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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 21, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 99

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Green cards will not be issued based on family ties
Proposed U.S. immigration rules could have big impact here

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
and special reports

The proposed U.S. immigration reform package will eliminate green cards for relatives of citizens and shift the emphasis to a merit-based immigration system.

Visas for parents of U.S. citizens are being capped, while visas for siblings and adult children are eliminated., said the White House.

The proposal, which was the result of a bipartisan legislative agreement has broad implications for U.S. expats who live in families with mixed citizenship.

If enacted, the proposed plan would provide a path to citizenship for those who have entered the United States illegally.

Certain familiar features of the U.S. immigration system would vanish under the proposal, including the Diversity Lottery Program and U.S. permanent resident cards for siblings and adult children of U.S. citizens and holders of what is known as a “green card.”

New features would include a parents’ visitor visa enabling parents to visit children in the United States regularly and for extended periods, a Z visa or four-year, renewable work visa for those present within the United States illegally before Jan. 1, 2007, and a temporary worker program.

Under the current U.S. immigration system, two-thirds of all green cards are granted to relatives of U.S. citizens. The proposed new system, according to Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security, calls for most green cards to be based on a merit system that counts heavily education, employment skills and experience in the United States. “Family [ties] will come in as a tie-breaker,” Chertoff said in a White House briefing.

Those who applied for green cards on the basis of family ties as of March 2005, however, would be processed within eight years under the old rules. “If you waited [in] line, we're not going to change the rules of the game on you; we're going to let you get in under the rules of the game as they then existed,” said Chertoff, adding that dealing with the so-called family backlog was a matter of “basic fairness.”

Chertoff explained how the plan would work for those undocumented workers who have not committed crimes.

Those who entered illegally would be able to get a probationary visa to continue to work while a background check is completed. Once certain border-security requirements are met, a Z visa would be issued for four years allowing the holder to work in the United States and to make visits to his or her home country. Those applying for a Z visa would pay a $1,000 fine, pass a background check, remain employed, maintain a clean criminal record and receive a counterfeit-proof biometric identification card.

If the holder of the Z visa met all its conditions, which include paying taxes, the visa could be renewed for another four years. After the second renewal — that is, after eight years — Chertoff said the U.S. government would ensure that there would be enough green cards available “so that anybody who has paid the fines that are required, satisfactorily completed two terms as a Z visa worker, gone back home and filed an application — we'll be able to accommodate those people who qualify, getting green cards within the following five years.”

A Z visa holder applying for a green card would be required to pay an additional $4,000 fine, to complete certain English language requirements, to return to his or her home country to await processing while the current backlog clears and to demonstrate merit under the merit-based system, according to a White House fact sheet on the proposal.

There would be a cutoff date for Z visas for people who are undocumented. “The only people who will be eligible to get a Z visa as a person who is here illegally is someone who arrived in this country prior to January 1 of 2007,” Chertoff said, adding that applicants would have to prove they were present in the United States prior to the cutoff date.

The bipartisan agreement has not yet been introduced in Congress as proposed legislation. Once it is, details could change as the bill works its way through House and Senate committees or when it is brought to the floor of the House and Senate for debate. If the House and the Senate pass different versions of the bill, the two would have to be reconciled and passed again by both chambers before the final version is sent to the president for his signature.

Generally optimistic phrase says humans can achieve

De médico, poeta y loco, todos tenemos un poco.

"Doctor, poet and lunatic, we all have a little of each." This dicho teaches us that we all can be inspired given the right circumstances, even someone like me, whose talents certainly do not run to the poetic. I am, as Cole Porter once wrote:

     At words poetic
     I'm so pathetic
     That I really have found it best
     Instead of getting them off my chest
     To let 'em rest, unexpressed.

But even I, as most certainly did the modest Mr. Porter, have had my poetic moments. Many years ago when my twin brother died, for example, I grieved for him inconsolably. I was very bitter and angry that he had been taken from me. Out of this grief and anger, I produced dozens of poems.

Two years ago my older brother also passed away. After the funeral, when I was going through his personal belongings I found some of those poems of mine that my brother kept. To them he had added some of his own to make a very affecting collection.

Costa Ricans are always giving out free medical advice. My niece is especially apt at this, and as soon she hears someone sniffle she's there with some time-honored home remedy. But because she's an animal fancier, and one of her best friends happens to be a veterinarian, I sometimes wonder if perhaps some of her remidies come from her experiences tending to sick pets rather than people.

Once when I was going for my annual physical checkup, this niece advised me to take lots of linasa dissolved in water in order to lower my blood pressure. "That way," she said, "the doctor won't scold you." Though I do feel that there is something to the belief that linasa can lower blood pressure, I explained to my niece that I'd rather be scolded by my doctor than hide a potentially dangerous medical condition from him.

My grandmother, who was of indigenous background, liked to refer to herself as a "medicine woman." She had curatives for every ailment. I think this is where my niece inherited her talents. When my grandmother was sick, however, she could never be convinced to take any of her

The
way we say it

By Daniel Soto

own nostrums. She claimed that because they were her own medicines they would not work on her. I never quite understood the sense of this ancient logic. In any case, when grandmother herself got sick, we usually ended up taking her to see a qualified physician.

But I think that there is a slightly more metaphorical
meaning than all of this behind today's dicho. What it is actually telling us is that people can be inspired to do good through their ability to empathize with their fellow humans' suffering. When someone is sick, we have a natural human impulse to want to make them feel better. When someone is in trouble, it is natural for us to want to help out.

And now we come to the crazy or loco part of the dicho. I think there are two kinds of loco, the good kind and the bad kind, and most people are capable of at least a little of both.

Of course, everyone needs a touch of madness to keep life interesting. This is the zany kind of loco that makes us do things on impulse like running off to Rio on the spur of the moment for Carnival or inspires us to play elaborate practical jokes on our friends.

The bad kind of loco, on the other hand, is the kind that can turn people into monsters capable of enormous hatred and cruelty toward their fellows. This is the kind of loco which, when unleashed, can produce an Adolph Hitler or a Joseph Stalin. Some daemons should always be kept securely under wraps.

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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 21, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 99

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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, May 21, 2007, Vol. 7, No. 99