Submitted
Mr President,
I don’t know how to proceed in getting this to you. But I need to outline our situation and ask where the suspension of our LEGAL immigration process would leave our family.
As a Pastor from South Africa, my family and I have been navigating the complex and very expensive process of trying to make the USA our home LEGALLY for the past 5 years.
We serve our community, support you in sentiment because we can’t vote, and love being contributing members of the community in which we serve. We are awaiting the final step in receiving our green cards, which apparently could still take a further 4 years to process – during which we have to annually renew our current documentation at quite some costs. We understand that we have no access to any medical, social security or even covid stimulus despite being diligent with the payment of all taxes for the full duration of our stay.
I make this post with the utmost respect for you and your office and once our immigration ordeal is over would gladly volunteer time to share some insights into the immigration process that not many of the law makers who adjudicate these processes may ever have had to endure or pay for.
We have often taken the more difficult path to ensure that we adhere to every section of the relevant immigration processes but to be honest with you, we feel that doing things properly has had no benefit in a country where we thought that integrity, honesty and doing things correctly and legally was rewarded, even with simple expedient due process.
Mr President, in a time such as this, we understand the pressure you face daily to navigate COVID and the threat it poses to Americans. We seek no favors, simply consideration in your executive order. As a family who has followed every requirement to be here, we find ourselves at risk. It seems the voice of the LEGAL immigrant has been lost. We are swept along in the tide of executive orders and immigration sentiment that creates risk for our family, uncertainty in the place we now call home and the possible complete loss of the financial investment we have made to do things correctly. Now a possible suspension could cause the entire process and journey we have been on not only to be void, but also to place us at greater risk than if we were still residing in South Africa.
Please consider the legal immigrant and what insecurity and risks they face with no cover or support all the while being placed in the undeserved category of “illegal” or “alien” yet being tax paying and contributing members of society.
Again this letter is submitted with the utmost respect for not only your office but also of you personally.
We continue to pray for you and all those who are so diligently fighting the threat of the Corona virus.
Yours respectfully,
Pastor Craig Smee and family