“Sometimes, it's not easy because they’ve been through a lot of things, especially undocumented immigrants. So, it’s hard, you have to establish that trust. Sometimes they have a lot of trauma. It’s very gratifying, but it’s also very difficult, a very difficult job.”
Aline dos Santos Gomes is immigration coordinator for the International Institute of Southwest Missouri. She helps advise immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees as they navigate the bureaucracy of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
She tells me every case is unique. She helps undocumented immigrants as well as those with ongoing asylum cases, some who are in the country officially as refugees, those with permanent resident status and pending Green Cards or who have their Green Card and are seeking citizenship.
Dos Santos Gomes also helps folks navigate bringing their family to the U.S. The various statuses, forms and waiting periods pose their own challenges, but she said the language barrier is the number one challenge she sees. Few of her clients speak conversational English, many can’t read or write. And she also said many of her clients, especially those entering at the Southern Border, come to the U.S. with misconceptions that pose their own challenge.
“People come, and it's very sad,” she explained, “people come with an expectation that their life is going to be just easy, and that there are a lot of opportunities if you just come. It’s not that there aren’t, but it's very difficult.”
They may also receive misleading information once they arrive.
"They go to other lawyers,” she said, “they go to different nonprofits, and they come with the wrong information or they hear from friends, and they’re here and they have very different expectations or they don’t know anything about it. They lose documents and people say: ‘oh you don’t need this’. It’s just a lot of misinformation out there.”
This can lead to mistrust and confusion. It can also lead people to work under the table or to think they need to lie, which can cause serious issues down the road.
“That’s a big problem," dos Santos Gomes said, explaining one example of an issue she said is unfortunately common, “like, if you don’t tell me you have a kid but then later on you become a U.S. citizen and you want to petition, you want to bring your child here to the U.S., how am I going to tell the U.S. government that you actually have a child if you lied on your first application?”
Those who do not already have refugee status must request asylum. They may wait years to be fully processed and must wait at least six months after filling for asylum to seek permission to work in the country.
She explained that "once your asylum is granted, then after a year you can apply for a green card. Once your green card is granted, you become a permanent resident of the United States. That means you can still be deported, but that means you really have to mess up, you really have to commit a serious crime or something like that. After five years of having your green card, that’s when you’re eligible to become a U.S. citizen.”
And it isn’t all cheap. I’m told a green card application with required medical examinations and photo can cost $1500.
Hamid Safi works with clients at the International Institute. He said once someone’s paperwork is submitted, all they can do is wait. They may be asked to appear before a judge and go through any number of interviews and biometric screenings and background checks. Any way that you come, Safi said, "they will investigate you” and your case.
He said clients don't receive any updates on their case, and wait times are only increasing.
"It’s a very difficult situation,” he explained, saying that documents are taking months longer to process than they have in the past.
In December 2023, The Guardian reported 3.3 million immigration cases pending and just 682 immigration judges. Many asylum seekers, particularly those crossing the southern border, are let into the country and given court dates while they wait to see if they’ll be deported or granted asylum status, but the overwhelming numbers mean their cases languish in a sort of limbo.
Dos Santos Gomes said “USCIS or immigration will just tell them: ‘ok, I’ll let you come in, but you have to go to court every year’. They're not allowed to work; they’re not allowed to get a social. They are just in the U.S.”
While they can help their clients file the right form, they are ultimately at the mercy of a complex bureaucratic system that requires patience and a long-term perspective — something hard to muster for many who have lived day-by-day trekking to the southern border or in refugee camps far from home and who now live in the U.S. amid the pressures of just getting by.
But their patience and paperwork offer their best chance to build a life in the United States.