Years of Visas Granted on Autopilot Guarantee Unsustainable Population Increases

Here’s a troubling recent headline from an immigration lawyer’s newsletter: “USCIS Approves 10,000 U Visas for the 6^th Straight Fiscal Year.”

What’s troublesome is that:

1. 10,000 more U visa holders, allegedly criminal abuse victims who suffered either mental or physical consequences, are now on their way to becoming permanent residents. More people equal more problems; more competition for fewer jobs, more school overcrowding, fewer hospital beds, more highway congestion and a continued depletion of natural resources.

2. No subjective standards exist for defining physical or mental suffering. Hence, the U visa is wide open to fraudsters.

3. Many more than 10,000 eventually gain permanent residency once USCIS approves the original petitioner. The U2, U3, U4 and U5 visas are available for spouses, children, parents under age 21, and unmarried siblings under age 18 of a U1 holder who is under age 21.

Most perplexing, however, is the autopilot nature of not only the U visa, but also many other visas like the DV (diversity) and H-1B. On and on the visa programs roll, without Congress ever re-evaluating their worthiness or whether conditions on the ground warrant continuing them.

This summer, about 68,000 Central Americans, including children, teenagers, pregnant women and young adults, surged the U.S. border through Mexico. Today, most have been placed with their alien families and enrolled in school. Americans repeatedly heard that the illegal immigrants were fleeing gang violence and were in danger for their lives had they remained in their native countries, conditions similar to those the U visa protects against.

Sensible immigration laws would adjust for the U.S. having taken in 68,000 refugees during calendar year 2014. And to lessen the societal load, a reduction in the numbers of U visas (and the similar T visa with its 5,000 cap) during future years should have been announced.

Instead, the visas continue in virtual perpetuity, without congressional debate or meaningful citizen input. Those who comment about U.S. immigration often say that they oppose unlawful entry. But those same critics who insist that they support legal immigration should consider the cumulative consequences of randomly written visa programs that guarantee continued population growth year after year