Congratulations Karen Johnson and welcome to the USA

The same goes for Santiago Daniel Leiva, Henry Rubén López, and Luisa Ripoll. They are all legal immigrants whose arrival in the US was chronicled in a Miami Herald article yesterday.

I don't begrudge legal immigrants to the US. My Philippine born wife is one, I had to petition INS for her to come live in the US in 1989. It took a little over five months from the day I mailed the petition to Dear Wife's arrival in the US and that was slightly delayed by a coup attempt in the Philippines.

My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law have also immigrated here and I helped them with the process in each case. One thing I can never understand except for them being ripoff artists, is lawyers and paralegals charging hundreds to fill out citizenship or immigrant relative application. I know how to do the forms, if someone asked for help I'd do it for $25.

One note- DW, MIL and SIL are all now US citizens. My wife became one in 1994, Nanay in 2003, and Leonette just this year. All applied for citizenship as soon as they became eligible.

Two things curious about this article.

1- These legal immigrants views those here illegally in the states. My wife takes a different view. I don't which is would be the view of most legal immigrants in the US.

2- The Herald doing this story. This is not really news, people immigrate legally into the US every day of the year. Is the Herald partaking in some pro-immigration spin?

I'm not going to rehash the ongoing immigration debate. TFM's views are somewhere in the middle, we need to police our borders and control immigration policy. If anyone realistically thinks we can get rid of 12 million illegals, or ever 1/4 of that number, I think they've been sniffing the anti-freeze again.

One thing I rarely hear talked about is our servicemen who marry foreign nationals. Thousands do this each year. I'd like to see the petition process made easier for them. Many of our troops find themselves getting PCSd to a new base and have to leave their wife and even children behind till immigration catches up with them. Can't we do something to expedite this process for them? They're serving our country and I think we owe them this.

Open Post- Bright & Early, Uncooperative Blogger, TMH's Bacon Bits, Bullwinkle Blog, Third World County,

Karen Johnson is a patient woman.

She waited 10 years for her immigrant visa and finally got it in October. Johnson, 37, arrived at Miami International Airport this week from her native Jamaica -- excited about being in her new country.

''I can't wait to start a new life here,'' Johnson said. ``It's like a dream come true after so many years of waiting.''

Johnson was among dozens of immigrants welcomed this week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers who pulled them from regular immigration lines and directed them to a glass-encased room in a corner of MIA's busy Concourse E.

Passport officers at MIA's ''welcome center'' for new immigrants cheerfully greet the foreign nationals, processing their papers so they can get a green card in the mail and briefing them on how to get a Social Security card.

As Congress grapples with the emotional and divisive issue of whether to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants -- and hundreds of thousands of immigration supporters march in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities -- these new immigrants stand out. They obeyed the rules, many waiting years as Johnson did, for the U.S. nod, and now Congress may change the rules and, immigration critics say, reward those who have broken U.S. laws to live here illegally.

Since the debate began in Congress, several legal immigrants have written angry e-mails to The Miami Herald objecting to giving temporary work permits to undocumented migrants and then possibly green cards as one Senate bill would allow.

But Johnson and three other immigrants interviewed Wednesday at MIA's welcome center had nothing but praise for the proposal -- a view echoed by a national poll of legal immigrants.

The new arrivals showed no resentment about giving legal status to the undocumented even though they had to wait in their home countries for their immigrant visas.

''Those who have no status should get legal status because immigrants are the ones who built this country,'' said Henry Rubén López, a 20-year-old engineering student from Ecuador who waited a year for his visa.

A survey released this week, conducted by Miami pollster Sergio Bendixen, found that most legal immigrants support giving undocumented immigrants legal status.

Lawful permanent residents make up about half of the nation's immigrant population, according to the latest figures.

A recent study by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center suggests that there are slightly more illegal than legal immigrants in the United States, but the numbers are almost even -- about 12 million in each category.

Only one of the four immigrants interviewed at MIA was staying in Florida: Luisa Ripoll, a Miami real estate agent.

The others, who obtained visas through American relatives, were headed elsewhere: Johnson to Queens, N.Y., where her mother, a U.S. citizen, lives; López to Fayetteville, Ark., where his U.S. citizen father lives; and Santiago Daniel Leiva, of Peru, to Manassas, Va., where his American wife and her family operate a restaurant.

Ripoll, 33, was returning home with her two children -- Daniel and Valentina, 9 and 6. The two minors received immigrant visas in their native Colombia last week after Ripoll's husband, a U.S. citizen, requested them.

Federal law limits the number of immigrant visas available every year. This means that even if a petition for an immigrant visa is approved, the applicant may not get it right away.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website says that in some cases, ''several years could pass'' between approval of the petition and the State Department's issuing a visa to the applicant.

Also, U.S. law limits the number of immigrant visas available by country. This means applicants may have to wait even longer if they come from a country with a high demand for immigrant visas, according to the USCIS website -- http://uscis.gov.

Permanent residents can apply for citizenship after three years if they are married to a U.S. citizen or five if they are not.