Introduction
Every year millions of people around the world left their home country to settle permanently in other developed countries due to many reasons, including better education, health facilities, equality, profound and effective justice system. Similarly, this ratio of migration is high with respect to the migration to USA (Review, 2024). Since the history of the mankind, the surge for safe sanctuary always dominants the humans’ nature and urge them for crossing the political boundaries or internal movement within the borders of jurisdiction for the sake of better life style. The term migration in the USA literary world is as older as the history of the USA itself. However, in the history of USA, migration refers as a permanent relocation from one state to another voluntarily, excluding of temporary migration due to labor work, visit categories and study permits (LUIBHÉID, 2007).
The humanity, since its emergence is on the verge of expeditious movement from one avenue to another window of opportunities, whereas, the dilemma of migration differed according to the prevailing economic conditions of a country, few go out of their comfort zoon to escape the conflict, fear of persecution, human rights violations, genocide, and ethnic cleansing, while other move out from their place of origin in response to climate change, environmental disasters and global warming. As per the data provided by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), as of 1 July 2020, the global number of international migrants was estimated to be 281 million. International migrants comprise some 3.5 per cent of the global population, compared to 2.8 percent in the year 2000 and 2.3 percent in 1980 (United Nations, 2023).
The American Immigration Council reported that, “immigrants accounted for an estimated 14 percent of the US population in 2021. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, in 2017 more than three-quarters of immigrants were residing in the United States with authorization, while nearly one-quarter were considered unauthorized. Among authorized immigrants, nearly 59 percent were naturalized citizens, foreign-born lawful permanent residents who met the legal requirements outlined by Congress to obtain US citizenship, while some 35 percent held lawful permanent residency, and 6 percent held temporary lawful residency” (United Nations, 2021).
Though, whatever are the reasons behind the legal migration, the migrants must have to follow the due process of law(s) for peaceful and legal immigration on the land of desires. Crossing the political boundaries in a legitimate route required a bundle of documents, along with an extensive waiting period of visa interview and appointments, eligibility requirements and others associated wants, because no country allows a non-native to move in to its territory but with due process of immigration laws. The immigrations laws are designed in a way that evolves around the independent foreign policies and state sovereignty of host state. At the same time, it is important for a sovereign state to make immigration laws in consonance with its constitutional laws, special domestic laws and with foreign policies. However, the process of visa application’s assessment should be less complex and easy.
With regard to the immigration’s petitions and visa categories of different countries, the process and system of U.S. immigration laws is quite formal, systematic, uniformed, comprehensive and without any procedural irregularities, irrespective of extensive time spam and interview’s appointment’s issues, specifically in Pakistan, as compare to the appointment system of British High Commission, Pakistan, which is easier and more accessible in term of visa applications and seeking appointments (United Nations, 2021).
Importance of Migration Under UNSDGs and ICMPD Goals:
There is a tremendous and apparent increase in demand for migration movement after the creation of United Nations Sustainable Developments Goals 2015 (UNSDGs), the goals for world, that projected to be accomplished till 2030 (United Nations, 2023). In this regard, a high demand for updated and accurate data of migrants till 2030 is required. However, for the said task and sustainable development, international community have been tasked to review the traditional sources of migration from one country to another (Migration Data Sources, 2020). At least ten out of 17 goals contain targets and indicators that are directly relevant to migration or mobility of migrants (Migration Data Sources, 2020). The central reference to migration is mentioned in Target 10.7 of SDGs, which is also the goal to reduce the inequality (Migration Data Sources, 2020). After the introduction of SDGs, the work load regarding the immigration to U.S. would also be peaked till 2030. As per the Gallup report, as of 2021, roughly 900 million people worldwide migrated to America even during the Covid-19 Pandemic out of which 160 million are adult migrants (RAY, 2023).
Similarly, with regard to migration policies in continent Europe, a massive work has been initiatives by different organizations at Government and private partnership level to spread the awareness of peaceful migration with the speedy and decisive manners. International center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) is one of the leading international organizations in Europe, who has also been working on migration policy around the world, however, in Pakistan it has its regional office named as Migrant Resource Center (MRC) who has been working on the agenda. Thus, ICMPD’s core domain is to make the police’s recommendations and policy’s development strategies for government and intergovernmental agencies on the direct issues related to migrations. They have currently 80 ongoing projects in more than 20 member states (ICMPD, 2023). The basis purpose of ICMPD is to make awareness in general public about the legal and skilled migration, and share the consequences and deathly results of illegal migration.
Moreover, all the migration process is not as smooth as it is depicted to be for all those migrants who intended to move to other countries legally. To achieve this goal at macro level, there should be more educated persons who have immigration skills, knowledge with proper university qualification and practical experience. As much as the well-versed and competent persons will be in the country of origin with all the basic to advance knowledge of immigration laws, the less chances will be for illegal migration. At the same time the access of authorized persons or immigration experts on behalf of their clients to the relevant embassies, and counselor office if would be allowed for better understanding, the positive outcomes would be on the corner. Furthermore, to achieve the SDGs till 2030 of skilled migrants, the appointments system and time frame should be easily and shorter of all the countries of the world. More importantly, to secure the early or new appointment of relevant embassy, the applicant often being trapped by the fake agents and paid the heavy amount to secure early appointments (VFS.Global, 2023).
United States of America’s Immigration Laws, Procedure and Visa Categories:
The utmost intention of this paper is to highlight the issues faced by the applicants regarding the USA immigration law, specifically with respect to I-130 Alien Relative Petition, precisely in Pakistan. United States’ Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) enacted in 1952 with numerous amendments over the course of times, which is a prevalent subject that covers all the immigration petitions, guide the applicants about the type of petitions, petitioner’s requirements, applicants/beneficiaries’ requirements, enacted codes and eligibilities criteria to meet the visa requirements ( U.S. Citizenship and Immigraiton Services, 2019).
Potentially, USA differentiates its’ visa categories into two domains, i.e. Immigration Visa Categories (IV) and Non-immigrant Visa Categories (NIV) (Travel.State.Gov, 2024), whereas, immigration visa is subject to permanent settlements in USA which has further sub-categories, while the purpose of NIV is to move to USA temporarily for certain period of time, for certain type of work or purpose and to return back to the home country after the accomplishment of the intended tasks.
Paramount and substantial category of IV is I-130 alien relative petition, in this category, initially the U.S. citizen, whether green card holder or Nationality holder, who is at least 21 years old, may submits the petition for the approval of the petition for his spouse, unmarried child under the age of 21, parents or siblings, in the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) ( U.S. Citizenship and Immigraiton Services, 2019) for the approval and taking his family permanently to U.S. Thus, if the petitioner got successful to meet the eligibility criteria, the USCIS approves the petition and sends the approval notice to petitioner, applicant and also to National Visa Center (NVC) of the country of applicant for further actions, including, the interview of applicant(s), biometric, medical tests and submission of passport. However, when the case put forward to NVC, the NVC takes time to call the applicant for interview and takes the passport for endorsement of visa(s), if the applicant successfully passes the interview and meets the eligibility criteria again at this stage, the visa is endorsed to him, initially, the Green Card is issued to applicant which is also referred as Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR). Thereafter, the process of successful acquisition of USA naturalization certificate (Nationality), a journey for U.S. Passport, starts after entering to the U.S. (USCIS, 2024), which normally takes five years’ time period to be completed, after when the applicant takes the Oath of Allegiance before the authority. Moreover, the applicant must have resided continuously in the United States after his or her lawful permanent resident (LPR) admission for at least 5 years prior to filing the naturalization application and up to the time of naturalization (USCIS, 2024).
Thus, the procedure and the process of all the IV categories of U.S. is very systematic and formal but, one of the burning issues of I-130 petition for alien relatives is a lengthy time frame. The normal processing period of I-130 petition’s adjudication given by the USCIS is about 83.5 months (roughly seven years) for sibling petition (United States Citizen and Immigration Services, n.d.) varies in different field offices or service centers, while the processing time for I-130 Petition for spouse and child under 21-year-old is about 51 months (United States Citizen and Immigration Services, n.d.), roughly consists of four years. It has been seen in many cases particularly after the Covid-19 Pandemic, that the allocated time period has been increased to a decade or more, roughly 12 to 14 years according to the country of birth of applicant.
Whereas, after the approval of petition from USCIS it is directed to NVC to call for the interview of applicant(s), his/her biometric, medical and the fulfilment of other requirements, then the visa is endorsed to the applicant, however, if there would be any ambiguity in documents or any of the documents is missing, the NVC asks for the submission of said documents again or Request for Evidence (RFE), which yet again become the reasons of unnecessary delay, at this time from both sides, from the applicant and NVC.
The chief attention-arresting issue is not the adjudication process itself, but the unspecified lengthy processing time, is a worth of weightage, moreover, the adjudication time mentioned by USCIS is not a complete and accurate time duration but a tentative time that often goes beyond the given time slot. There are number of cases categorically after the Covid-19 Pandemic that are taking more than a decade to be adjudicated to its own timeline and to be issued the green card to the applicant(s) explicitly in sibling petition (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, n.d.), also depend upon the country of origin of applicant, typically where the applicant has born.
It is worthy to highlight the painful and arguable adjudication period with regard to the jurisdiction of the applicants, anything can be occurred during the waiting period of the petition’s approval till the issuance of visa, the applicant, the petitioner or the sponsor may get expired, the applicant may have been demotivated to move out from his country of origin due to the fear of age factor or resistance to adaptability of new avenue of life, the child who was under 21 years of age at the time of submission of petition in USCIS, may attain the age of majority that creates obstacle to immigration process and stop him/her to join his U.S. parent(s) or the U.S. petitioner in the USA. There are number of factors that causes the depression and agony to applicant if delay caused to him. At the same time, after waiting too long, it is not confirmed that the visa would be issued to the applicant or not, the visa may get denied or adjourn sine die by the Embassy of relevant jurisdiction or Department of Homeland Security (DHS), due to ineligibility of applicant, death of sponsor, death of petitioner, withdrawal of sponsorship from sponsor, in case if the petitioner and sponsor are two different persons, death of main applicant/Beneficiary, criminal record or applicant or petitioner, tax defaulter on part of citizen of the U.S. irrelevant visa category or other associated issues. During the whole process, a crucial phase of life gets wasted, normally at young age, a person can have ability to adapt any changes of newly abode particularly with regard to cross-boundaries’ cultural and norms, which could not have possible at later ages.
However, in case of denial of I-130 petition or immigrational issues, a relief can be found from Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that adjudicates the immigration cases by fairly, and expeditiously manners, also a highly administrative body to interpret, amend and apply the immigration laws (Executive Office for Immigration Review U.S. Department of Justice, 2024). Whereas, the applicant can file the appeal against the denial or decision of DHS and visa officer for justice. Most of the times, the judgements of BIA provide the fair and smooth justice to applicant and decides the cases on merits that satisfied the applicants/beneficiaries if the applicant is of the view that, his/her case was mishandled or there are any ambiguities in procedural irregularities or immigrations laws itself (Executive Office for Immigration Review, 2024), apart from getting relief from BIA, the applicant again encounter with the passing out of time till the decision released by BIA.
From all around the world, U.S. is one of the top priority countries among the migrants, there are many other immigration visa categories, but all the applicants do not meet the criteria for instances one of them is E5 Immigrant investor visa, which is also not possible for all individual especially for Pakistan, because to qualify for immigrant investor petition, a foreign national must invest at least $1,000,000 (U.S.) or $ 500,000 (U.S) in a high- unemployment or rural area, considered a targeted employment area (United States Department of State, 2024), this amount must not be taken as a loan from financial bank etc.
After getting the approval letter from USCIS the qualifying investment must, within two years, create full-time jobs for at least 10 U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, or other immigrants authorized to work in the United States (United States Department of State, 2024), however, under this category the spouse, sons or daughters of petitioner are not included as workers (United States Department of State, 2024).
Further to the investor petition, we can argue that, if a person is eligible and have sufficient funds with him and eager to file the investor petition, he must have to wait for ambiguous time period, the processing time for Investor (I-526) petition is at Immigrant Investor Program Office, is 56.5 months consecutively that makes about 4.7 years, excluding the other interim orders or RFE (Request for Evidence) (United States Citizen and Immigration Services, n.d.). This is the ratio in the cases of genuine visa seekers who have met the eligibility requirements, and waiting for approval of petition to till the endorsement of visa.
No Access to Immigration Data:
Mostly the data of embassies, consular offices or migrations authorities in immigration cases is not accessible both in denied cases or approved cases for further understanding and perusal of already existing record for practitioners. There are very few persons who have been exercising immigration laws but due to non-availability of precedents, and judgements, they are not be able to prepare and file the case in accordance with immigration law. Thus, limited available record can only be found in appellate tribunals if the applicants file the against the decision of visa officer or ambassador(s), for instant, in administrative body, appeal tribunals or appellate bodies of relevant jurisdiction. In the denial cases of U.S.., the appeal forum is BIA, where the applicant can file the appeal against DHS, or visa officer, whereas, in the U.K the appeals are filed in HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HM Courts & Tribunals Service, n.d.), in Sweden, the government office of Sweden (Government offices of Sweden, n.d.) , similarly in different countries the appeal tribunal and forum are named differently. One must say that, the availability of data even in these tribunal is not readily available completely.
Moreover, as the countries are interconnected with each other in the present time and working for the accomplishment of UNSDGs, the more migration has been expecting till 2030, in this regard the knowledge and information about immigration laws is very imperative, there are a few universities in the world, mostly in the U.S., who have been coaching the immigration laws as a course work (Merson, 2023). To understand the immigration law virtually, it is paramount to undergo the bundle of cases during academic years, and to get more hands-on experience before diving into practical field, at the same time, the access of decided cases of different embassies/diplomatic missions, is also crucial element to stop the catastrophe of illegal migration. If this happens so, the immigration consultants would be able to screening the application before applying to relevant embassies, in this way, the refusal ratio would be decline, the time of applicant(s) would be saved, contrary to that, the unnecessary burden on embassies or migration departments would also be released.
Comparative Analysis of Immigration law with Pakistan’s Curriculum and notion of emigration:
As Pakistan is a under developing country, there is high ratio of emigration from Pakistan, this is the reason that, Pakistan is amongst the 8th highest emigrating countries in the world (Haaqi, 2023) from 1990 to 2020 (Economy, 2023). Currently, Pakistan have been encountering with the mass emigration up to the record-breaking emigration figure that is eight hundred thousand just in first half of 2023, out of which one hundred thousand were emigrated, being a skilled professional of various fields, i.e. doctors, para-medical staff, engineers, IT professional, lawyers and accountants. The unprecedented departure of such a large number of people, especially skilled professionals, poses significant challenges for Pakistan’s economy and workforce (Angel Mohan Bishnoi, 2023). Pakistan’s migration to abroad has rushed in recent years. In 2022, the figure reached three times that of 2021, with a staggering 225,000 individuals leaving the country. Even in 2020, amidst the pandemic and global travel restrictions, 280,000 Pakistanis chose to emigrate (Angel Mohan Bishnoi, 2023).
However, if there would not be a proper awareness campaigns for individuals and introduction of formal immigration laws as a subject at academic level, or certification for practitioner, if less people would encompass to choose the immigration field for practice, then unprofessional and human smuggling agents would come on surface and mislead the general public without the concept of legal and illegal migration. Therefore, apart from legal emigration from Pakistan as a skilled professional or skilled worker, there is also high and consolidated involvement of national and international agents for human trafficking and other associated crimes. The U.S. State ‘Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report’, published in June 2009, designates Pakistan as ‘a source, transit, and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation’ (US Department of State, 2009).
Over the years, the agents have been playing with the lives of innocent, marginalized and illiterate people inversely. Here the term agents referred as the ‘human smugglers who arrange the hazardous journeys for illegal emigrants , most of the times, with fake documents and through illegal channels, this tendency also reveals that, the illiterate people are easy prey of them, as every unprofessional person knows that to get the visa or entry permit of other countries, the concrete documentations is a crucial aspect, with these thoughts they indulge to prepare fake documents and even some times these documents also presented in the embassies of host countries where they get exposed easily and received the denial, even in some cases the entry to host state get banned for some certain period of time, because the genuineness and authenticity of fake documents can be assessed and scrutinized by various methodologies (Agency, 2023).
In the enigmatic and trembling incident of sinking boat in the Mediterranean near the Greece coast on 14 June 2023, an estimation has been given that there were about 700 people on a small boat heading from Libya to Italy, while 104 survivors were killed in the disaster later on (Agency, 2023) Whereas, hundreds of them were from Pakistan, without declaring the final figure, but this confirmation was not established till the end of June 2023 regarding death tools however, the Pakistan’s government claimed that ‘there were approximately 350 of its nationals were on the boat and the bodies of 82 have been recovered’ (Agency, 2023). However, after such a soul jolting incident, people are not learning lessons and still inclined for emigration to abroad illegally through agents.
Moreover, many people are of the view that to avoid the hectic visa application’s requirements and lengthy appointment time for interview of embassies particularly with regard to the U.S. immigration (Travel.State.Gov, 2024) and emigration to Europe, it is better to move out illegally with the help of agents, for the said purpose, they readily pay the have amount of money normally in million rupees for illegal migration. The report revealed that the agents allegedly collected between 2.3 million rupees ($8,000) and 3.5 million rupees ($12,200) from Pakistanis who were on the ill-fated trawler that sank at Greece coast on 14 June 2023, however, to gain the trust of emigrants the human smugglers or agents allow the people to pay half or some of the money after the completion of their journey, which is a sort of tactic (Agency, 2023). A recently released movie, ‘Aaja Mexico Challiye’, is the best depiction of the consequences and ordeal of illegal migrants (Dhawan, 2022) covered in a short movie, a lesson for an emigrant and the Government of the time.
Conclusion:
In a nut shell, emigration is considered an important aspect of sharing cross cultural norms and practices, the understating of way of lives and other day to day matters along with the opportunities of earning handsome income, however, the process of immigration and requirements specifically with regard to U.S appointments and European Union Countries, should be smooth and less time consuming. If the task for securing appointment would be easily, there will be less chances to pay the heavy amount of money to fake agents, on the other hands, the flow of illegal emigration would also be curtailed while maximum people would try to apply genuinely without tempering documents. It is all in the hands of authorities to provide easy emigration opportunities, however, many of the countries are already advances their work on the smooth, Point Base System, Skilled Professionals and skilled Migration’s policies.
Furthermore, there is need of organizations like ICMPD, to make the campaigns on skills migration and introducing the youngsters the importance of skills, certification and legal migration’s channels. Further to add, in the destitute and less developing countries, there should be proper introduction of immigration laws at academic level to throw the more professionals in the field of immigration who would than encounter with fake agents through the weapon of knowledge and expertise, give the awareness to general public.
At last, the lengthy processing time of certain visa categories, whether IV or NIV, should be minimize to maintain the morale and patients of applicants/beneficiaries and persons associated to them.
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