Legal immigration can take decades

We can understand why people try to sneak in here, when it often takes 20+ years to come legally. - - Donna Poisl

By LEE DAVIDSON, Salt Lake Tribune international

SALT LAKE CITY - Six years after applying to sponsor her sister for emigration from the Philippines, Eunice Jones of Salt Lake County, Utah, was ecstatic to receive a letter last year saying the State Department finally approved her sister's eligibility.

But that didn't mean Emerald Guerra, 39, could come anytime soon. The State Department cautioned that no visas were currently available for Filipinos in her sister's category of siblings of U.S. citizens seeking to immigrate.

"We found out that Filipinos who were then getting those visas had first applied in 1987" or 22 years earlier, said Jones, a naturalized U.S. citizen and real estate agent. Because of tight quotas on visas, legal immigration for Guerra might require another 16 years of waiting.
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