On the Shoulders of Grandmothers by Cinzia D. Solari

Author:Cinzia D. Solari [Solari, Cinzia D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781351782258
Google: VFsvDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-08-03T04:36:10+00:00

U.S. Immigration Law: Family Reunification and the Green Card Lottery

Unlike Italy where a temporary work visa, renewable yearly or biennially, was the best migrants could hope for, most Ukrainian migrants to California were applicants for “lawful permanent residence” (LPRs) and granted a permanent resident card commonly called a “green card.” In 2012, California hosted the largest percentage of LPRs in the United States (19 percent followed by New York at 14 percent).2 Family reunification accounts for approximately two-thirds of total permanent immigration to the United States every year.3 Other channels of immigration include employment-based immigration, refugees and asylum seekers, and diversity-based immigration known as the “green card lottery.” The green card lottery was established with the Immigration Act of 1990 to increase the diversity of immigrants to the United States from “under-represented countries.” These four categories account for more than 99 percent of authorized immigration into the United States.4

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 created a preference system for family reunification so that those with family already in the United States hold a significant advantage for acquiring legal immigration documents. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukrainians, who had fled to the United States after WWII and their U.S.-born descendants as well as Ukrainian Jews who had arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, began sponsoring their family members. The U.S. visa system gives preference to immediate family members. Therefore, embedded in exodus was the process of sponsoring family members in stages with the availability of visas following up and across family trees. This requires acquiring U.S. citizenship and relinquishing Ukrainian citizenship in order to sponsor family members from Ukraine to California.

Whereas there was little variation in how migrants arrived in Italy with most buying a work visa and then overstaying it, there was substantial variation in how Ukrainian migrants arrived in California (see Table 4.1). Studies on migrants from the former Soviet Union to the United States, tend to focus on Soviet Jews.5 Although this study focuses on non-Jewish Ukrainians, because of high rates of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews in the region,6 connections with Soviet Jews already in California were important to my participants, because they were often the first link in a chain of family reunification.7

Table 4.1 List of various ways Ukrainian respondents came to California

Family Reunification: Status of Sponsor Jewish Refugees 9

Diaspora Ukrainians 6

Baptist Refugees 2

Green Card Winners 3

Fiancée Visa 1

Political Refugees 2

Family Reunification Total 23

Other Channels Religious Refugees 12

Nanny Agencies 3

Green Card Winners 2

Ukrainian Organization 1

Other Channels Total 18

Total Interviewees 41

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