Korean Family Crosses U.S.-Canadian Border to Skirt Visa Backlog

July 30, 2010— -- When Jay Cho, a legal U.S. resident from South Korea, filed green card applications for his wife and two young children in 1996, he quickly learned a frustration shared by millions of aspiring Americans: the wait time to process their visas would be years.

"Up to seven years is torture," said Cho, a 56 year-old software engineer who wanted to take a job in the U.S. and bring his family with him. "I couldn't live without them for that long."

So Cho took matters into his own hands, arranging for his family clandestinely to cross the Canadian border into the U.S. where they could live together incognito while their applications for legal residency were pending.

"My mom and my sister and I crossed over the border in the middle of the night. We just walked over across a muddy field," said Simon Cho, Jay's son, who was 5 years old at the time. "My dad was waiting on the other side of the border… and after that I grew up in the United States, living life as pretty much a normal kid."

The Cho family experience illustrates an often overlooked dimension of America's immigration system -- the lengthy and complicated legal process for immigrants who want to play by the rules, and the bureaucratic limbo that leads some to break the law while they wait.

The average wait to obtain a green card for spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents is four years, according to State Department estimates. But wait times can vary widely and last as long as a decade or more, depending on overall demand, the immigrant's country of origin and annual caps on certain family member admissions.

By law no more than 114,200 spouses, children and unmarried sons and daughters of green card holders are accepted each year.

"In the 1980s it was only one or two years waiting," said Jay Cho, whose mother, a U.S. citizen, sponsored him for a green card before he married and had children.

For Cho's wife and young children, who filed applications in 1996, the wait was five years. The three received green cards in 2001 and citizenship in 2005. They currently live together in Salt Lake City, Utah.