Immigrating - immigration lawyer H. Reid Shaw - column

National Review, July 8, 1988 by D. Keith Mano

IMMIGRATING D. Keith Mano

THEY LINE up in darkness, as if drawn out by ultrasonic bat sound. It is, I think, the largest criminal gathering ever. These are people of long ambivalence and daily stealth: half a small nation on the lam. What must it be like, to have no legal standing at work or in your bedroom? While I write -- May 4, midnight -- they surround the New York Immigration Service office, ten thousand or more illegal aliens, flushed from cover by amnesty. They seem furtive and mistrustful: after all, they've been ducking authority for years. Nonetheless, they come: to secure the most valuable piece of paper in print -- their American permanent resident's green card.

And in a classroom, one week earlier, I sat with 15 or so skittish men and women, listening to immigration lawyer H. Reid Shaw. More than half my fellow students are white and young -- I mean, they looked American. Most had let their temporary visas lapse. Now they were trying to figure some angle that would produce permanent residence. No simple trick, that: it may be easier to candle a china egg than to become American.

My favorite flip phase, you might have noticed, is, "Sleazy as immigration lawyers." Shaw, however, has passion and rectitude the way some people have a hemorrhage. He is no wetback mouthpiece either: Shaw represents large, international corporations. And his mind is sharper than a boning knife. After tax law, immigration law has become the most complex, dullest body of statutes we have: Shaw make it sound like sitar music. He speaks five languages, one of which, I think, is High Sardonic.

His feeling about the Immigration Service -- delivered in quirky, acid, Fred Allen-ish diction -- could be, oh, just a touch more positive. "I've been doing this for many years. I'm convinced that no one lies as much as the government investigators. Go down to 26 Federal Plaza, that place is a covern of the most profound immortality and indecency. They're hinderers, they're obstructionists; they will do anything to cause gratuitous suffering, to undermine the hopes, dreams, aspirations of their brothers and sisters. Not every time heir too often, these people are sadistic, vicious, completely dishonest." Of American immigration officers stationed in the Third World, he had this to say: "Many seem to retire rather early. After a year or two of distinguished service. And they don't have to work again."

There are seven sorts of immigrant visas: five based on relationship, two on occupation. An immigrant visa is Step A in your permanent-residence application, and none of those seven should be taken for fast food. Before you are fingerprinted (now they also photograph your right ear), the wait will probably be one year or more. An immediate relative (parent, child, wife) might get visaed within three months. Figure one year, maybe two, for the artist or scientist of "exceptional merit." Your brother in educator, however -- except is visa by A.D. 2000. There are one and a half million siblings in line already. Acceptance is contingent on moral standing: you must not be alcoholic or polygamous or vagrant or Communist or engaged in "commercialized sexual activity." Shaw, though, once got permanent residence for a murderer. "It wasn't even too hard. But if, in 1948, he had been found with one mini-mini-microgram of hashish on his person, he'll never be forgiven that. But for murder . . . well, this is America; we mustn't be unduly severe. The absurdity of the law will speak for itself."

Those who aren't gene-splicers or famous sculptors are required to prove that they won't take work away from an American. This can be dicey. The sponsoring employer must advertise your job for at least ten days. "It is a cat-and-mouse game. For a while, for a live-in housekeeper, we would advertise the position in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The Labor Department wised up after a few eons. It's a situation which is fundamentally, shall we say, compromising. We know, and the Labor Department knows that we're trying not to find a qualified worker. If you lose your labor certification, that's it. You've got to get married.

Which many postulant Americans end up doing. Citizenship, in fact is often contingent on sex appeal. The Immigration Service estimates that 45 per cent of marriages brought before it are fraudulent. No other government department is empowered to verify love. "How? "They invite you into a kind of Newlywed Game quiz. They separate the spouses are ask maybe a hundred, 150 questions to test their knowledge of the trivia of each other's daily routine. 'What time does your husband get up? Does he have an alarm clock? What sort of table does it sit on?' I know many instances in which the people were living together as husband and wife, and the case was denied." U.S. immigration law, as Shaw would have it, is a course instrument.

Any alien who might retain Shaw distinct left-liberal prejudices. "Immigration law is basically and fundamentally a piece of work of the legislature of 1952. In 1952 . . . this country was suffering under a terrible mass fear of Communist subversion. This hysteria has permeated immigration law." Despite that leftsymp patter, Shaw claims to be conservative and, indeed, even "monarchist" (he is, God knows, elitist enought at any rate). He has no use for the Reagan Administration. Unless that is, he has some use for it: "I know a certain liaison officer who works for the President. He can put a hot seat under Immigration and the State Department. Vice President Bush has been good to me, too. There are ways to apply pressure. Everything I tell you above board." I'm sure. In immigration law, it would seem, there is no board at all.