Barack Obama is backing US immigration laws

A US visa law set up to protect immigrants who are victims of crime has seen a rush of approved applications after being little-known about for many years.

The T and U visas have been in place for nine years, yet it is only recently that the US government has started approving such visas.

The T visa provides legal protection for victims of trafficking, while the ‘U’ visa provides legal status for victims of serious criminal activities such as murder, assault, rape and sexual abuse. The crimes must break US laws and/or occur in the US.

The recent rush of T and U US visa approvals is in part due to the issue of US immigration rising on the Obama administration’s agenda.

Since the laws were passed in 2000, only 1,500 T visas have been granted across the US. For the U visa, regulations were only issued in 2007 and no visas were granted until the summer of last year.

There is now a backlog of visa applicants who may be eligible for the T and U visas and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has pledged to use the 10,000 US visas available to ease that backlog. This year more than 1,600 U visas have already been granted.

Critics of the visa system say it is open to abuse from applicants who fake crimes to obtain a US visa. Yet surely these ‘new’ US visas are a vital lifeline for genuine victims of crime and abuse as well as a deterrent for those who are perpetrators of illegal behaviour towards immigrants.

Questions however remain. Why has the law taken so long to come properly into effect and just how many victims of serious crime and abuse have missed out on obtaining the chance to legally live and work in the US as a result?