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Alma’s visa was delivered on Saturday. Now that the process is done, I feel like I can talk about it some more.

She applied for a visa interview appointment in March. It was scheduled for mid-September. The wait times at the embassy in Mexico City are really that long.

When the appointment came closer, I asked an immigration expert I know for help. Her advice was invaluable. We also got two letters of support: one from my dad and one from my brother’s rep in Congress. The letter from the representative was sent directly to the embassy. I do not know whether it was received or whether it had an impact.

I went with Alma to the appointment at the embassy. It was at 7:30. We arrived just after 7:00, and there were literally hundreds of people waiting outside. Adjacent to the embassy is a side street which was cordoned off. Entrance to the interview area was via that street. People were allowed in in groups, based on their scheduled interview times. We waited a while under a tarp that’s set up. There were signs saying that photographs of the embassy are prohibited.

Smaller - but still large - groups were called to another waiting area. There there were periodic announcements about how certain items may not be brought inside, that if your application has two or more errors adiós, and so on. Some staff were available to answer last-minute questions about forms and to do crowd control. They were not friendly. When you got one’s attention, you could ask a question. After answering curtly they’d wander off, so you had to say “Wait please, I have another question.”

Eventually Alma’s group was allowed into the actual interview area. I was not allowed in as I didn’t have an appointment, and especially because - I was told - I’m a US citizen. I could see inside for a moment; there were portraits of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Tony Garza. The decor was typical of US government facilities: ugly and dated looking. I left, ate breakfast, and waited for Alma.

Finally she was done, told me she got it, and we went to have breakfast. She had her forms and supporting documentation with her, but wasn’t asked to show most of it. She never had a chance to present the letter that my dad wrote. There was little privacy during the interviews. She overheard interviews that took place before hers, including a denial.

Well, she didn’t get it that day; it had been approved, but it would take several weeks for the actual visa to be delivered. That finally happened on Saturday.

Tips for Mexicans who want visas to visit the United States.

These apply specifically for Mexicans who want to get a B2 tourist visa. Maybe they’re relevant for other classes of visa, or for people from other countries seek visas, but I do not know.

When you apply for a visa to visit the US, there are several things that your assessor will want to see. Two are no-brainers: they want to know that you’re not a terrorist and they want to know that you’re not a criminal. What’s less obvious, but just as important, is that they want to know that you have ties to Mexico and that, at the end of each stay, you will promptly return to Mexico. Intention is impossible to prove for any reasonable definition of “prove”, of course, so instead they look at indicators. If you’re an adult, you had better be employed or retired. And if employed, the longer at the same place the better. You’ll want a letter from your employer, stating your position, how much you make, etc. They’ll want to see evidence of a bank account, which hopefully has a significant amount of money in it. If you own property, you should prove that. Etc.

They might ask you domain-specific questions about your work. For instance, Alma, who works as a webmaster, was asked what programming languages she uses. I imagine that they have canned questions of a similar nature for other professions: a mechanic may be asked what kind of cars he specializes in fixing; maybe doctors are asked in what field of medicine they practice, etc. I do not believe that your specific answers matter. Rather, what matters is your ability to answer them confidently. A “doctor” who says “uhh, I, like, you know, help sick kids and stuff” won’t look nearly as legit as one who says right off the bat that he is a paediatrician.

During your interview, answer honestly. Don’t equivocate. [Una nota para hispanoparlantes leyendo éste: “to equivocate” no significa lo mismo que “equivocar”, sino “dar evasivas”. No lo hagas.] When filling out your application, there will likely be some ambiguous questions. Either answer to the best of your ability, or leave them blank in the hope that while you’re waiting outside the embassy, the staff can help you. The staff isn’t friendly or very helpful, but if you can get and hold their attention, they should give you decent advice. If you can’t get them to help you, fill in the blanks you left to the best of your ability. Some questions you won’t be able to answer accurately at all. If you’ve been to the US before, but that was ten years ago, it’s natural to forget the exact dates of your last trip. So put down the year and an approximate month. Tell the assessor that you can’t remember exactly when. There is no point in lying to the assessors about this; they know when you last visited the US - and probably much more besides - already. Don’t lie about other things either. If they catch you, adiós.

This isn’t legal advice, of course. I’m just trying to distill what I know in the hope that the process makes a little bit more sense and that fewer Mexicans are denied entry for no good reason. It might be relevant for people from other countries, but I don’t know for sure. My guess is that it isn’t wrong, but it may focus on things that aren’t relevant to other people. And yeah, I know; I should translate this to Spanish.

Politics.

There is one word to describe all this nonsense: “shameful”. For a variety of reasons that I don’t want to get into right now, I don’t often refer to the US as “my country”. But I felt ashamed that morning outside the embassy, and I feel ashamed - and angry - writing about it now. Given the reprehensible treatment of people who are trying to follow procedures correctly and honestly, it should be no surprise whatsoever that so many Mexicans attempt to enter the US illegally. Many applicants are old people, whose children now live in the US; they want to visit their kids. They’re not wealthy or well-educated, and they didn’t get a member of Congress to support their application, nor did they have access to an immigration specialist. Many of them, undoubtedly, made unimportant errors on their applications and subsequently had their petitions for visas denied, at a non-refundable cost of some $100 USD, which is a lot of money for such people.

Being allowed to go where you want to go is a human right. Aside from the rare person who would present a genuine and predictable danger to people already in the US (this is limited to violent criminals and people with serious communicable diseases, as far as I can see), there is no conceivable reason whatsoever to deny entry to the US to anybody. Some people might have misguided economic ideas, but for the most part it’s racism. Or maybe nationalism or some other word; the point is that discrimination based on country of birth is no less abhorrent than discrimination based on genetics.

Some people will enter the US and attempt to stay there. That’s good for the US! Some people will enter the US, see the sights, go shopping, and return home. That’s also good.

In addition to being dehumanizing, the process is needlessly complex. If it were true, I would just say that governments worldwide make things more complicated than they need be. But it isn’t true. I’ve looked for official documentation about immigration to Canada and the UK. It was easy to find and easy to understand. It was even friendly. I also remember that Australia’s procedures were quite simple, although things may have changed since 1999. A Mexican does not even need a visa to enter Canada; they’re necessary to go to the UK, but they are quick and easy to get.

The actual decision-making process is not, as far as I know, documented anywhere. It seems to be to some extent arbitrary; if your assessor doesn’t like you, tough luck. It have been told that there is an appeals process, although my understanding is that it is not at all transparent and that decisions are rarely overturned.

I don’t think many Americans realize just how badly the US treats foreigners who are trying to do the right thing. I’m sure most would be extremely indignant upon receiving such treatment from other countries.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 12:25 am and is filed under mexico, democracy, america, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.