Thread by @HMAesq

We immigration lawyers have become desensitized to the struggles of our clients.

This is not to say we don't feel for them. We do. But it doesn't shock us.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of people still ask questions like, "Why can't they come legally?"

So here are some things our clients commonly face that most people may not realize.

Remember, these aren't isolated examples.

These are the rules, not the exceptions.

"My mom is dying of cancer and I can't go home to be with her."

Why? The 10 year bar to reentry, introduced by the most Draconian immigration legislation from 1996: IIRIRA.

"I work to pay war tax to gangs to keep my family alive."

This is so common it sometimes barely registers as "persecution" in our clients' eyes.

"I filed everything right. I followed the law. And I've been waiting 4 years. But my wife/husband/fiance/child/parent is still stuck overseas."

My tiny practice get calls two to three times a week with this complaint. Almost always the same fact pattern.

"I'm trying to comply with the law and fix my status. But if I go into the mandatory interview, they'll deport me without giving me the chance the law is supposed to give me."

Yes. It happens.

"My sister filed her case in California and got approved. I have the exact same case, but I live in Georgia. And now I'm getting deported."

Location shouldn't matter for law that's federal, but it does.

"They told me to call USCIS to follow up on my work permit I filed 4 months in advance. They gave me the runaround, refused to let me speak to an officer. Now I'll lose my job this Friday and my driver's license will expire, too."

USCIS hold music plays in my dreams at night.

"I followed the instructions on the printed form. My green card got rejected because the instructions weren't updated, and I didn't know I had to check the online page for updated instructions."

How hard is it to update a PDF, @USCIS?

"I thought if I told the officer I was gay they'd kick me out of the country. I just froze, and the officer didn't even bother to ask me whether I was afraid to go home. I was so afraid I couldn't even talk about it."

"So I have no option to remain in the US unless I get robbed, raped, beat up, kidnapped, or enslaved?"

"Yes, sadly."

"My employer required 12 months of experience. I only have 11 months and 1 week because they didn't count one other job I had. They denied my green card. My employer is suffering because she can't find anyone to take the job. And they took so long that now I am out of status."

"I work for a multinational corporation with 5 worldwide locations, and want to come to the US to head up the first US location, and hire 15 people our first year. USCIS denied my visa because they said I didn't show I was an executive."

"I got a request for evidence proving that my job, a cyber security software programmer, couldn't be done by anyone without a bachelor's degree."

"My father married my mother in 1936. They never had a marriage certificate. Now USCIS says I'm not my father's child and won't give him a green card to come live with me after my mother passed."

I'm sure my colleagues can tell other stories of issues they deal with nearly every day.

Understand: our immigration system is designed to be unworkable, difficult, and unpredictable.

It spends money keeping people out, but then makes it impossible to come and go.

It varies from place to place. It's subject to political winds and executive fiats.

It simply doesn't work. Neither for the future Americans, nor for America.

We got here by allowing nativist rhetoric to guide our policies.

They've tried it their way for years. And we still struggle to cast off the yoke of nativism.

Result? The mess you see before you.

They've succeeded in making much immigration illegal.

Maybe, just maybe, we should stop taking advice from white nationalist orgs like @FAIRImmigration and @CIS_org. These orgs have either created or supported every "policy" outlined in this thread.

No one blames them. Instead, they're invited to offer the "opposing side."

Enough.