TO THE EDITOR:
On March 17, 2014, in response to my letter addressed to the White House about my immigration case, President Obama wrote back in an email message: “America’s immigration system is badly broken, and I know many people are hurting because of it.”
Yes, President Obama is right. However, he offers a short-term solution, as any president who is elected to run the Oval Office after him will have a chance to overrule his executive order.
In the past, Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush also granted amnesty to illegal immigrants. But decades later, the problem of illegal immigration has not been solved by their executive orders. On the contrary, at an estimated 11.7 million individuals, the number of undocumented aliens is on the rise.
And our immigration system already runs at its maximum capacity. For example, more than 40,000 asylum applicants — those who take a legal path to stay in the U.S. — live in legal limbo waiting for decisions on their cases.
I have personally waited for almost two years now because the resources of the federal government to handle immigration petitions are already stretched.
In order to process millions of new applications, the immigration authorities will have to draw tremendous administrative resources. This will happen at the expense of other applicants who are already waiting in a queue and are oftentimes backlogged in the system.
