“This is New York — what would we do without immigrants?”: A New York lawyer discusses displaced persons in the US
Nora Margaret Anderson, a New York immigration lawyer, addresses the disparities in the American treatment of migrants.
Nora Margaret Anderson never planned to pursue immigration law. During her time at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, Anderson put herself on track to do international mergers and acquisitions.
Then 2017 happened. News of former President Donald Trump’s so-called Muslim ban broke, and Anderson — then a law student — saw lawyers at the frontlines at Boston Logan International Airport helping individuals navigate the turbulent political moment. The travel ban prohibited travel to the United States “for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries,” which also affected permanent residents, dual citizens and naturalized dual citizens entering the U.S. After this, Anderson, now 30, switched her track to immigration law.
What she saw at the Boston airport made her realize that she wanted to be internationally minded in her work; she wanted her legal career to physically impact the lives of other human beings and achieve good in the world.
In 2021, Anderson and her fiancé moved to New York City where she currently works at Ogletree Deakins doing immigration work. Anderson believes the U.S. has a moral obligation to help displaced persons. This idea of helping vulnerable populations underscores Anderson’s work and attitude on immigration: migrants must be treated equitably and like human beings, not political props.
Tell me about the work that you do.
The principal portion of immigration law that I do is that I represent U.S. businesses. If you’re a U.S. business, you want to hire someone who is not a U.S. citizen, who is not a permanent resident — which is a fancy word for green card holder — if you want to hire someone on work visa who’s currently working for another company, if you want to sponsor someone’s green card, I’m the person that you call.
How has the migrant crisis in New York, and the way it’s being handled, affected your work?
It’s very funny that you say the phrase “migrant crisis” because to me, there are two very large groups of migrants coming to New York, and one of which is constantly being talked about on the news. We are hearing all sorts of “there are buses of migrants from the southern border.” What we don’t hear about is that there are a lot of Ukrainians coming to New York. There are a lot of displaced Ukrainians coming through the Uniting for Ukraine parole program that the United States government set up because there are so many Ukrainians in New York.
If you talk to a lot of people in the United States whose grandparents or great-grandparents were immigrants, they all came through Ellis Island and where do they all stop when they first entered here? New York. To me, it’s very funny how this historical framing is just completely glossed over. This is New York — what would we do without immigrants?
You said the U.S. has a moral obligation to help migrants. So I’m wondering, how do you view the role of the U.S.’ reluctance in aiding migrants, when, historically, the U.S. has helped to create conditions in these countries that people now have to flee from?
I think that we really have to compare this to how the United States is welcoming Ukrainian displaced persons. I use the phrase displaced person because the word refugee has a legal meaning.
The United States government, particularly the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, tripped over themselves to set up the Uniting for Ukraine program where tens of thousands of Ukrainians, for free, no filing fees — USCIS is very famous for its filing fees; they received no government allocation, it’s entirely fee-funded — hundreds of thousands of applications, tens of thousands of people have been resettled. No media coverage. Everyone’s fine with it. But asylum seekers are a drain on our resources; they’re stealing our jobs. Simultaneously, they’re not working and they’re lazy. Now, the United States has started similar parole programs for other countries. But it doesn’t replace the asylum system.
Do you think that there’s a race element to it?
Absolutely. As you know, in August 2021, the United States government suspended its operations in Afghanistan and left the country. We’re currently working on a parole program called Humanitarian Parole. To declare humanitarian parole for an Afghan person, you have to pay a fee of $575, which is a tall ask. If you are approved initially, you then must appear at an embassy or consulate abroad. You will have to cross the international border. Then you have to go to an interview at the consulate, and then you have to present a passport to get a visa file.
In February 2022, the Russia-Ukraine conflict began. The USCIS implemented the Uniting for Ukraine program. This has a zero dollar filing fee. Applications are able to be done entirely online, as opposed to the paper-based humanitarian parole filing. There is no consular interview requirement. You can arrive immediately in the United States and receive work authorization. Why are these two programs different? I have a feeling that it’s because Ukrainian displaced people are perceived as white.
Earlier you mentioned how governors in Texas and Florida have sent migrants to places like Martha’s Vineyard or New York — do these displaced persons have any protections under U.S. law or international law?
I feel like it’s very fact dependent. Once you have a pending asylum petition in the United States, it is totally fine to move around. You put someone on a plane to Martha’s Vineyard so that you can drop them off in front of a politician-you-don’t-like’s vacation house. That is a certain flavor of deception, and in fact, attorney Rachel Salazar, who is also a member of the American Immigrant Lawyers Association and the [former deputy] sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, where this deception took place, has actually certified those migrants for U visas as victims of crime. If you’re the victim of a crime and you collaborate with the police, you can get something called a U visa certification. Once you receive a U visa, you are on a direct path to a green card. And so inadvertently, by placing these migrants on a plane for a political stunt, you just put them on a much more secure path to a green card than their asylum claim. I think there’s so much mean spirit and malice behind it. I don’t have a problem with migrants coming here. I have a problem when you lie to incredibly vulnerable people and you exploit them for use as political props.
One of the general themes that underpinned our conversation today is New York’s history with immigration. Do you think New York City as it is today is still a haven for immigrants?
Absolutely. I think that’s why New York is always going to draw a lot of immigrants because we have that opportunity here to be next to someone that you’re able to identify with and someone you can have those shared experiences with.
Is there anything else you’d like for people to know?
I think what often gets lost in this conversation is that these are genuine human people that we are talking about. They are full of their own lives, full of their own stories. They have suffered incredible hardships. They have been through more than most U.S. citizens have ever considered thinking about. I think there is so much discourse and so many attempts at dunking or virtue signaling, as much as I hate that phrase, that we really cannot lose sight of the fact that we are talking about human beings here.
