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The Consuls' Files: August 2009

Where U.S. consular officers can ...

... ask questions, answer questions, question answers, express frustrations, engage in debate, disagree, and tell their favorite consular stories, uncensored and anonymous.

Sensible immigration attorneys and puzzled visa applicants, petitioners, beneficiaries, and ACS cases are warmly welcomed, as well.

Quote of the Month

“At any moment of the day or night, two thirds of the world’s people are awake, and some of them are up to no good."

- Dean Rusk

Monday, August 31, 2009

They Also Served

Liberal, conservative, love him or hate him, a lot of people are sorry to see Ted Kennedy go, for many reasons. Those of us who do consular work have a reason all our own: his staffers.

Of all the congressional inquiries some of us have seen over the course of our careers, few were like theirs. They wrote, of course, for the Senator's signature, but we knew who it was who knew their stuff: it was the staffers. They knew the law. They knew the INA. They knew the difference between a genuine constituent and everybody else. They knew the latest updates of the FAMs. They knew how to ask for something: courteously and with good humor. If they offered more information on a case, it was useful to the decision and the outcome. If they asked a question, it was coherent, lucid and to a point. If one of them telephoned, he or she was unfailingly polite, knowledgeable, cheerful and patient. If they knew the case was hopeless they would willingly say so, but simply add that they needed to hear it from us to pass on to a constituent, and were sorry for taking our time. If they thought we had made a mistake, they were usually right. If a constituent's friend or relative had lied to us, they got to the truth and presented it to us.

They did not yell.
They did not quote case law that was not on point.
They did not quote case law at all.
They did not ramble.
They did not use colored ink.
They did not use italics.
And they did their homework. They knew what they were talking about.

For all of these reasons, experienced consular officers have always felt relieved on receiving a congressional to see that it was from Kennedy's office. But Madam admits that, until she started this blog entry, she did not know how well-thought-of his staffers were in Washington. A quick Google, however, brought a new, broader perspective.

Apparently, over the years, many Kennedy staffers have moved to important jobs in both the public and privates sectors. Those that are left now might go anywhere. The Washington Post asked, "Is this the moment, finally, for other senators to snatch Kennedy's prized aides?" If so, we consular officers might hear from some of them again, their words over other senators' signatures now, but we will continue to be pleased and relieved by their knowledge, rationality and professionalism.

If any of them reads this, or if any reader knows one, please thank them for all of us. They did great work.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Wherever We Go, There We Are

Musings on ACS:

For a few years Madam had a fairly close relationship with a group of women whose marriages to wealthy men not only allowed but required that they shop, lunch, and have their hair, complexions, waistlines and nails regularly tended to, but not work. In the deepest dark depths of the mid 2000's, halfway through her fettuccine, one of them suddenly declared, "I can't stand what this country is turning into. I'm going to go live somewhere else."

Suddenly alert, Madam asked, "Really? Where?"

The woman answered, "Paris. Morocco. Bangkok. Anywhere else."

To her immense credit, Madam did not say, "And Honey, as soon as you discover that it takes four hours of standing in lines to mail a letter, the toilet paper is scratchy, the local government makes your country courthouse look positively enlightened, and no one speaks English as well as you do, you'll be on the next plane home."

Was it tacky to presume that this lady's moral outrage would be so easily diverted by material discomfort? There are Americans, indeed, who travel to ashrams, mountain villages, hostels, schools and hospices all over the world, and never look back. They build satisfying, meaningful lives there for themselves. They do stunningly good works. But there are so many more who travel with hopes of finding a world that makes sense to them, and wash up in the ACS unit, lost, ruffled, resentful, imperfectly laundered, fleeced and demoralized, having expected far more from the rest of the world than it could ever give them.

Madam would be the last to criticize the impulse to seek clarity in a grubby, disappointing world. She seeks this kind of clarity herself - especially after more than one thimbleful of Fernet Branca. But she has also learned that Dorothy was right: "It" is probably right there in your own back yard.

There is no getting around the fact that the material world holds us tightly. Bless 'em, so many Americans really don't know how comfortable they have it in the US: binding contracts; clean tap water; governmental bodies with rules that are not secret and that they abide by; fixed prices and published sales; working traffic lights; road maps (and now GPS directions that are not state secrets); bill payment on line; marked crosswalks; OEM car parts; gas stations when you need them; pet rescues. Amazon.com. EBay. An efficiency, reliability and outright luxury that could allow much unfettered time for moral cogitation under the hair dryer.

There are also, of course, some unmistakable material and practical advantages to living overseas. It is, after all, the Germans who produce the softest three-ply toilet paper on the planet. The oval plastic dog beds that the hound prefers are only available in Europe. Madam loves finding live, healthy, furious bugs in her produce. And she loves taking part in heated arguments in her favorite foreign language just to see how far her FSI vocabulary will take her.

The material and the cerebral should not be so closely connected, but they tend to be. There are good reasons why rites of passage always involve removal from ordinary time, space, and physical habits. But still. If one's moral compass only points at the farthest corners of the earth, perhaps it needs its polarity adjusted.

Be gentle with your sorriest ACS cases today. Even the annoyed, wilted, imperious ladies from Beverly Hills. They really are trying the best they can.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Enhance This, Pal

Madam has observed for many years the drive to get first- and second-tour consular officers out of the consular section. We're not talking ankle chains or hostage situations here; we're talking about officers who have vital jobs to do but whom other officers believe will only be able to retain their sanity and their employability if they are periodically sprung for informal 'rotations' (a month in PD, in econ, in political) which purport to expose the officers to, and broaden their understanding of, the 'substantive' work of the embassy.

It is also accepted nearly worldwide that, since the consular section is so large, it must be able to spare officers regularly to serve visiting codels and other very minor dignitaries. (Madam habitually refers to this vital work as, "Holding doors for people," "Luggage wrangling," and "Waiting by a very important telephone that will never ring.") Such posts even have the nerve to call this "career enhancing."

Madam owns a few horses. What they produce on a seemingly hourly basis is of far higher quality than this nonsense.

One. The consular section is as large as it is in order to assure that it can perform the amount work it has to do, not in order to provide a convenient low-skill labor pool for the rest of the mission.

Madam is proud to note that during a recent assignment at a high-traveler post, it took only a few weeks until, when the arrival schedule of a new traveling circus act was announced at Country Team and bodies requested to staff control centers, etc, NO ONE looked at Madam in expectation that she would of course surrender officers. In fact, everyone at the table found his or her notes, pen or fingernails intensely interesting.

Two. If broadened experience were the real goal of 'rotations,' then every first-tour officer in, say, the political section should also serve a month in PD, in econ, in management and in consular, shouldn't s/he?

Three. There is no truth to the rumor that one short, rushed, inexpert (or even expert, but how expert will the officer be in a month?) political or econ cable will enhance the likelihood of tenure on the first try more than will one well-thought-out, subtly reasoned, skillfully constructed consular cable written by someone who clearly knows what he's writing about.

Four. 'The officers want to do it, therefore they should do it.' Madam's son has wanted to drive her BMW ever since she bought it. So?

Five. 'Rotations provide a break from the production-line work of "stamping visas."' If consular work at this mission is so godawful terrible, Madam will answer, that is the fault of consular management, not of consular work itself, and must be corrected.

And by the way, anyone in any section of any mission and of any level of seniority who dares to refer to consular work as 'stamping visas' is absolutely guaranteed to be wearing one of Madam's size sevens very soon, and not on his or her feet.

Six. Consular work is at least as 'substantive' as is reading three newspaper articles and writing a cable about them that no one will read all the way through. Or importing a US jazz band to play for a few hundred long-tamed locals.

Seven?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Ties, Both Fancy and Plain


Last week Madam shared an anecdote about an early experience with issuing a visa to a young man who had no links whatsoever to the country in which he resided, and plenty to the US. He used his visa for a short trip, and returned.

This takes us to the question that has secretly plagued every ConGen instructor since ConGen began, and plagues many working consular officers, as well. The question of ties.

Let's quote:

"9 FAM 41.31 N3.4 Ties Abroad
"(CT:VISA-701; 02-15-2005)
"The applicant must demonstrate permanent employment, meaningful business or financial connections, close family ties, or social or cultural associations, which will indicate a strong inducement to return to the country of origin."

9 FAM 41.31 N 1 - 5 is a delightful collection of contradictions that, in the end, all add up to say, "Give visas to the right people, refuse the wrong people, and don't you dare guess wrong."

Fair enough. But to bring up 'ties' at all is, in the opinion of many experienced consular officers, a red herring.

Why? Because, in their experience, there is no house, farm, rice land, sheep, goats, apartment, automobile, bank account, ailing mother, dying father, child, job or dog that will bring a person back from the US if he intends to stay there.

So what good are ties? What good are the well-practiced questions about those houses, jobs, and family members?

They are no good at all. They are a waste of time. And the job letters and bank books? Profit for Ali-On-The-Corner; meaningless in the extreme for the consular officer.

Remember our colleague dvejr last week who commented so wisely about 'iatrogenic fraud?' That is what consular officers create in their search for 'ties.' You want a job, he'll have a job far nicer than his real job. You want a bank balance, Ali will give him a bank balance. You want family, everybody has family. So what? In the end, none of those things actually matter in a way that can be seen as reliable or predictive. None of them guarantee that the applicant will travel to the US for a short visit and then return.

So what should a consular officer look for instead?

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Gold Standard

... is NOT changing 'happy' to glad.'

It is true, world-class excellence in writing (Madam despises the term 'drafting') for the US government.

For those consular officers tempted to click off now, don't do it. This DOES apply to you.

And for the rest of you - and you know who you are - stop that laughing right now. There can be excellence. There should be excellence. But more often than not the quality of writing for the USG flattens out - whether from shyness, from modesty, from inability, from multiple edits by poor writers, from fear of multiple edits by poor writers, or from outright intimidation - to a spiritless drone. All these smart, sophisticated, subtle-thinking college graduates create writing that is less engaging than seed catalogs.

It's no wonder that the occasional well-tuned, powerful, impassioned or light-hearted cable that actually makes it into the ethers is greeted with an almost pathetic joy out of proportion to its cleverness and grace.

Examples of bad writing for the sake of the USG are easy to find. Examples of good writing are precious few. But Madam had the honor a year or so ago to encounter such an example in the last place one might have expected to find it: The 9/11 Commission Report.

When the report was published, Madam - like many others - was busy elsewhere and did not notice that the New York Times praised it as "uncommonly lucid, even riveting" and called it "an improbable literary triumph." She did not notice that it topped several best seller lists and was a finalist for the 2004 National Book Awards' non-fiction prize. She knew nothing of the report's literary excellence when she decided that she had to read it in connection with an assignment. Unwarned and unsuspecting, she was totally gobsmacked by this book.

It is a treat and a triumph and a standard that is far more intimidating than any political section chief cum literary editor could ever demand. You know what happened, how it all came out, and you still can't put it down. It's like finding a lost manuscript by that greatest of history writers, Steven Runciman. It should be required reading for anyone who will ever write for the USG.

Even SAOs.

The Report should especially guide the writing of those gems that consular officers could and should be producing in far greater volume than they do now, the modest little atmospherics and embroideries whose sources are their visa applicants and that desk officers and CA hunger for. Uncontrolled by the expectations of political or econ sections whose style is often strictly codified and even fossilized, a consular section can turn out many small, extremely useful and welcome one-pagers that color in the outlines of a host country's nature and interests. And if the section will do this in the compelling language and bold images modeled by the Report, those one-pagers will be remembered - and will continue to rightly exert influence - long after the droning, multi-section curb-thumpers are forgotten.

(As a bonus, remember that a cable of three paragraphs or less does not require a summary. On the other hand, summaries can be very fun to write. See, there you go; laughing again.)

'Happy' to 'glad,' indeed.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Madam reminds her readers of the little storm brewed last week with the entry about unconventional actions by consular officers for the benefit of Americans overseas.

The post itself, and the complaints about it, led Madam to think about the topic of children, which has troubled her for many years.

CA has made huge strides regarding how consular officers are to act with many of the child-related issues we see regularly. But many genuine, urgent emergency situations are glossed over. And there remains, and continues to worry Madam, this question:

When does a child become an American in distress?

The example Madam used involved a teenaged American girl who had called the embassy for help. She was staying in a foreign country with her mother and her lascivious step-father who appeared to have intentions toward his step-daughter that were not at all paternal. The girl could not get through to her love-addled mother, so she called on the US government.




The consular officer met with her and listened to her story. After they explored various options, the consul, with the girl’s active consent, telephoned her estranged but sensible father in the US and arranged for a ticket to his nearest airport. Then the consul escorted the girl to pick up her belongings at the step-father’s house. When the mother objected, the officer said, very firmly, in a tone that demanded a particular response, “Your daughter believes that your husband is behaving badly with her. Will you insist that she stay here?” The mother blinked and mumbled. The consular officer then asked the girl, "Do you want to leave?" She answered, "Yes!" The officer drove the girl to the airport and put her on the plane.

If this girl had been ten years older and had been staying with an abusive boyfriend, there would be no questions whatsoever. But the girl was a teenager. The mother had custody of her, under a ten-year-old divorce decree. Both the girl and the consul were convinced that something creepy was happening, and something creepier yet might happen if the girl stayed. The girl asked for the US government’s help to get her away from that situation and home safely. The government obliged.

Madam has many readers but few commenters. This time she wants comments, discussion, and debate.

Pretend the lifeline to CA is down, and you have to handle this yourself. All you have to work with is the girl, 7 FAM, and your own good sense.

If you were the consular officer and she came to you, what would you do? Would that change if the situation was the same, she was just as smart and knowing, but was 12 years old? What is your FAM or other USG reference for your choice, if any?

Friday, August 21, 2009

Deep Sea Salvage

No, you haven't stumbled into the wrong blog. Madam is simply carrying the Ocean Tragedy theme over for another day, to look at visa refusals from a different direction.




Yesterday she questioned the practice of torturing 214(b)s with false hope.

Today she asks consular officers to consider how false that hope really is.

We tell disappointed applicants that they can apply again; the FAM says to, and often we do.

But then what? What does a consular officer frequently do when confronted with a prior 214(b)? He looks at the interview notes. He asks, at most, "What has changed since the last time you applied?" Then he refuses the applicant again. In fact, Madam has seen consular officers nodding automatically at whatever the re-applicant was saying while already clicking the refusal button - even though what was being said could very well be substantive and worthwhile.

Now, Madam would be the last to say that anyone has an inalienable right to a US visa. She once grumbled, in fact, in the face of a steady flood of totally unqualified applicants, "Last guy out of Angola, turn off the lights." Nevertheless, asking that single question is not an interview and, frankly, an interview is what the applicant has paid for. Again.

Rather than asking, "What has changed since you applied before?" (which, since the original application might have been only days before, is probably not much), the officer could ask, "What do you want to tell me?" This indirect, open-ended, willing-to-hear-you approach can quickly - and far more convincingly - tell the re-interviewing officer one of three things: either the applicant has nothing but sad hope (the majority); the applicant has suddenly acquired an entirely new and extremely entertaining life since the NIV unit saw him last (most of the remainder); or the applicant does indeed have a case worth exploring (rare but real).

Explore it. Use the prior notes as part of the evidence, but add the rest before weighing them all together. And then fairly and without prejudice compare this application with others you yourself have issued and refused. Then decide.

This can be hard. The notions of solidarity and group loyalty among NIV officers are very strong, and they should be. If we can't trust one another, we can't trust anyone. And yet a reapplication should not serve as an automatic prompt to circle the wagons.

If you intend to issue, Madam always advocates informing the officer who refused the applicant before. (Others disagree, but she disagrees with them and this is her blog.) That, to her, is simple comradely courtesy. "Informing," by the way, does not mean engaging in heated argument, although this has been known to happen. But this is now your applicant, your case, and your decision. If a colleague might hold it against you for deciding to issue an applicant he refused, we can only remind yourselves that visas are not about the officers; they are about the applicants.

.........................................

An anecdote: many years ago, when she was very new to this business, Madam interviewed a young man who had applied for but not yet received refugee status in the country where she was working. His passport had expired and he couldn't get a new one, he had a job promised but not yet started, had no money, was staying with distant cousins in an overcrowded apartment, spoke good English and had a girlfriend in New York City. He had been refused a US visa in his native country the year before, where he had had a home, family and a job. He had been refused right here the week before.

When Madam quickly refused him again, he responded, "Yes, I thought so. But I wanted to tell you that I really don't want to live in the US. It's just that before my job starts is the perfect time to visit my girlfriend. I understand. Thank you."

Madam went home that night and couldn't get him off her mind. Couldn't sleep. Went to the office the next morning and talked with the more experienced officer who had interviewed him the week before. All Madam could say about why she wanted to issue the visa was, "Because I believe him." The experienced officer smiled and said, "I refused him based on his ties here. But if you think he's a good risk anyway, go for it."

Madam dug out his application and called him back in. Requested a passport waiver for him and when that came through, had his visa printed on an OF-232 and sent him to New York.

A month or so later he bounced joyfully back into the waiting room to introduce his US girlfriend. He had had a wonderful visit, and she had come to live with him here. They had found a tiny attic apartment and he would start his job tomorrow. He had come in just to show Madam that her trust had not been misplaced. The officer who had refused the young man before just laughed and shook her head and said, "Good for all of you!"

ADDENDUM: Just now in the shower, Madam remembered the rest of that last conversation. She asked, "What if he hadn't come back? What if we got a blue sheet in the mail instead?" The experienced officer answered with a smile, "Well, that would have taught us something too, wouldn't it? But we both like this lesson a lot better."

................................

Do something unlikely but wonderful this weekend.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

The Raft of the Medusa

Oh, the despair. Oh, the hopelessness, the heat, the hunger, the thirst, the desperation, the cannibalism. Oh, the joy of the sail in the distance - coming too late to save the dead.



This is the lot of the repeat 214(b).

Yet how many times has a consular officer been tempted to say, "You don't qualify for a visa today."

How many times has a consular officer said, "You can apply again if you want to."

How many times has an officer said, "You may reapply whenever you want to."

If those words were followed by a phrase beginning with the word, "...but..." it doesn't matter how discouraging the rest of your speech was. The applicant doesn't hear it. He only hears "today" and "can apply" and "may reapply." And that's cruel. Madam knows you don't mean it that way. She knows you only mean to soften the blow. But that doesn't work. He's going to pay the money and come back again, and be refused again. And again. And again.

If it's hopeless, tell them it's hopeless. If you have no intention of issuing a visa in this lifetime or the next one, say so. It is perfectly all right to say, "I'm sorry but you don't qualify for a visa," and then close your mouth. If the applicant asks, "Can I apply again?" the correct answer is, "That would be a bad idea. You don't qualify for a visa." If he asks, "When can I reapply?" the correct answer is, "When your life has changed enough that I would never wonder if you would come home after a very short visit. But you don't qualify for a visa." (Not, "today you don't qualify for a visa," and not, "you don't qualify for a visa now.")

Yes, yes, yes, 9 FAM 41.121 PN 1.2 - 11 c says,
  • You must not discourage the visa applicant from reapplying, even if you believe that eventual issuance of a visa is unlikely (see 9 FAM 41.121 PN1.2-1). You should make clear to applicants that they may reapply if they believe they genuinely qualify since there is no formal appeal of an NIV refusal. Efforts to control previous refusals must not unduly restrict applicants' ability to reapply, though they may be warned that applicants who have not yet had the opportunity to apply may be scheduled before they are rescheduled.
Oh please. Spare the poor applicant the worry, the agony, the disappointment, the cost, the despair, the cannibalism, the cruel, false hope of the sail in the distance. Just say no.



Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Tiptoe Through The Minefield

Don't do it! Don't! Don't! Don't!

And don't raise your hand when Madam asks innocently, "Who here has ever done something that might be interpreted as outside the boundaries of law and regulations, just to get an American taken care of and on the way home?"

Whenever an inspector, regional consular officer, or financial section employee asks, "Does the consular section have a secret, informal fund that it uses for lunch and taxi money for indigent Americans until they can get access to their own funds and get home?" the right answer is often... to change the subject.

In exactly the same way, a change of subject might be the best response to the following questions, or to any questions remotely like them:

"Have you, Consul Jones, ever taken a lost and hopeless American home with you to a decent meal, a shower, and a clean bed for a night?"

"Have you, Consul Singh, ever pursued, tackled, and wrestled a naked crazed American back into bed in a local mental hospital when the staff was afraid to touch him?"

"Have you, Consul Gonzales, ever faced down a nubile young American's brainless mother and lascivious foreign step-father, then driven the child to the airport and sent her home to her estranged but highly responsible father?"

"Have you, Consul Koundarakis, ever sat down on a curb with your new shoes in the gutter, taken the filthy hand of a stinking, drunken American, talked him into calling his mother, then handed him your personal cell phone to make that call?"

"Have you, Consul McDermott, ever taken in the starving, diseased old dog of a murdered American, nursed the dog back to health and found it a home?"

"Have you, Consul Mafoud, ever walked an American up to the immigration window at the airport while engaging with the officer so that he didn't notice that your friend had overstayed in his country by decades and should be arrested?"

The right answer might often be, "Is it raining outside?"

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Hanging Out With Friends

As much as any political officer, a consular officer needs to know what is going on outside the embassy gate. Not just the overall and daily political and economic changes that might lead people to want to leave, but also how visa applicants and potential visa applicants feel about the application process, and what local Americans feel about their own situations in the country and their interactions with the mission. These matter.

In most countries, a quick search will find numerous on-line groups, blogs, and Q&A sites that can be extremely interesting to follow, not just to sniff out the most recent successful scams or juju being passed around, but also to learn what legitimate applicants for services see from their side of the window.

Adventurous consular officers often follow these groups, observe their questions and complaints, and consider them. If the group is civil, an officer will join and, very quietly and politely, answer questions the members might be asking of one another. An officer could also set up an "Ask The Consul" web site or blog, and point members of these local groups to it. There he can solicit and answer questions of all kinds, even explain the law at lengths he might not be able to afford in the daily rush. A great feature, of course, is that one explanation can do for many applicants, and that explanation will be there for weeks. And a clear, rational, civil response to an applicant's complaint can buy fans.

Does the idea make you nervous? Don't let it. The reasons we provide and refuse services should be clear and understandable. We don't discuss individual cases in public venues, but otherwise we don't have secrets.

Many consular officers do this, and find it both useful and rewarding. At first they fear either being swamped with questions and demands, or being attacked, but nearly all find their audiences - like the audience for this blog - thoughtful, courteous and reasonable. And officers' willingness to discuss policies openly and sympathetically wins fans for the US, especially when compared to the participants' experiences with their own governments.

It's okay to talk to people.

Monday, August 17, 2009

I'm Not Making This Up!

Remember The Complicated Story Rule from the old NIV interviewing handbook?

Let's reprise. There are two of them.

The First Complicated Story Rule says that if the more you question a complex situation the more complex it becomes, it is not true.

The Second Complicated Story Rule says that if the more you question a complex situation the more it hangs together, however weird it seems, it is true. In fact, the more weird it seems, the more likely that it is true.

How can this be so?

It's so because people don't lie very well.

Remember when you were a kid, and you were sure that your mother could read minds because she always knew when you were lying? Although we mothers would love to continue to snow you for the rest of your lives, I have to confess that it wasn't true. Your mother could tell you were lying because you did it so badly. Everybody does.

Think back on those lies that exasperated your mother. If she had the patience to question you about them and the longer they went on, the higher up the tree of logic they fled, and the slimmer the branches they had to balance on. It wasn't just you; every liar has the same problem, and can be caught in the same way: by steady questioning until they are driven to the tip of a tiny branchlet that can't support their weight, and down they come.




A Complicated True Story remains internally consistent however complex it becomes, and rather than branching away, continually curves back into itself. In the end, the consular officer could summarize it without his colleagues collapsing into gales of laughter.

Why is this so important? Madam mentioned in an earlier entry that people, as they are acculturated, can only produce a limited number of lies. Branchy tales that dodge off into thin air and resemble one another are lies. Stories you couldn't imagine anyone thinking you might believe yet are internally consistent, are the truth.

Finally, can you spot someone who is lying by quirks, twitches, or cold sweats? Experts say no. But for our purposes, the story tells the story.

So if the story must be true and the applicant isn't intending to do something the visa won't allow, issue it.

Next, please!

Friday, August 14, 2009

The Dog of Kew

Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Given to His Royal Highness by Alexander Pope:
"I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?"


Here is a story about Madam's all-time favorite Ambassador.

Once upon a time there was a visa applicant who refused to queue up, refused to complete his application form, and threatened to complain to his good friend the Ambassador about local employees' attitudes and insufficient obsequiousness.

Madam excused herself from the window and went upstairs, where she asked the Ambassador if he knew Doctor X. The Ambassador got up from his desk, walked down to the NIV window, stared through the glass at the applicant and asked, "Who the hell are you?"

"I am Doctor X," sneered the applicant, "Who the hell are you?"

"I am the ambassador," answered the Ambassador, "and I don't know you. So shut up and do exactly as my consul says, or get out of my embassy."

Is it any wonder that Madam will walk through fire for that man, any time he crooks his little finger?

Madam has mentioned before the big-frog-in-a-little-puddle syndrome as it can affect consular officers. It can also, of course, affect local populations. Folks who would never qualify to hold the hats of real celebrities elsewhere are the neighborhood rock stars. All over the world, consular officers struggle every day to balance local notables' expectations of deference with the Department's correct conviction that special treatment of any kind can too easily be seen as a double standard: one for the singers, politicians and doctors, another for ordinary folks. Even simple smiles can be seen as automatic visas for the rich and special, 214(b) for everybody else. The US consular service has a reputation for fairness and for being unimpressed by self-importance, while still being knowledgeable about and respecting local norms and individuals. Maintaining that reputation can be a high wire walk.

Most of the time, our waiting room occupants watch like hawks to assure that celebrities are not afforded special treatment. Sometimes, though, they expect the US consul to treat their local heroes particularly well, and are offended if the consul doesn't do that. Is there any harm in this? Well, sort of. But greeting the hero by name will often suffice to satisfy everyone. Who actually is this guy that everybody's all astir about? We ask the head FSN.

FSNs know that consular officers won't recognize most of these local lights. They often will recognize them, though, and will tip us off before the person gets to the interview window. Another tip can be a sudden change in the demeanor of the waiting room when the person comes in the door.

Madam has fond memories of such stirrings in a certain consular waiting room when a certain world-famous nun would periodically come in to - Madam knows you aren't surprised about this - plead the case of yet another sweet, hapless 214(b).

This lady was, by the way, the biological equivalent of five feet of scrap iron and telegraph wire, powered by the equivalent of a 810 cc Briggs and Stratton V Twin; not fast, but not easily redirected either. When she toddled in, all the good Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in the room would suddenly sit up straight and adjust their hair and clothing; many would approach - very deferentially - for her touch on a hand, head or shoulder. Then she would take a number, sit down and smile at us. She never had to wait long. Whoever was called next would ask if Mother could please go before him. And so she did, by consensus. The biggest big frog in a big, big puddle.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

"Papa! Papa!" Cue the Weeping!

One of Madam's favorite bloggers recently wrote,

"Back when we were kids, things were easier. The news was fact-checked and veracity was prized. News was a bit slower, and there was not quite as much of it, but by-and-large it was accurate and we could sort it out and make sense of it.

"No more.

"Now the news is fast and furious, chaotic and full of lies, misinformation, and partial truths wrapped in bias, conjecture and carefully crafted to fit a story board someone is anxious for us to hear."

Madam does not totally share Terrierman's nostalgia for all earlier reporting, but she does share his contempt for reports like this one, which focuses on an international adoption that suffered a setback. ''Focus" however, is not the right word; 'blurs shamelessly' might be a better fit.

Madam despises stories like these - maundering, whining, weeping recitations of non-catastrophic tragedy at the hands of the evil government (She clung to his hand! She wailed, "Papa! Papa!" Everybody wept!).

Clear away the underbrush and you find a temporary setback blown into shameless melodrama. One must hack nearly all the way to the end to learn the truth: the child is sick, she's being treated, the adoptive family didn't plan for a possible hitch, the adoption agency is not properly supporting the people they took wads of money from, and when the child is all better she'll go off to the land of pink clouds and ponies and be loved forever, the end.

Was this a disappointing experience for the hopeful to-be parents? Undoubtedly. Is the child traumatized forever? Extremely unlikely. She is four, the age at which children can nearly kill their parents over leaving them at day care: the child is peeled, shrieking, off Dad's leg; he suffers paralyzing guilt all day; the child is happily playing ten minutes later. She is four, an age at which children can bond with their caregivers. This one has done it in the past and will do it again. Is her life ruined? Will she be lost to the world or this family forever? Not a chance.

Closer to the bone, why does this reporter continually call these adults the child's parents? They are nothing of the kind; she has not, repeat not, been adopted yet. The reporter writes that the adoption was to be somehow finalized with the issuance of the immigrant visa. Adoption law doesn't work that way. Since when do reporters not perform the simplest research? This couple becomes the child's parents when a court or other authority says so, not when a visa is issued.

A very serious note: sensible, grownup, intelligent prospective parents know that, even on the way to a hospital with the contractions coming every two minutes, they might or might not go home with a child. Bad things happen on the way to parenthood, be they medical or legal. Adults take a deep breath, agonize quietly when they have to, and get on with things.

And do we absolutely believe that the to-be parents will lose their jobs, their six-year-old son will arrive home to an empty house, and they're destitute? Let's take another look at just this set of claims, written with an air of driving the final nail into some coffin: "Ivan, their son, would be returning from a visit with relatives. The couple's savings were depleted. And they could not afford to be away from their jobs any longer, lest they lose the health care Harper will need when she arrives."

Madam suspects that most of this is wildly exaggerated. There are few employers - and both of the to-be parents'? - so base as to fire employees caught in this sort of setback. There are probably family members or friends who would keep Ivan a while longer. There are few reputable adoption agencies that wouldn't help a traveling couple find and afford simple accommodations rather than face bad publicity due to what is, in fact, their mistake. Even if the agency won't do that, are there no family members or friends who won't lend them some money? If they can't afford to stay a few more weeks, how will they afford to fly back to China again? If they can't afford a hotel room, how will they afford braces and college? Maybe they shouldn't be adopting at all if their financial situation is so precarious. But they got their son in Kazakhstan, a venture that probably set them back around $50,000. Are they only broke now that a 'journalist' is taking notes with misty eyes and a trembling hand? The issue of funds aside, they certainly shouldn't have children by any method if this relatively minor setback can send them into such a psychological tailspin; what will they do when Harper refuses to do her homework, slams her bedroom door, and flirts with an unsuitable boy?

Finally, the parents are grownups; they need to pull their socks up and do what has to be done, including waiting. The 'journalist' - who is nothing of the kind - should be fired for incompetence. The newspaper should apologize, in detail, for spreading inaccurate, irresponsible melodrama. As if there weren't enough of that around already, with Brittney Spears, Tom Cruise and and Paula Abdul still alive.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Fun With the Fourteenth Amendment

"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Madam's oldest sibling, a brother nearing his 70's, recently went off - as we say - about the Fourteenth Amendment: how it is a gravy train; how people come to the US just to have US citizen babies; how those 'anchor babies' allow the parents to stay in the US; how those parents and children are then privy to benefits and financial incentives that 'real' Americans can't touch; the Fourteenth Amendment should not only be repealed but should be rolled back to the dawn of time, etc, etc, etc. He's been listening to too much right-wing talk radio; he's been warned about this before.

When he had finally paused for breath, Madam took his hand, gazed deeply into his eyes, and asked quietly, "Are you an American citizen?" After the indignant affirmative sputtering subsided, she said, "Prove it."

Bless his heart, he stepped right into it: "I have a birth certificate!"

"Which does not indicate your citizenship and shouldn't grant it to you automatically, according to you. So if your birth in the US didn't confer citizenship, you must have acquired it another way."

Mom and Dad were citizens!"

"How do you know?"

"Our grandparents were citizens!!"

"How do you know?"

He was turning a fine shade of puce by now, beautiful to see. "Our great-grandparents were citizens!!!"

"Our great-grandparents were immigrants. All their names are right there on ships' manifests posted in the Ellis Island records. Do you have their naturalization certificates? I don't."

"I've voted every year since I turned 21!!!!"

"Maybe you weren't entitled to."

He breathed out heavily, then said, with creepy calm, "Fine, then. So we grandfather in everybody who's a citizen now, and start today."

"With your great-grandchild who's due to be born in a couple of weeks?"

He blinked suspiciously.

"How will he or she acquire citizenship?"

"From my grandkids, who are citizens."

"Will they have to prove they're citizens when the baby is born? How will they do that?"

He threw up his hands and yelled, "Fine!!"

Madam then explained to him a few other features of citizenship and immigration that he must be forgiven for not knowing:

Birth in the US confers citizenship, period. It grants no further benefits - immigration or financial - to either child or parents. If state or local governments give 'handouts' to such families, that's what local elections are for: to make them stop.

Millions of little US citizen children grow up happily outside of the US, in their parents' native countries. Most of them are US citizens by birth only, otherwise indistinguishable from their playmates. Many of them were born while their parents were studying or working temporarily in the US, perfectly legally. Others were born in the US because their parents wanted, could afford, and were willing to pay for the excellent medical care they received here. The child's US citizenship is incidental: not especially important to them nor to the child. Some such families plan to send the child to college in the US, and are pleased to have the citizenship for that reason, but the long-term plans bring the child back home afterward.

A child can - does not have to - petition for a parent when he reaches age 21. In order for the immigrant visa to be issued, the petitioner must provide an I-864. In order to provide an I-864, the filer must be domiciled in the US. So producing a US citizen child is not an easy guaranteed road to immigration.

Hate the Fourteenth Amendment and want it rolled back? Know someone who does? Fine, but make sure the roll-back idea has been thought through to the bitter end.

If citizenship should be purely derivative, how will derivation be determined? Will hospitals and birthing centers require proof of citizenship for both parents as a condition of admission? Will hospitals be required to file citizenship documentation along with proof of birth? Who will check these files? Who will check those from midwives, or attestations of home births? Passport offices are already dealing with rising floods of these attestations, especially from border areas. Who will handle ten times that number or more? No one? DHS? A huge new governmental body that somehow checks and confirms all citizenship at birth even when no benefit - such as a passport - has been requested? A huge new governmental body that tracks everyone in the US from birth or entry to departure or death, like a Super DHS? The local, highly manipulable equivalent of the Korean "family census register?" Something else?

Thoughts?

If nothing else, let's be very, very careful what we think we want to wish for.

And would somebody please buy Madam's brother a beer?

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

So Make Up Your Mind, Already

"Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience misleading, judgment difficult." Hippocrates

One of the hardest things for an inexperienced consular officer to do is to make a nonimmigrant visa decision. That frozen feeling creeps over him. She flips back and forth through documents, as if hoping to find the cosmic truth encoded there. He asks irrelevant questions which take him nowhere. She glances at the officer next to her, hoping for a clue.

Yes, it is very, very difficult to make such decisions, but perhaps a few small hints from Madam's long experience both on her own and with other consular officers might help. She hates to see her sweet young officers so distressed.

Hint One: A nonimmigrant visa is never a life or death matter. If it should be presented as a life and death matter and does not involve a critical medical issue that can only be survived through treatment in the US by the world's sole expert, this is a bad case.

Hint Two: If the applicant bursts into tears of gratitude when told the visa will be issued, this is a bad issuance.

Hint Three: If the applicant bursts into tears of grief when refused, this is a good refusal.

Hint Four: Every person on Earth can live a reasonably full life without ever visiting Disney World. Or his cousin in Brooklyn.

Hint Five: Airplanes fly both ways.

Hint Six: One entry, three months, is a bad issuance.

Hint Seven: If an applicant doesn't quite look or act as you would expect someone that respectable and important to act, don't be cowed by his name-dropping, his haircut or his tailoring. Refuse him and see who complains. If he really is going to a critical meeting with IBM, you will hear from IBM almost instantly. Silence, however, can be eloquent. And if IBM does call, that's what overcomes are for.

Hint Eight: Section 214(b) of the INA says very clearly, "Every alien ...shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa...that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status..." This means that when in doubt, the applicant should be refused. It's the law.

Hint Nine: 221(g) is designed to elicit essential documents from an applicant whose case requires that document in order to be issued. Such documents include I-20, I-797, DD-1056, and DS-2019. Such documents absolutely do not include job letters, bank statements, notarized invitations, or any other piece of paper that Madam's dear friend Ali-On-The-Corner could run up on purloined letterhead and his ancient Underwood for ten local dollar-thingies.

Hint Ten: Flip a coin. Yes, flip a coin. Preferably out of sight of the applicant. Heads issue, tails refuse, then check how you feel about the result. Find yourself either relieved or recoiling in horror? Well then, you really had already decided, hadn't you? Make that decision known and move on to the next case.

Somewhat outdated due to technological advances in the decade since it was quickly run up but still useful is the old "NIV Interviewing Handbook." * Print it, slip it under your pillow at night. Tomorrow, make a decision. Then make a hundred more.

Well done!!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Grave Responsibilities Taken Lightly

More than anyone else in the mission, the consular section chief is responsible for raising up the next generation of FSOs, giving them a good, strong, broad, confident start in their new profession. It's not at all like raising children, but it can be very much like doing so, if we are doing it right.

Madam has much to say about these responsibilities, and will cover them liberally in future. For now, though, let's just glance at the most familiar, long-term misbehaviors by consular managers that have passed as training:

"Because I said so," is not a training tool. Doesn't work so well with children, works even less well with college-educated, world-wise ELOs. "What does the FAM say?" on the other hand, is an excellent training tool. The FAH and local experience are also wonderful training tools, and should be applied liberally and with patient kindness. That, of course, requires that the trainer sort out in his or her own head what the heart of the issue is. And that requires time and thoughtful assessment.

"I had to do this, so you do, too," is not a training tool. Madam prefers the intent of "Leave a campsite cleaner than you found it." If you can make your ELOs experience better than yours was, it's sheer low pond-scum meanness not to do so.

"I will humiliate you just because I can," is not a training tool. Madam remembers extremely well her first few hours at her first post. In fact, she remembered those hours so well that she vowed at the time that someday, somewhere, she would avenge them. It took ten years, but she did it. He never knew what happened to him, but she does. Is this a way to train new officers? Do we really want them secretly seething? (The Dalai Lama says that the best thing to do when someone hurts you is nothing. This is yet another way that the Dalai Lama is unlike standard human beings.) There have been more than a few consular managers in the world who should have looked carefully into the eyes of their ELOs and understood that it was not respect that they saw, but disappointment and contempt.

"I'm too important to deal with day to day operations so I'll sit in my office," is not a training tool. It is critical neglect of the consular manager's most important responsibilities. Madam has seen far too many consular sections run by ELOs due to total disregard by their managers; ships being steered from the engine room, with concomitant favoritism, cliquishness, backbiting, and FSN abuse. It is ugly and cruel, and post management should never tolerate this. And what are these consular managers doing all day in their offices, gazing thoughtfully into the computer screen? If you don't already know, you must take Madam's word that there is not actually much consular management that takes place this way. These managers are, in fact, emailing family, schmoozing with friends, sucking up to post management, shopping on Ebay, fussing with their stock portfolios, and pimping for their next jobs. And this is the truth.

Where is post management, the DCMs whose responsibility it is to see that ELOs are well-treated and well-trained? Some of them hold brown bag lunches every few months at which they drone on about the old days and do not invite substantive questions or even interruptions. Honey, the kids don't care that you walked five miles to school in the snow. They care about what's going to happen when they go back to work today.

Where is CA? At present, using its incredibly valuable tool, Consular Management Assessment Teams, to poke at tiny little flaws in processes rather than summarily removing bad consular managers.

What is a consular section chief's ultimate goal with the ELOs? It is to train them so well that if the chief is run over by a milk truck tomorrow, the section will barely hiccup. If we haven't taught them everything we know, we have failed.

What is a consular section chief's penultimate goal with ELOs? It is to teach them the most basic requirements of their careers: do hard work well; do it with class and style; do it with kindness and generosity; do it with the biggest possible picture in mind. We don't do our work for gratitude; we do it because it's our work. We don't bring our personal baggage to the work station. We are on a par with every other officer in the mission, and will be treated with and will behave with perfect professionalism and respect.

What is one great training tool? Rotations. And not rotations just because ELOs complain about being 'stuck' on the NIV line 'forever,' as if NIVs are some sort of cosmic punishment rather than highly entertaining and instructive ways to do great work for the USG. Rotations so that they can learn the entire scope of consular work and be proficient at it, and so that, when a crisis hits, everyone is ready to deal with it. If your consular section does not have a written rotation schedule that looks forward at least two years, you need to get to work.

What if they aren't consular coned and will never do another consular tour? Why bother to teach them so much? Because some day they will be doing visa referrals, they will be principal officers, they will be DCMs. It will strongly behoove us to assure that they know a great deal about and have great respect for consular work, if for no other reason than to spare the next generation of consular managers excessive heartburn. Leaving a campsite cleaner than we found it.

And it will strongly behoove us to hold consular managers to standards that they violate at their peril.

..................................

Addendum:

Madam doesn't always read other people's mail promptly. So here, a bit late for this entry but still totally on point, is State 080775 * on the subject of consular managers' roles in cultivating leaders. Madam is eager to learn how many bad managers, faced with this missive, will change their ways. Hands?

Friday, August 7, 2009

Getting There Is Not Either Half the Fun

Once upon a time, an advertising slogan stated, straight-faced, "Getting there is half the fun."

With this in mind, and with transfer season now in full swing, Madam would like to briefly review the benefits and romance of international air travel.

Benefits: It gets us where we have to go.

Romance: Excuse me?

Madam used to say, "Traveling with children is always like traveling third class in Bulgaria." Now that she is child-free and Bulgaria has hauled itself into the current century, Madam has revised this aphorism to "Traveling at all is like the way traveling third class in Bulgaria used to be."

One does not combat such an experience: one survives it.

With luck and sense, one also learns from it. For example, Madam has honed her packing techniques to the point that she has more than once performed TDY visits up to 9 weeks long with a single wheeled carry-on and her Coach handbag. Local embassy expediters have been known to survey her incoming luggage with tears of admiration and gratitude in their eyes.

Madam also has a well-honed technique for getting out of airports where there is no expediter: she slaps a Stupid American grin on her face, heads for daylight, and does not stop until and unless someone pulls a gun.

And who are the rest of the best packers and travelers in the Foreign Service? Well duh, as her unreconstructed almost-foster-daughter likes to exclaim. Consular officers are.

Madam has rarely traveled with a consular officer who assumes that there will be luggage carts, Sky Caps, or drivers to assist them. She has almost never traveled with a consular officer who could not handle his or her own luggage and still have a hand free for either a double-sized coffee or a double-sized beer, depending on the time of day. She has absolutely never traveled with a consular officer who sneered at local immigration, complained about the holes in the airport floor that kept tripping up the suitcase, or was unable or unwilling to hustle his or her own luggage into the minuscule trunk of a decrepit taxi while the ancient, wizened, 35-pound driver fluttered helplessly nearby. And she has never traveled with a consular officer who didn't laugh about the entire airport experience - sometimes while still in the airport. Especially if he or she recognized in the check-in line a recent 214(b) who, through some marvelous sleight of hand, now held a full-validity B1/B2 and a one-way ticket for JFK.

Madam has, however, traveled with Other Officers who have exhibited all of these behaviors, further flavored with a relentless stream of sniping and griping that made Paul Theroux - a writer who earns a fine living by means of bitching and whining his way around the world - look like a happy traveler.

Yet another reason why Madam is proud to be a consular officer: the quality of the company we get to keep. One another.

......................

A note on the fading romance of air travel: A short time ago, Madam was imprisoned in a huge, packed and miserable Airbus 340 that, while coming down to land in the pitch dark of a very early Third World morning, rode through turbulence of such unremitting violence and scariness that she and her next-door seatmate - a gentleman otherwise unknown to her - clutched each others' hands until their nailbeds were blue and all the wheels were finally, firmly on the ground. But that was not romance. That, too, was survival.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Telling Stories on the Bus

What could be more amusing than to relate the latest you-won't-believe-what-this-one-did Crazy Amcit story to a friend or colleague? There are times when we could be excused for believing that our resident Americans could not possibly have thought that up all on his own, and we can't help but wonder what the heck he was thinking of. And we could, briefly, be excused for believing that this will make a great story to tell colleagues and co-workers on the way home tonight.

Don't do it.

The Privacy Act of 1974 and 7 FAM 060 are extremely specific about who can be told what about Americans and their antics. And while most of these references concentrate on official records, any handwritten notes a consular officer has jotted down and stuck into a folder is part of those records. In practice, so is anything the American told a consular officer that hasn't been written down yet.

Can you tell the story if you leave out identifying information such as the person's name?

Don't do it.

First, you can't be certain that an appreciative listener won't be able to connect the story with the specific individual. She might have seen him walk into the section and might know him from church, from the neighborhood, from the Hash. She might know details about his life that make him immediately recognizable. Even without any obvious identifying data, release of any information to another USG employee - even another consular employee - is still limited by the need to know.

It is routine for consular officers to discuss cases among themselves. Such discussions can serve as excellent learning and training tools. But be very wary about disclosing anything about any case involving an Amcit or LPR, even to closest colleagues. If you couldn't clearly and lucidly explain the sound professional reason behind this disclosure in front of a Congression inquiry, think twice.

And when in doubt go back again to the rules.

In the end, if you must tell the latest greatest tale after work, make it at least a visa case. Only Americans and LPRs are protected by the Privacy Act.

On second thought, let's talk about the political section's latest stunningly clever dimarche. Or the weather.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

More on Intent

What is it about perfectly respectable children that turns them into objects of extreme suspicion when they reach their teenage years? (If you're not their parents, that is.)

Madam sees this again and again, all over the world: the child of a well-settled family, the members of which have had full validity US visas all their lives, suddenly has difficulty renewing that visa. Why? Has the child failed in school, taken up a drug habit, married a terrorist, become estranged from his parents? No, the child has become a teenager. And everyone knows that teenagers in this country all go to the US and don't come home again.

Really? Has a carefully-planned and -executed validation study proven this beyond question? Or are we listening to stories, bragging and speculation? Madam often takes pains to remind conoffs (and lawyers) that - in English at least - the plural form of the noun 'anecdote' is not 'data.'

Madam is pleased to quote from the April 2001 "South Asia Visa News" on the subject of trying to assess the intent to return of F-1 applicants:

"According to a common view, there is a serious shortage of qualified high-tech specialists in the U.S. and—as a result—companies who need them recruit heavily at universities across the country... In light of this trend, several posts have wondered whether consular officers should consider a student's major when trying to evaluate the applicant's intent to return to a home abroad.

"VO's view is that visas should be adjudicated based on the student's intent and qualifications at the time of application, not on what may or may not occur in the future. Many students do not have long term plans when they enter college; others change their mind during the course of their studies...(many students meet the spouse of their dreams during their college days, leading to an IR-1 visa that the student did not envision when applying for his F-1.) An employment offer may cause a student to reassess his/her future plans, be it from a U.S. concern or from a company located overseas...Furthermore, there is nothing legally wrong with a qualified student changing from F-1 to H1-B status upon graduation.

"... The officer must look at the totality of the case. First and foremost, is the applicant likely to be a genuine student? Can he pay for his education and is he likely to pursue his studies? Does he have a home abroad to which, at the moment, he intends to return? If so, the fact that he would be able to seek an H1-B or even an E-3 should he succeed at his studies would not render him ineligible for a student visa."

That which applies to student visas also applies to B1/B2 visas: it is the intent of the applicant on the day he applies that governs whether or not he might use that visa to stay in the US; not what he might decide to do in the future.

Here is another useful reference, the beloved and venerable 214(b) itself:

"Every alien...shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa, and the immigration officers, at the time of application for admission, that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status under section 101(a)(15)."

This very clearly and directly states that the applicant's intent at the time of application governs whether or not 214(b) applies. What the person might decide to do later is not the conoff's responsibility. Once the full validity visa is issued, the responsibility shifts to CBP to assess the person's intent when he arrives in the US. That is why we are careful (aren't we?) to explain that a visa allows a traveler to ask to be admitted to the US, but does not entitle him to admission.

And as for the teenage scion of a respectable family, there is going to have to be a far better reason than his age to refuse him a visa.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

"I said, 'Be careful. His bowtie is really a camera.'"

With a nod to Paul Simon, Madam now turns to the joys and pains of - Who guessed already? Hands, please? Well done! - the anonymous letter.

We know this letter. It arrives by post, or is furtively left with the guards. It might be addressed to anyone in the mission, but - like all correspondence that no one can figure out what it's talking about and what to do with it - it eventually comes to the consular section. It is unsigned, or signed with an obvious pseudonym: "Loyal American" or "Your Friend" or "Truth Teller." It contains a complaint about someone who, the writer believes, is either cheating or gaming the US immigration system. It names names.

Madam is both shocked and sorry to report that there have been consular officers of her acquaintance who would simply toss such a letter in the trash with a cavalier, "If he can't be bothered to sign it, I can't be bothered to read it."

She is shocked because her well-honed consular curiosity - the same curiosity that forces her to eavesdrop on intimate conversations, read other people's desks upside down, and check the contents of her hosts' medicine cabinets (Don't all consular officers do this? Don't bother to deny it, she doesn't believe you.) - would absolutely force her to read the letter.

She is sorry because every such letter that she has ever received and been able to connect to a specific consular customer has contained information worth considering. This information was not always accurate or on point. Sometimes it reflected a misunderstanding of the subject's intentions or of US law: for example, it complained that the subject was planning to work in the US, but the subject was applying for an H visa, so was entitled to do so. Quite often, however, anonymous letters have presented - perhaps carelessly, perhaps hysterically, perhaps vengefully, perhaps nearly incoherently - information that was critical to the correct adjudication of the case.

Madam hears certain consular officers complain, "Why not sign it? If it's true, what's there to be afraid of?"

We don't know who the writer is, we don't know his relationship to the subject, we don't know what there is to be afraid of. Maybe nothing. Maybe plenty. The writer's fears, like his motives, are not our business. The legitimacy of his warning is. And the anonymous letter must be protected with as much care as we would use to protect any other source of personal information: absolutely. Madam once saw a consular officer toss such a letter at the subject and demand, "What about this?" The subject glanced at it, then stared, then picked it up and read it while the blood drained from his face. He had recognized his own wife's handwriting.

..........

Apart from the minefield of human tragedy, anonymous letters can be as genuine as a CLASS hit - and often much easier to act upon. And there is little that can provide such a jolt of satisfaction as letting a fibbing visa applicant know that you know things about him and his intentions that he never told you. Need a way to segue gracefully into those things you know while protecting the source? Glance at the computer screen, then frown slightly, sharpen your gaze, click the mouse three or four times, then turn to the applicant solemnly and lay it on him. Joy.

Anonymity does not invalidate truth. It does not disestablish legitimacy. If that were true, you would not be reading this.

And besides, anonymous letters are wicked fun.

Monday, August 3, 2009

The Other CIS, And The E-Word(s)





The Center for Immigration Studies - a reasonably sane organization, particularly considering its membership in the Washington think-tank community - has published its testimony on the efficacy of and remaining challenges to E-Verify. It is well worth a cup of tea and a careful read, be you a fan or be you not.

If you're not on CIS's mailing list, now might be a good time to sign up. They don't pack the In Box with 'stuff' and their modest, regular missives are always worth that careful read.

Also worth noting is that although ESTA has been purportedly mandatory for Visa Waiver entrants since January of this year, there still is not 100% compliance (See STATE 078650 for an update). Of course our good friends at CBP have devised ways to let our respectable but errant VWP travelers enter anyway. CBP's boots-on-the-ground-ness again overcomes bureaucratic inertia through the generous application of common sense.