Things were different in 1924. Back then the U.S. government thought Chinese immigrants were the problem.
So when she crossed the border from Mexico with her parents, there were no fences. They simply drove over the bridge at El Paso and paid an $8 fee.
She still has the original “Alien Head Tax Receipt,” signed by the tax collector on the bridge on March 19, 1924.
In 1940, new laws required immigrants to obtain an “Alien Registration Receipt,” and she did that too. She was assigned a number and was told that the card was proof that she was a permanent legal resident. She was told it would never expire.
She married another immigrant from Mexico and they settled near Greeley. In the 1970s, he became a citizen, but she didn’t. She didn’t drive and never had a license, but she’d had a Social Security card since the 1950s and for years it was all the identification she needed.
In 1999, her husband died. Then three years ago, one of her sons was diagnosed with cancer, and she wanted to fly to California to see him. But, of course, the airlines wouldn’t accept a Social Security card. That’s when her troubles began.
She applied for a state identification card, but “they wouldn’t let her have it,” said her son, a retired school principal. They told her she needed a birth certificate or other documents she didn’t have. She left the office empty- handed.
Two weeks later she received a letter saying she was the subject of a “random check.” It ordered her to produce a green card or face possible deportation.
She is elderly, in poor health and scared, which is why her children won’t allow her name to be used.
Her family searched her house looking for the Alien Registration Receipt, but they couldn’t find it. After 30 days, her Medicaid benefits were halted.
Finally, her son found the receipt and she reapplied for benefits.
The application was denied.
That’s when she contacted a lawyer.
“What happened was the law had changed,” said Joy Athanasiou, an immigration lawyer in Denver. “Permanent legal residents now are required to renew their cards every 10 years.”
But a lot of immigrants never got that message.
So Athanasiou helped the woman complete her application for a green card in August 2005. Requirements for biometric information, including eye scans and fingerprints, delayed submission of the application to the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services until Nov. 22. But the woman and her kids thought everything finally was solved when her new card arrived in the mail in March.
Then there was another problem.
USCIS had issued the card with the wrong date of birth. It was invalid.
They had to start over.
On Oct. 12, the USCIS said it was still processing the application it had received on March 26 to replace the flawed green card. Marie Sebrechts, a spokeswoman for the agency, said processing usually takes six or seven months.
The family is trying to be patient.
In the meantime, the woman has been unable to receive Medicaid benefits, so her kids bought her insurance to supplement Medicare.
They’re not rich, but they’re good kids.
Four of her boys served in the U.S. military. One, a Marine, spent six years fighting in Vietnam, where he was severely wounded. Another, also a Marine, was killed in the line of duty in 1977.
When she applied for a green card, USCIS took the original Alien Registration Receipt she’d kept for 64 years, so now she has no documents to verify her status as a legal immigrant.
Athanasiou said the woman’s plight is not unusual. “The laws that were passed both at the federal and the state levels have had a far greater impact on citizens and lawful permanent residents than on immigrants here illegally,” she said.
The woman is 87 and still lives on her own. Still, she worries every time she turns on the TV and hears someone fulminate about sending undocumented immigrants back to Mexico. It’s why she keeps hoping to get a green card someday.
Someday soon.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
