Pareen Mhatre of Iowa City got a reprieve, or something like that, considering she'd done nothing wrong to warrant one. She got to complete her degree from the University of Iowa in biomedical engineering. But once she gets it, in December, she could be thrust back into the visa limbo she was plunged into when she turned 21. She'll have to find an employer eager enough to sponsor her for a visa.
Laurens Van Beek, also of Iowa City and a UI alum, wasn't quite as lucky in that way, if you can call Mhatre lucky. Knowing his visa would soon become invalid and he'd have to face being picked up by immigration authorities, the 23-year-old software developer for Integrated DNA Technologies in Coralville pre-empted that. He moved back to the land of his birth and early childhood: the Netherlands.
Kartik Sivakumar, a senior in neuroscience at UI, experienced both sides. He obeyed an order to leave the country within days of getting the notice by mail. It said that since he was now 21 and off his parents' visa, he had to deport himself. He flew to Chennai, India, where he lived until age 10, when his parents brought him to Cedar Rapids for his father's career. But his reprieve came three weeks after he left, when he scored a speedy appointment for a temporary F-1 visa, got it and returned home to America.
Far from breaking any laws, flunking out, or disobeying employers or the terms of their residence in the U.S., these Iowans — like some 250,000 nationwide — did everything by the book, given their circumstances as children of long-term immigrants who live on successive temporary visas. They are educated, enterprising, ambitious young adults, with skills American companies are short on and eager to tap. In Laurens' case, those skills are so coveted that once he reached Europe, his employer's parent company, the Danaher Corp., hired him for a job with its plant in Belgium.
Though the parents' visa types may vary (J1, E1, E2, H1B), all are living and working in America lawfully. But to stay here, they need to constantly reapply, making bedlam of their lives and plans. Laurens' father, Harold Van Beek, is a businessman, a goldsmith who owns a jewelry store in town. He and his wife, Astrid, must renew their visas every two years, and because of the constraints with that process, they've been unable to leave the country for 16 years. Now Astrid's mother in the Netherlands is dying but she can't be there.
Yet life is even more stressful for the children of such workers, because immigration law says that once they turn 21 they must leave, in most cases, to a country they haven't seen since they were young. Had they been born in America, they'd have been granted automatic citizenship. Because they've lived here legally growing up, they were never eligible for President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative, or DACA. Such immigrants are sometimes called "documented Dreamers."
Most of us probably couldn't conceive of having to live with these constant upheavals. Clearly those who crafted these visa stipulations never considered that those temporary skilled workers U.S. employers are so dependent on might someday have children, who would grow up just like Americans, but without their own visas.
Finally, though, slowly, those kids are gaining a voice that lawmakers are starting to hear, in large part through an organization called Improve the Dream, founded by Dip Patel, an Indian documented Dreamer. These Iowans’ stories have been featured, variously on major national media including The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and ABC News.
Since becoming aware through the struggles of Laurens, Pareen and others, U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, a Republican, was among the first four bipartisan co-sponsors last July of Democrat Deborah Ross' America's Children Act. It offered a pathway to permanent residency (but not citizenship) for foreign-born dependents of people with temporary workers' visas here.
Laurens' father, Harold Van Beek, first "made me aware of something I didn't know," said Miller-Meeks in an interview. "I was surprised these young adults would have to self deport. … These people throughout the U.S. only know the U.S. as their home. They are here legally."
Noting that there is a "brain drain" in Iowa and around the country, Miller-Meeks said the House Republican Task Force in 2020 decided it needs to attract "the best and the brightest" from other countries or lose its competitive advantage. Measures to address that skilled worker shortage have support from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and such major companies as Amazon, Bloomberg and Google. They jointly sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security in June urging it to "establish more robust aging out policies, to take steps to preserve the ability of children to remain in the U.S. and work while waiting in the green card backlog, and to provide a long-term resolution to this problem."
The America's Children Act was also co-signed by Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa and on the Democratic side by Rep. Cindy Axne of Iowa. Republican Sen. Joni Ernst is a co-sponsor on the Senate side. Though the Senate counterpart bill was never voted on, in July, the U.S. House passed a narrower amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. It includes the aging-out protections from the previous House bill.
The Senate has yet to vote on that, though supporters say backing from Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, could be crucial. Grassley hasn't signaled which way he'll go.
The amendment would essentially stop the clock on the child's age and visa status when the parents first file for a green card (permanent residence and work visa), rather than when the child turns 21. That's because backlogs in green cards may run a person's entire lifetime, especially on certain nationals because of country caps.
Noting that "the immigration system is broken," Miller-Meeks says on her website that unauthorized border crossings “color(s) everything else that happens on immigration. But we’re talking about a specific subset of legal immigration which no one has looked at in the past. … We have individuals who have been educated here and want to stay here, but they have to leave because the immigration system doesn’t allow them to stay.” She also noted the difficulties some Iowa employers, including small businesses in her district, have finding and retaining workers.
Yet the anti-immigration Heritage Foundation has slammed the amendment, writing, "Legal and illegal immigration are inextricably tied. There are only so many resources and so much manpower to go around, and when the system is overrun by illegal border crossings and fraudulent asylum claims, it is those waiting on legally filed applications who are hurt most."
Actually, the Heritage Foundations' inflammatory rhetoric is what's hurting legal immigrants — who wouldn't seek or get any kind of amnesty with this.
The Council on National Security and Immigration, which supports immigration reforms, weighed in in support of the measure, writing, "Removing the age restriction will help ensure high-skilled workers stay in America, as opposed to choosing another country that may not align with our values, such as China. Keeping these individuals in the U.S. bolsters our national security and helps ensure we retain immigrants who embody the American spirit. Calling for these workers to be excluded makes America less secure and is not consistent with conservative principles."
The bill is expected to be voted on in September, which means you have time to make your voice heard with Iowa's senior senator. Grassley is running for re-election and may be unusually responsive to constituents' wishes this year. Put yourself in those documented Dreamers' shoes or, if you prefer, those employers' shoes, and urge him to vote for fairness.
