Phorm Tem, a California resident, was deported in October 2017.

In June 2020, he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen, the first and only Cambodian deportee to earn this privilege.

Except for the ending, Tem’s story is symbolic of the plight more than 16,000 Southeast Asian refugees – from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos – who fled their homelands as children during the Vietnam War and its aftermath have endured in the United States.

Historians will tell you the Cold War officially ended several decades ago.

Only not between Cuba and the United States.

Even today, as the back-and-forth diplomatice dance illustrates, harsh feelings and distrust between the two nations still linger.

Overcoming 60+ years of a politically severed relationship is not a simple task.

Are you a family member of one of the estimated 2,000 – 6,000 Filipino World War Veterans living in the United States?

If you are, the odds are that you have been waiting many, many years to be reunited with your parents.

This article explores the issue of permanent residence for Irish immigrants in the United States. There are 50,000 immigrants from Ireland without a path to legalization. Yet, they remain invisible to much of the American public. The absence of a path to legalization creates a locked-in effect, preventing them from returning home, even in times of family emergencies. A political fix is needed.

Several years ago, I moved into a new neighborhood. Being a multiculturalism enthusiast, a family of five living across the street quickly caught my attention.

The wife was fair-skinned, short, with wavy red hair. The husband was dark, tall, with straight black hair. She was from Ireland. He was from Mexico. Their children’s pronunciations were unlike any version of English I had ever heard before.

I sensed one of my new neighbors lacked legal immigration papers.

Once again, the big lie of anti-immigrant lobbies has been exposed.

Immigration reform is not a one-ethnicity issue, contrary to the claims of xenophobic and racist opponents.

For instance, take the Black immigrant community in the United States.

Various studies over the past few years have shown the number of immigrants of African and Caribbean descent have doubled every decade since 1970.

Their totals may be small relative to the much larger figures of immigrants from Mexico, China, India, and the Philippines.  But their significance, as part of the overall reform movement, should not be minimized.

Her immigration history seemed spotless.

No arrests. No convictions.

A native of Afghanistan, Jawan had lawfully entered the U.S. to study. She met and fell in love with Tony, a naturalized citizen from Egypt, in an economics course.

After their marriage, he filed to immigrate Jawan. She became a legal resident in the early 1980s.