she had a forged document from a defunct language school that caused her first application to be revoked causing her to reapply in 2016.  It is hard and time consuming to get citizenship without the drama of forged documents.

Here is an interesting immigration story involving a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and his adopted Korean daughter:

A retired Army lieutenant colonel with six tours of duty, Patrick Schreiber says that his failure to gain an understanding of immigration law is “the greatest regret in my life.”

Because it now could mean having to move his family to South Korea next year so he, his wife and adopted daughter could stay together.

In 2013, just before he deployed to Afghanistan as a chief intelligence officer, Schreiber of Lansing, Mich. assumed he and his wife had time to adopt a Korean-immigrant niece, then 15, as their daughter. Having consulted with an adoption attorney, he thought the cut-off date to legally adopt would be her 18th birthday.

“I assumed wrong,” he says now, having adopted the girl when she was 17.

Too late, according to the government. A federal statute says that children brought into the country should be adopted before age 16 to be allowed access to U.S. citizenship.

As a result, deportation could await daughter Hyebin, a junior studying chemical engineering at the University of Kansas.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but it seems that US immigration laws need to have a process to apply for an exception to policy for unusual circumstances like this.  With that said since she is studying chemical engineering I would be surprised if she isn’t able to get a work visa to stay in the US after graduating from college.

Hopefully this gets worked out, but even the worst case scenario of having to go back to South Korea is not that bad.  It isn’t like she is going to some third world country and South Korea is where she has spent the vast majority of her life at.  I have feeling this will work its self out, but I do find it interesting the difficulty this family is having trying to legally immigrate their adopted daughter to the US while the children of illegal immigrants continue to get special treatment under US immigration laws.

Chloe Kim is America’s latest Winter Olympic star and this has caused the media to focus on the immigrant past of her father:

Seventeen-year-old Chloe Kim made headlines on Tuesday after she won gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics in the women’s snowboard halfpipe final with three incredible runs. And her devoted father has also found himself in the spotlight after his daughter’s spectacular show.

Jong Jin Kim watched from the grandstand at the base of the halfpipe with a sign that read “Go Chloe!” while shouting “American dream!” as his daughter made history.

Jong Jin Kim was an immigrant from South Korea who arrived in South Carolina in 1982 with just $800 to his name, reported CNN. His first job in America was a dishwasher at a fast-food restaurant before he graduated to cashier at a liquor store.

But had Kim’s family attempted to enter the U.S. under the administration of President Donald Trump, it is uncertain whether they would have been permitted.

During his January 31 State of the Union speech, Trump urged Congress to pass legislation that promotes “merit-based immigration,” describing it as a system that “admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society.”  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link, but clearly Mr. Kim wanted to work and contribute to society.  So the crux of the issue becomes he wasn’t a skilled worker when he entered the US.  While in the US he studied and became a skilled worker later.

Trump spares Asians in ‘shithole countries’ tirade https://t.co/D3qUz39H8M pic.twitter.com/fZCnheNTKR

— Asian Correspondent (@AsCorrespondent) January 12, 2018

Via a reader tip comes this story about an Iraq War veteran facing deportation to South Korea:

An Iraq war veteran who grew up in Portland is being held by federal immigration agents in a Tacoma detention center and could be deported to South Korea.

Chong Hwan Kim, 41, has lived in Portland since his family immigrated with documentation when he was 5, his friends said.

But federal immigration authorities say Kim was arrested because of criminal convictions.

Immigration authorities detained Kim on April 5 because of a recent first-degree arson felony conviction, said Rose Riley, an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman. Kim later told friends that agents arrested him after he got a call telling him to come downtown to discuss his probation.

But Kim’s friends argue it’s wrong to deport a man who grew up in and went to war for the United States. Jordan Meyers, who met Kim through a Department of Veterans Affairs support group, worries what will happen to his friend if he is sent to South Korea, where he does not speak the language and has no family.

“He came to our country legally. … He fought for our country. He bled with us,” Meyers said. “Does that not earn for him the right to live here?”  [Oregon Live]

You can read more at the link, but serving in the National Guard does not give someone a right to have citizenship.  Part of being applying to be a citizen is to not have a criminal history.  Kim has an extensive criminal history.  On top of that Kim received a general discharge under honorable conditions from the National Guard so he clearly got in trouble during his time serving to not get an honorable discharge.

He could have applied to be a citizen a long time ago if he came to the US with a valid Green Card, but I am willing to bet his criminal history is what has been preventing it from happening.  Based on what I have read it seems Kim has earned his deportation and I recommend he begin brushing up on his Korean.

https://twitter.com/AskAKorean/status/771973042385944576

The argument that illegal immigrants in the United States will not self deport is often made to explain why they should just be given amnesty.  As the case with South Korea shows illegal immigrants there self deported once they had a viable option to seek legal status:

An amnesty program for overstaying foreigners is having an unexpected consequence: Korea is suddenly short of nannies, restaurant help and construction workers.

In April, the Ministry of Justice announced an amnesty for people who overstayed their visas or illegally immigrated. It said that they could apply for overseas Korean visas, known as F-4, if they left Korea and went home in the next six months.

This was the first time the ministry has promised to allow all overstayers to apply for visas to return to Korea.

The amnesty is working. Over 12,000 foreigners who were in Korea illegally left the country from April to May, twice the 5,300 who left in the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Justice.   (…………)

“When I went to Incheon airport at 5 a.m., the third floor was crowded with illegal immigrants waiting to leave,” said Lee Byung-chun, who works for the Han-a administrative agency.    [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but the big different though with South Korea compared to the US is that there isn’t an entire political party trying to lock in the illegal immigrant vote.  This is likely why Korea was able to successfully implement immigration reform and the United States cannot.

I think there is some truth to the above Korean saying:

More and more young men and women of Korea find life in their motherland so painfully tough that they literally call it hell, some even plotting to pick up and leave for another country.

But what happens when you really take off?

The Korea Times talked to 10 men and women from different walks of life who’ve immigrated to the U.S. within the past decade and here’s what they had to say about the reality of departing “Hell Joseon, a viral term that embodies young people’s sense of hopelessness in Korea.

“I’ll be honest,” said Kim Ga-young, 38, who left Korea for Atlanta two years ago after leaving her job in the customer service industry. “I don’t have to put up with nonsense brought on by all kinds of snobby people. But I’m facing a whole new set of problems here, too.”

Language and cultural barriers are the biggest trouble for her.

“I had never been overseas past Japan. The U.S. and the Western world is completely new to me, so it’s definitely going to take some time to find my place here,” says Kim, who works part-time at a Korean-owned beauty supply store.

Park Jung-hyun, 55, who made the big move almost 10 years ago, is happy to say that most of the language and cultural barriers are a thing of the past now.

“The first three years was difficult and sad,” she says, “but once I understood the true American life, I realized that I don’t have to be ashamed about not speaking the language and knowing the culture. In a way, many of us are foreigners here.”

Park, who owns and runs a coin laundry shop in Los Angeles with her husband, finds her new life satisfying, both financially and emotionally.

“My husband and I both worked long hours back in Korea,” she said, “and we still work long hours now, but interestingly, there’s a much better work-life balance here.”

Many Koreans who live in the U.S. generally have access to more family time throughout the week and during the weekend, but for some, family time isn’t the only thing they want.

“There’s a saying that Korea is a fun hell and the U.S. is a boring heaven,” says Kim, 41, a hairdresser in Dallas, who didn’t want to be fully named. “I miss being able to just walk out late at night, meeting up with old friends and getting a drink without the hassle of driving on the freeway for 30 minutes to get somewhere.” [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.