SANTA FE, NM (By Jon Garrido, The Jon Garrido Network)  January 9, 2012 — After three long years of extreme hardship for undocumented Hispanics who have an American citizen spouse or parent and want to come out of the shadows by being allowed to apply for a green card to become a legal permanent resident while remaining in the USA, Obama has taken a major step toward bolstering legal immigration and protecting families. While removing some of the arbitrary cruelty from the workings of the immigration bureaucracy, it was announced Friday Obama would change a notorious process to avoid separating families when undocumented immigrants apply to become legal permanent residents.

Undocumented immigrants with an American citizen spouse or parent are allowed to apply for a green card to become a legal permanent resident but the application has to be made in an immigrant’s home country. The travesty of this process is an undocumented immigrant who leaves the country is automatically barred from returning for a minimum of three years to arbitrarily extending to as much as 10 years.

If such a separation would cause “extreme hardship” to an American citizen, an undocumented immigrant can apply for a waiver but the application and approval must be done in their home country. Because waivers are notoriously time consuming and hard to get, an applicant would typically wait months abroad for a waiver to be approved and risk being stranded from his or her family for years until approved.

Many hundreds of thousands undocumented immigrants who are eligible for visas choose to not apply for a green card and remain in the shadows.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, has proposed a new rule that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain provisional waivers in the United States before they left to pick up their visas.

The new rule is a step in the right direction but does not go far enough. Why is it necessary to remove the undocumented immigrant from the USA to return to their home country when even more hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants would apply if they could remain with their families in the United States to await approved visas.

Removal to home countries to await visas is an extreme hardship for mother or father of children born in the United States who are by birth American citizens.

Who financially supports these children and provide parenting at such a crucial time in their young lives?

Mr. Mayorkas’s announcement was a rare appearance of common sense and compassion on immigration in Washington. It was particularly welcomed by Mexicans, many of whom use the consulate south of El Paso, in Ciudad Juárez, a city with a horrific murder rate. Waiting months there for visa processing and interviews involves not just bureaucratic risks, but risks being killed by drug cartels.

President Obama has been utterly stymied by members of Congress, mostly Republicans, who oppose any and all reforms of outdated, unjust immigration laws but Obama has considerable authority to modify processes/procedures that are prudent and eliminate extreme hardships to reduce deportations and lessening the time for visa processes. This action by Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, is one example of changes Obama could have administratively change three years ago but waited until now.

Advocates have long urged Mr. Obama to take the lead with administrative actions that balance humane policies with the rule of law. This one is long over due and requires an answer to why it took three years to take this administrative action and why not continue with other archaic draconian processes that can be changed administratively by Obama?

The only answer that explains this Obama indifference is Obama and Napolitano have no empathy for helping Hispanics who need help with Immigration Reform!