Over the last year as America prepared to elect a new president, immigration was one of the most talked about political issues, including heated rhetoric about deporting those who are in the country without legal authorization.
On Oct. 30, a week before the election, during a campaign rally in Rocky Mount, N.C., Donald Trump promised that “on day one,” he would “launch the largest deportation program in American history.” He went on to say he would ban all “sanctuary cities.”
Although the word sanctuary never appeared in the bill, in 2019, Gov. Jared Polis signed HB19-1124 which protects individuals from being arrested or detaining solely on the basis of their immigration status. Additionally, the law prohibits law enforcement or any other authority from providing an individual’s immigration status to federal officials. Colorado is one of 11 states identified by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and one of 13 states identified by the Center for Immigration Studies as a sanctuary state.
With the inauguration just two weeks away, Trump’s campaign threat has many people worried.
Immigrants make up 14% of the U.S. population, or roughly 46 million people out of a total of almost 335 million people. This includes about 11 million people who are undocumented, about 50% of whom have entered the country legally, but have overstayed their visa. The other half entered without authorization.
Together, immigrants and their U.S.-born children make up more than a quarter of U.S. inhabitants. According to the American Immigration Council, in 2022 there were 160,000 undocumented persons in Colorado, 70% of whom have lived in the state for 10 or more years. More than five million citizen children live with undocumented parents in the United States, 72,000 in Colorado alone.
The journey to citizenship
Becoming a U.S. citizen is an arduous process that can take years, first to be given the opportunity to immigrate, and then to go through the application process which includes a citizenship test.
Those wishing to become a U.S. citizen need to know how many voting members make up the House of Representatives, list the three branches of the government, and name the 13 original states.
They need to be able to recite information about major wars the United States has engaged in, what century the wars took place, and which president was in office during these wars.
They need to know what the stars and the stripes represent on the American flag, why the Colonists fought the British, and the name of at least one of the more than 20 American Indian tribes still living in the United States today.
The answers to up to 100 questions need to be studied and recited in English during the civics test to become an American citizen.
I recently posed these questions to my mother, a green-card holder and resident of the United States for more than 50 years. She got about half of them right. Those over the age of 65 and who have lived in this country for more than 20 years have an abbreviated list of questions to know. She didn’t get all of those correct, either.
My mother speaks and reads English perfectly, has worked in and paid taxes to this country but although she’s a permanent legal resident, she is not a citizen.
If she decided to start the process to become a citizen and passed the test, the two speeding tickets she received over the past decades may hold up her application. It’s fair to say that those living in the United States and applying for citizenship face a complicated, uphill road.
Legal support for immigrants and employers
Autumn Nelson is an immigration lawyer licensed in Texas and is pro-bono certified by the State of Colorado Supreme Court. She provides advice in a once-monthly free legal clinic at the Estes Valley Investment in Childhood Success Family Resource Center in Estes Park to help local immigrants with all aspects of becoming a legal resident, up to and including citizenship, if they so choose.
Nelson is Vietnamese and her parents applied for and obtained her citizenship status when she was 18.
Nelson is passionate about being an American citizen and about the work she does to help others. She started the Citizen Project with Melissa Wood to assist people in the Estes Valley navigate the citizenship gauntlet. The initiative is supported through a collaboration of seven local non-profits: the American Legion Post 119, The Estes Park Learning Place, Estes Park Nonprofit Network, EVICS Family Resource Center, Estes Valley Library, League of Women Voters of Estes Park, and the Patriots for Peace. Through their work over the past almost three years, nine new—or near new— U.S. citizens were honored this past September on Constitution Day, which is also national Citizenship Day.
“There is no law in the United States that prevents you from having US citizenship, although there are eligibility criteria. And, you can have multiple citizenships. In fact, we have someone in the citizenship project, who just applied for US citizen and she has two other citizenships,” said Nelson.
Whether or not an immigrant is on the path to citizenship or is undocumented, they have rights under the Constitution. These include the right to remain silent which is protected by the Fifth Amendment, the right to be protected from an unlawful search and seizure which is prohibited by the Fourth Amendment, and the right to speak through an attorney if questioned or detained which is protected by the Sixth Amendment.
The National Immigration Law Center and the National Employment Law Project are a resource for information for both employers and immigrants about what to do if immigration officials come to a workplace.
In 2023, Polis signed a bill into law, HB23-1100, that prohibits state or local governments from entering into contracts with private companies that use public facilities, such as jails, for immigrant detention. A legal defense fund, HB21-1194, was created to provide legal advice, counseling, and representation for, and on behalf of, indigent clients who are subject to an immigration proceeding. Locally, donations to the Citizen Project have covered the high filing fees for the citizenship application.
“Immigrants are part of the community. And the bigger picture: it’s under the umbrella of humanity, right? Everybody is human. These labels are kind of meaningless when you really think about it. (We should) have a society that you want to live in, where people care about each other. Because simply, we are human,” said Nelson.
Individuals interested in talking to Nelson about the path to becoming a legal resident or a citizen should contact EVICS about the free and confidential legal clinics at 970-586-3055.
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