I’m supposed to leave on Sunday and my visa has yet to arrive. When I went to the Indian Consulate in DC, they refused to attach any urgency to it because “the US refuses to rush visas all the time.”
A friend was once travelling to Argentina and made it to immigration at Ezeiza before they noticed his passport was expired — why wouldn’t they let him through, even with the endorsement of the local US embassy? Because “the US does this kind of thing all the time to Argentines.”
And the woman at the Chinese Consulate a couple of years ago was singing a similar tune as she refused to give me the visa I wanted.
Have we really created such a web of unhelpfulness? Are our immigration practices so dickish? Or is this just backlash — small moments of petty vindication — from disgruntled government employees?
A friend pointed out last night at West Main that his foreign friends were afraid to return to their home countries for a holiday in fear of not being granted a US visa for their return. Things dramatically worse since 9/11 in this regard…
By: Jed for Jann on September 27, 2008
at 9:36 pm