Travel for Love

It’s been a very busy month around here, and I have not had any time to sit down and write anything coherent and thoughtful worthy of a blog post. I do have some time to provide a little update and assure everyone I am still alive and blogging.

So here’s an update on the things that have been keeping my busy lately.

1. We finally got out K-1 visa appointment! It seems to have taken the Rio consulate forever to get around to penciling us in, but we will have our appointment October 5. Roberto and I have been super busy getting everything together for the interview and trying to work out travel arrangements (yes, I will be attending).

It also means this is crunch time for me. This is the time I must gather all the evidence and proof to support our request for a favorable discretionary decision. I won’t go in to too many details but let’s just say I’ve made more candid (embarrassing?) requests from people, faxed more documents, wrote more letters and dug up more records in the past two weeks than probably my whole life combined. It’s a little bit like finals week in college when I was taking 18 credits of 400 level engineering classes, but without the structure or guidance.

But I’m working on it. Sadly this is all about me and Roberto can’t really help, but he is doing his share in preparing for the interview and picking up most of the travel arrangements and logistics once we are in Rio. There are just a million little things to do!

Feel free to contact me for more information on that front. We have become quite the experts in immigration.

2. Sometime last week I finally started to feel like myself again after coming down with one of the worst illnesses I think I’ve ever had in my life! I was out of commission for almost a week (even missing several days of work – very unlike me!) with some sort of virus. I am suspicious that it was Dengue fever, due to the mosquito bites I let myself get in Punta Cana last month, as well as strange symptoms ranging from a crazy rash all over my body to unexplainable pain behind my eyes. My bloodwork most notably revealed a very low white blood count which thankfully seems to have corrected itself recently. Since the doctor did not do a blood test for the specific virus, I am without a diagnosis but have my suspicion it was Dengue.

After several weeks of feeling weak and lightheaded and just plain blah I began feeling better in early August, only to experience a week of daily headaches topped off by a somewhat severe migraine aura that knocked me on my ass again. Happily I am feeling much better now and focusing on de-stressing (ha!), my yoga practice, and trying to eat better. I even began a vitamin program.

Unfortunately blog posts fell off the priority list during this time, although I have tons of stuff I want to write about.

3. In more positive news… I found a roommate! It’s been stressful for me to be living alone in my house this past year for a number of reasons. One is financial – it makes NO sense for me to be living alone when I have three spare bedrooms and plenty of room, and paying the mortgage and utilities gets expensive. Plus, it will be nice to have someone around when I travel since I worry about leaving my house empty and always need to make arrangements for my cats. Finally, it gets old being by yourself all the time and lonely coming home to an empty house every day.

So my new roommate is moving in this weekend (and yes, I’ve been busy preparing for that). She is a nice girl right about my age who works in the same area I do and seems to have a complimentary situation to mine. One of the problems I’ve had in the roommate search is my neighborhood is not convenient for most young people unless you happen to work in the area. I don’t live in a trendy area or close to a college, and most of my friends are either single and living in the city or married and living with their husbands. So far it seems like this roommate situation will work out well, and while we are both independent I definitely think we could become close pals and hang out together sometimes.

So that’s a little update on my life these days. Things will calm down after the interview if all goes well. We can start to expect an answer within about 6 months after that. We are going to be working out how we are going to get through this home stretch in the near future and hopefully making some plans, so stay tuned!

It’s a little unnerving to read about what Arizona is trying to do next. Their new law SB 1070 has been all over the media for requiring local police officers to check immigration status of people “during a lawful encounter” whom they suspect are illegal. If this wasn’t controversial enough, apparently now they are pushing to deny US born children of illegal immigrants their birth certificates to prevent citizenship, by next year. See articles here and here.

I think this idea is even further down the scale into ridiculous than SB 1070 for a number of reasons, and I am not seeing how it will be effective at solving immigration problems.

Arizona continues to focus on the wrong thing.

Proponents of these types of laws go on and on about the drugs and gangs making border states dangerous and crime-ridden. Ok then, go after the drug dealers and gang members! I would be (am?) pretty annoyed to have my tax dollars going to arresting, detaining and deporting children and folks with the wrong shoes on who are otherwise not committing any crimes. If the organized crime is so bad, wouldn’t systematically cracking down on drug cartels and such keep local police plenty busy? What is deporting a child going to do to stop these problems?

It won’t be much of a deterrent to illegal immigration

I don’t see denying offspring citizenship taking away much incentive for illegal immigration anyway. If a parent enters the US with no documentation (i.e. crosses the border), the law never allows the parent to adjust status through their child. They cannot become legal residents by having a US citizen baby. Even if the parent enters the US on a visa or visa waiver, their child can’t petition for them until he reaches age 18.

What about welfare fraud? This is another common argument, that aliens will use their citizen kids to “leach off the system” and take advantage of public benefits. First of all, I think welfare fraud and taking advantage of the system is an issue for everyone, legal or not. Fix it or ignore it, but don’t blame immigration for an already broken system. Also, I am not up on my welfare knowledge but I am not sure how a child can manage to acquire enough public assistance to support an entire family. Is this really THAT big of an issue? Finally, we forget to account for the fact that these US citizen children will presumably someday grow up to be US citizen adults. Working, taxpaying members of society who will likely pay in way more than than they took out of they “system.”

Anyway, entire families continue to risk crossing the border together. Having an undocumented child didn’t deter these acts of desperation before, it probably wouldn’t if the undocumented child was born on the other side.

Whatever happened to the Constitution?

I am disappointed in the Right here. Aren’t they the ones who are supposed to stand up for our Constitutional rights? Does Arizona really think they can pass a state law that goes completely against the 14th Amendment? What are they going to say next, that the Constitution is a living document that needs to be updated with the times? That the founding fathers didn’t have this in mind when they wrote it? What would have happened if the descendants of slaves weren’t allowed to be citizens here? We would have a generation of people born and raised here that never set foot in Africa, basically country-less. The 14th Amendment was written for a reason – we need to leave it alone!

So what would happen to these children here now? If they weren’t citizens they would be children with no homes. They would have been raised here with no ties to their parents’ country, and probably unable to speak the language. This policy would create a new underclass of society in America with no chance for the people to pull themselves up. At least a new generation of US citizens ends a cycle of poverty and gives these kids a chance here in the US.

And where would we send these kids? Newsflash: not all illegal immigrants are from Mexico. What happens if a Mexican and a Honduran have a child here? Will ICE flip a coin to determine where to send him?

Hitting home

This leads me to the most disturbing point of all. The new policy also states that a birth certificate will be denied if “one or more parent” is undocumented. So basically, they are saying they can deny birthright citizenship to children of US CITIZENS! As if it was bad enough that many spouses of US citizens have no way to live in this country, now someone actually wants to keep their children out as well?? And oh boy is this ever a slippery slope. How does a US citizen woman prove that her baby’s father is a legal US resident? How will “they” know? Does it matter if they’re married? Or more importantly, what if Roberto and I had a baby right now? He’s not a legal US resident; he lives in Brazil for f#ck’s sake! Would my baby only be allowed in MY country if I applied for a visa?

Obviously the last bit here is very hypothetical, considering this is just being proposed in Arizona currently. But, there has been a movement for quite some time to deny birthright citizenship in the US and basing it on nationality like many European countries. If states begin adopting similar policies and putting pressure on the federal government to change the 14th amendment, we could see a change in policy here that will make things very difficult for immigrant families (both legal and illegal).

I grew up in Pittsburgh. Here, the important sports are (American) football and, to a lesser extent, hockey. We do have a sorry excuse for a baseball team and some people pay attention to Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) basketball. My exposure to sports other than those, including soccer, was very limited. I never knew anyone who was a soccer fan growing up, and probably didn’t realize how popular it was in other countries until I was in college.

In 2006 the World Cup came and went, and I was rather indifferent. I do remember seeing the end of the final game between Italy and France after happening upon a crowd of people around the TVs in a mall food court. I stopped to watch the historic last few minutes of the game, surprised I barely even knew the World Cup was going on. I saw the end of the game, remember something about a head-butt, and continued with my shopping.

But my indifference towards soccer has changed. Perhaps being in a relationship with a Brazilian who has the expected level of fanatic-ness has something to do with it. I must say, Roberto’s passion for soccer has rubbed off on me quite a bit. Whenever Brazil plays it becomes a group social event with BBQ, drinks, cheering frenzies and friendly wagers. I have a blast attending these kinds of functions and, with my patient teacher, have learned quite a bit about the sport, players and history.

As a traveler, I’ve also learned to appreciate soccer in a different way. Even if the US is slow to catch on, soccer is truly the world’s sport. As I learn while traveling with Roberto, soccer is somewhat of a common ground between its fans from all walks of life. So many people from around the world share this common passion that it’s hard not to be intrigued. Soccer tends to creep in to the travel experience when we don’t plan for it, such as watching Real Madrid vs. Barcelona while in Madrid last April, watching little boys kick the ball around barefoot in Cairo, and seeing the remnants of celebrations (and cars painted) in the streets of Istanbul after their Fenerbahçe got really far in the Champion’s League.

So I am enjoying this year’s World Cup, especially now since I know about many of the players (and certain infamous coaches who shall remain nameless) and have a good understanding of how the tournament works. I am SUPER excited to see Brazil play this week!

So, Americans, give the sport a chance this World Cup. Enjoy the games!

(footballfancast.com)

I heard something interesting the other day. My mom was telling me about a conversation she had with a British guy who was visiting for the weekend with my uncle. His business takes him all over the world and he was telling them about his travels – and mentioned that he travels so much that he has two passports.

Now I’ve only had a passport for less than four years (although I do only have 3 blank pages left ) so I am no expert on passport rules, especially British ones. But two passports? Just because you travel a lot?? I have NEVER heard of this! Which one do you even use? It just seems like a passport is too much of an official document to just have a spare kicking around.

I guess this guy was in a situation where his passport was off at some consulate getting a visa processed when he needed to travel on short notice. Being unable to interrupt the visa processing and get his passport back, he went and got a new one and went on his trip. I thought that was pretty interesting; I don’t think I would have even known a second passport was an option. It’s an option in the US too, by the way, for that same situation.

Something else recently piqued my interest more about the second passport thing than this guy though. I was poking around on a travel blog looking at the author’s upcoming destinations and noticed “Israel (with a second passport of course).” I honestly had no idea what this could be referring to! Why do you need two passports to do to Israel?

I did a Google search of “Israel second passport” and quickly learned the answer. It’s pretty common knowledge that Israel is engaged in a land dispute with Palestine and in conflict with the Arab nations in general. Apparently several countries in the region which are in conflict with Israel will refuse entry to anyone with an Israeli stamp or visa in their passport. Knowing this, the US will issue a second passport to someone who has been or is planning to go to Israel and also plans to go to these other countries. I’m not sure what sort of reason/proof people need to pull this off.

Digging deeper I learned that the countries that won’t let you in if you’ve visited Israel are Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Perhaps these countries aren’t on the top of most tourists’ lists, but this is still pretty crazy. I am really starting to think I do not understand enough about the history of Israel or what’s going on in the Middle East, because I can’t imagine what would cause a country to not allow anyone into their land that had just set foot in Israel.

Apparently, at least in Lebanon and Syria, immigration at the border will examine very closely to determine if you’ve ever been to Israel. They’ve been known to scrutinize your dates and countries visited in the region, looking for holes in your dates or missing border crossings. Even luggage tags from Israeli airports could give you away and get you kicked out. There is a ton of information out there on the internet about how to visit Israel and these other countries, and it seems Israeli immigration officials routinely stamp separate pieces of paper rather than passports if requested. Definitely lots of information out there on how to circumvent these crazy rules.

I’m a little surprised I’ve never heard of this before. It seems like a pretty ridiculous policy and it really reflects some deep-seeded hatred of Israel on the part of these ten countries. This kind of hatred, as demonstrated by the harsh embargo, should remind us of exactly how delicate and tense the situation is in the Middle East.