Independence

As the Fourth of July approached, I had been thinking a lot about what it meant and I kept coming back to the phrase "the personal is the policital".

Freedom and independence for me and my family has been intertwined with immigration for generations. My grandfather, Roy, was born in Lucky Strike, Alberta. He once told me that his family moved around so much that sometimes he would live in Canada and other times he would live in the United States. The border was pretty non-existent back in the early 1900s. Roy ended up fighting on behalf of the US in World War II and was awarded citizenship for his service.

My husband received his citizenship last year after navigating the bureucratic web of the EAD, green card and citizenship application processes. It was stressful, confusing and nerve-wracking but in the end, the process worked. While it may not be the best process, it ended up ok for us.

For the past 11 years, as part of my many HR duties, I have worked with employees on securing their work authorization and green cards. Since I had personal experience, I could relate to their anxiety and confusion over the process. Last year was the first time in my career that an H-1B application I submitted wasn't approved. We never even received word about it. It was absolutely horrible for him and we lost a great employee.

Since I come from a family of immigrants, I tend to perk up when I hear about it on the news. I was pleased to hear that the President finally had the twice delayed meeting on immigration. I won't profess to know what the answer is or what the policy should be. All I know is that what we've got now doesn't work very well. There is a consistent backlog with applications with the USCIS and ICE just announced last week that they are going to audit over 600 employer I-9s. I'm not entirely sure that this is the right focus or use of their resources.

I'm just hoping that whatever immigration policy is implemented doesn't send our economy into further disarray. There is a tremendous 'secondary economy' in this country that many people choose not to see. There are millions of non-documented workers in our restaurants, construction & landscaping companies, meat packing plants, and the like who are earning less than minimum wage. While they may not be paying taxes, they are buying goods and services. Imagine the impact if that buying power disappeared. How many more storefronts on Main Street would be empty?