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Missed moments Tougher visa rules for Poles split families apart as some work for a better life in the suburbs while their loved ones must remain at home.
Andy Wozniak sat in his living room waiting for the phone to ring. He nursed his heartbreak with champagne and a nostalgic chat with her godfather. A bit of solace arrived at 9 p.m. when the phone finally rang. A continent away, the bride placed a static-filled call on her way to the reception. "I want more than anything to be there with you," he told her before losing the signal. Wozniak would have been there, too, but he couldn't get a visa. By refusing him entrance, immigration officials denied him this special moment in his daughter's life, he believes. Then again, U.S. immigration rules have meant he's missed lots of moments the past six years. His first son-in-law's funeral. His grandson's first day of school. His daughter's engagement party. "It's hard not having him close to me," said his daughter Elizabeth Wozniak, who lives in Addison. "It doesn't seem fair." Her predicament is one shared by many of the area's 138,000 Polish-born residents, roughly half of whom live in the suburbs. As the region's second-largest immigrant group, they often are cut off from their families by policies imposed to curb prolific illegal immigration. The situation has made the path from "Polska," as Poles call their country, harder to navigate. It also has stirred a rare resentment among the Polish people, staunch allies who question why the United States gives a much-warmer reception to less-supportive Western European nations.
Visas have become so tough to obtain, a small but growing number of desperate Poles - including Andy Wozniak's son-in-law - have begun sneaking in across the Mexican border. "It's a dangerous thing to do," said Ewa Hunce, a top adviser to Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. "But they feel as if they have no other choice. The situation is dire." Driving the desire to escape is Polska's poverty and double-digit unemployment rate. Nearly one out of every five Poles is out of work, living in poverty or both. The Polish government has demanded that the United States relax its rules and allow its citizens to enter without visas. A history of illegal immigration by Poles posing as vacationers, however, has killed any chance of that happening.
Poles now challenge the United States' loyalties, questioning why that government would treat them as enemies when they sent 2,500 soldiers - the fourth-largest foreign contingent - to fight in Iraq. Germany and France have been critics of the war, yet their citizens need only passports to enter the country. The perceived inequity deeply offends Poles, 73 percent of whom oppose the war, according to recent polls. "How they make the reasoning is beyond us," Hunce said. "French people who are against Iraq and America can go freely, but those who support the United States are reduced to humiliating scenes at the airport, where they can be sent back." Hunce and a presidential delegation traveled to Chicago this summer to push for a more-open immigration policy. They hoped to find allies in the region where the 138,000 Polish-born residents combine with another 682,000 Americans of Polish descent. Still, the U.S. government long has defended its position, saying Poland does not meet standards. Under the Visa Waiver Program, residents of qualifying countries can enter America for up to 90 days with only their passports. Twenty-seven nations - mostly from Western Europe - have qualified. Requirements include border security, financial stability and a rejection rate of less than 3 percent for visa requests. It's the visa denials, more than anything else, that bar Poland from joining the waiver program. Of the 100,000 Poles applying each year, roughly 30 percent - 10 times the threshold - are rejected. The refusal rate is high because many Poles try to stay permanently, the U.S. State Department says. That causes consular officials to greet Polish visa requests with skepticism. The Polish government estimates 70,000 Poles are living in America illegally on now-expired visas. About 58,000 of them live in the Chicago area, making Poles the second-largest undocumented group behind Mexicans, according to the Center for Impact Research. "We cannot say the (American) reasons are without grounds because many people do overstay," Hunce said.
Throughout U.S. history, few countries have established a steadier stream of immigration than Poland. The mass migration began in the 1890s, when 97,000 Poles came to the United States. The largest wave occurred during the 1920s when 228,000 Poles arrived. From that point forward, a strong Polish population made America the obvious choice for Poles looking to escape their homeland's history of economic distress. About one out of every three Poles still settles in the Chicago region, according to immigration records. It has became such a haven, people in Poland commonly refer to it as "Polonia," the word for a Polish settlement outside the homeland. The metro area, indeed, has earned its nickname. A recent Roosevelt University study found Poles comprise 10 percent of all local immigrants. Only Mexicans command a larger share - 40 percent.
Polish officials hope the country's entrance into the European Union eventually will shrink those numbers as jobs closer to home become available. Such a change could take at least a decade, they say, because many Western European nations have restricted Poles from working freely in their lands for several years. Until that happens, the Chicago area will be their primary destination. And for the first time ever, half of them will settle in the suburbs. They will take root in Northwest suburban towns like Mount Prospect and Des Plaines, where census data suggests their countrymen have migrated in recent years. Census figures also spotlight budding Polish enclaves in West suburban towns like Lombard and Naperville, too. The data indicates the majority enter legally after being sponsored by family members or benefactors. Others won their entry via the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery, in which 50,000 green cards are given to people around the world. Several of those who come and remain illegally say they're confident of their ability to blend in with white America. Statistics show they are less likely to be detained and deported than other illegals. Federal officials deported 112,245 Mexicans in the past year compared to 207 Poles. Late last week, immigration officials held 538 illegal immigrants in local facilities. Of those, 149 were Mexican and 19 were Poles.
For nearly six years, Andy Wozniak lived an illegal version of the American dream. He left Poland in 1991, two years after the Iron Curtain lifted. Before arriving in America, he had been living a middle-class life in Kety, a small town about 90 minutes from Krakow. He worked as a truck driver for an aluminum plant, and his wife ran a cosmetics shop in the town square. The couple had three children, a boy and two girls. They lived comfortably in a large two-bedroom apartment above the store. The family had enough money for vacations to Italy and the Baltic sea. But as his children grew older, college tuition became a concern. With the economy of post-Communist Poland in a lurch, Wozniak decided to try his luck in America. He bluffed his way in, saying he wanted to visit to improve his English. He moved in with his brother-in-law on Chicago's South Side and within a few weeks, heard a help-wanted ad on Polish radio for a cleaning company that worked with a grocery chain.
The Polonia grapevine said the firm paid cash for custodial work. It would allow him to move around the country. Wozniak packed his bags and moved throughout the South, living in Memphis and Atlanta before heading to Panama City, Fla. He mopped floors, made friends and earned more money in a week than he could in two months back home. With the extra money, he put his two daughters through college and helped his son open his own car repair shop. Elizabeth studied advertising at a Krakow school. After graduating in 1996, she joined her dad in Florida. Officially, the 19-year-old had come on her second vacation to the United States in three years. Unofficially, the pregnant woman had traveled 4,600 miles to ensure her baby would be born an American.
Life in Poland had become unbearable for Elizabeth and her husband, Slawek. College advisers bluntly told her that finding a job in her homeland after graduation would be difficult, if not impossible. Slawek, for his part, had little schooling and a job working for his overbearing father in the family grocery store back home. The couple knew they couldn't live on his stockboy salary after the baby's birth. They devised a plan to make a new life in Chicago. After giving birth in a Florida hospital, Elizabeth and her dad went back to Poland with her newborn American son.
She received a student visa a few weeks before graduation. The record ensured she could enter the United States with her 18-month-old son. Slawek failed on three consecutive attempts to get a tourist visa. It was impossible to obtain one with only a grade-school education and without a family member to sponsor him. He had heard rumors of someone with connections, a man who could guarantee a U.S. entrance. For $8,000 and a vow of secrecy, he could smuggle Slawek into America. The 21-year-old didn't have the money or a chance of earning it. It would take him years to save that much, and his family refused to help. He begged his father-in-law for the cash, convincing him with promises of a better life for Elizabeth and the baby. He was obsessed with America and planned to make a decent wage in a factory or as day laborer. "He always wondered how somebody could make so much money in a short amount of time," Wozniak said.
In August 1998, Slawek and four other men boarded a plane to Stockholm. Once there, a guide and a fake Swedish passport awaited him. The men then hopped a flight to London, where Slawek had his passport stamped to make it look used. From there, they traveled to Mexico City and drove to the Texas border. The border patrol officer gave Slawek no trouble. With his blond hair and blue eyes, Slawek easily passed as a Swedish tourist looking to do a little sightseeing in America. Within two weeks, the guide had brought the men to Chicago. They burned any proof of the clandestine trip, including the Swedish passports. Slawek found temporary housing with a friend on the city's South Side and called his wife to tell her he was safe. Elizabeth and her son joined him a month later. Migrant passage through the Mexican border has been a long-standing problem for U.S. authorities. So far this year, 112,000 illegal immigrants of various nationalities have been detained. Officials expect the number to jump to 200,000 by year's end, a 25 percent increase in the past three years. While the majority of those detained hail from Mexico and Central America, a growing subgroup comes from as far away as Pakistan, Armenia and Poland. Poles typically enter from Mexico on forged documents. Such smuggling is so prevalent authorities estimate it's become a $1 billion-a-year-illegal industry, second only to drug-trafficking.
Slawek did not live long enough to enjoy a new life in his new country. He died of a heart defect four years after illegally coming to Chicago. His wife and child stayed to live out the American dream he had for them. It wasn't easy. At 25, Elizabeth found herself a widow with a child and no work experience in a foreign country where she barely spoke the language and had only a few relatives. She could have returned to Poland to live in her parents' apartment. Her mother would have given her a job in the family shop and life would have been easier. She wanted something more for her son. She wanted him to get a good education and all the other opportunities that come with being an American. She found work as a nanny and a cleaning lady, two low-skilled positions often available to Poles without proper papers. She now splits her 60-hour work week watching other people's children and cleaning their houses. Elizabeth has earned enough to buy a two-story townhouse in a quiet Addison neighborhood. Her son attends public school as well as a Polish language school on Saturdays. His spends evenings playing soccer or basketball. As she shuttles her son from activity to activity in her SUV, nothing marks her as an illegal immigrant. She speaks English fluently, pays property taxes and makes mortgage payments. She also is one of 6 million illegal immigrants who file a tax return using identification numbers provided by the Internal Revenue Service. "This wasn't just handed to me," she says of the life she's made. "I had to work for this."
This American dream comes with a price. Elizabeth calls her parents often, but she never can go home to visit. The U.S. State Department has refused her father's repeated visa requests. Without the visa, he has missed a lot. When Elizabeth, then 25, buried her husband, her father couldn't be there to console her or help with the funeral.
When she remarried in June, she marked another milestone without her dad. Wozniak had longed to be with her. He'd already missed his daughter's first wedding because he was living in the United States then. He consoles himself by saying the journey would have cost a lot of money and forced him to miss work. Elizabeth does not regret her choices. She misses Poland, but not enough to lose her American lifestyle. She is working on her legal status and hopes, someday, to become a citizen. The process could take years, meaning more holidays and more milestones without her parents. She worries how the situation affects her son, a second-grader at an Addison school. She wants him to know his grandparents and his heritage. When he started speaking with an American accent and struggling with Polish, she knew he needed to reconnect with his roots. She bought him a ticket and put him on a nine-hour flight to Krakow last summer. At least a dozen other unaccompanied children took the same flight alone because their parents didn't have the papers needed to return to Chicago. Once in Poland, the boy got to know his grandfather. They traveled the country together in Grandpa Andy's 18-wheeler, logging more than 3,000 miles. They slept in the truck's cab, splashed in the Baltic Sea and visited small towns. The monthlong adventure ended at the Krakow airport, where the little boy joined a throng of passengers in the security line. As he waited, he lowered his head so no one could see the tears stinging his eyes. His Grandpa Andy kneeled beside him, gently rubbing the blond bristles on the back of the boy's head. The 7-year-old stood miserably, with a Tommy Hilfiger backpack slung over his shoulders. The red, white and blue bag was stuffed with photographs and souvenirs from a trip neither he nor his grandfather would soon forget.
At every turn, it had been a chance to know the man who had been only a soft voice on the phone. And now the child was not ready to let go. The boy's pale cheeks flushed red and he turned to hide his embarrassment. He struggled for something to say before boarding the flight. "Why don't you come with me?" he asked, rubbing his tear-filled eyes. It was a familiar question to Grandpa Andy, one he has asked himself countless times since the boy and his mother moved six years ago. "You want me to go with you?" he asked. "You know I'd want nothing more. I just need to take care of my passport situation and my visa." It seems the only way Wozniak can hope to have a full relationship with his grandson. The boy's life and loves are in the United States, an entire world away from his mother's homeland. His grandson may have enjoyed Poland, but Wozniak never doubted where the child's heart lay. More than once, he heard the 7-year-old bragging - in an undeniably American accent - that the United States was the best country in the world. And that's fine with Grandpa. For the past two generations, the Wozniak family has sacrificed a great deal to hear the boy make such boasts. "He belongs to America," Wozniak said. "He has opportunity and he will be happy." Part 2: Catholicism dominates Poles' lives there and in the suburbs.
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