Nebraska-based immigration lawyer discusses immigration myths

As the Trump Administration continues to focus on immigration policy, the laws enforcing those policies have been challenged in court, including the U.S. Supreme Court. A Nebraska-based immigration lawyer clears up some of the misunderstandings.

Kassidy Arena, Nebraska Public Media News: Being in this line of work, you're busy a lot, I would assume, no matter the administration, but especially during this administration, I invited you to here to talk about a lot of misconceptions or misunderstandings with immigration law. Let's just kind of start out with an easy question: What are some different immigration statuses people can have?

Raul Guerra, Immigration Attorney: Sure, there's a number of possible immigration statuses. You know, the most obvious is if you're U.S. citizen.

Arena: So let's stop right there. U.S. citizen is an immigration status?

Guerra: Yes. I think, you know, that's the goal of many of our immigrants, is to get to that status of United States citizenship. And then a common pathway in order to achieving U.S. citizenship is you need to have lawful permanent residence first. The other kind of common statuses are refugee or asylee and persecution-based relief statuses. You know, there's some miscellaneous statuses, as far as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Deferred Action (DACA), and different employment-based visas that come through those categories as well.

Arena: What are some common misconceptions about immigration law you've come across, let's say, within the past few years?

Guerra: There's been a lot of myths, that it's very easy to fix your status to become a resident or a citizen if you have a United States citizen spouse or a United States citizen family member. It often takes years and thousands of dollars, and you have to jump through many different government agencies and get approvals throughout the different government agencies in order to actually get a status here in the United States. Another common myth that is, I get questions about quite frequently, is, what kind of benefits does the immigrant get when they arrive here? And what type of economic benefits are they receiving? The answer is: not many. You know, most immigrants aren't able to receive any kind of means-tested public benefit. That's part of the deal when they agree to immigrate to the United States and when their family members petition for them.

Arena: I've come across questions from the general public, and I'm assuming you probably get those even more often. What sort of questions have people been most commonly coming to you about, especially since we hear about immigration in the news a lot?

Guerra: The big one has to do with economic policy. And you know, I do get questions about what the news is saying about people on the border, and it appears that there's a lot of false news out there when it comes to what kind of benefits someone is receiving.

Also, the Department of Homeland Security takes a lot of steps to make sure that people are returning back to court and they're not disappearing into the United States, as it's sometimes reported that all these people are flooding the border and entering the United States and disappearing. The government has done a job of including electronic monitoring, reporting and intensive supervision to make sure and ensure people will return back to their court proceedings to have their cases heard. And that's kind of the most recent question that comes to mind that I've been hearing a lot.

Arena: We also hear questions about the possibility of deporting people with either green card, permanent, legal, permanent status or U.S. citizenship. How does that actually look, according to the law?

Guerra: Only Congress should have that authority to make those types of laws. So, a lot of the executive orders that are being passed are being challenged in court. And so it is difficult to keep up with the pace of the news and which court case is outstanding. At this point, residents and citizens have rights, due process rights, to go into court if their residency is being challenged to be taken away, or if their citizenship is being challenged to be taken away.