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 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.

I watched this documentary film this weekend and found it very interesting. It follows the stories of a handful of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” as they immigrate to the US. These boys were a group of over 27,000 refugee young males who fled their villages in southern Sudan to escape violence, forced sterilization, and murder from the northern Sudan Arabs. These boys and young men escaped into the bush after being orphaned, or were able to flee attacks to the villages since they were out tending cattle herds.

Background

The Sudanese Civil War was one of the longest and deadliest wars in recent history, with almost 2 million civilians killed in the southern villages, and millions forced to flee. In the 90s when Al Qaeda moved into Sudan, and the government began supporting Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, the Clinton administration prohibited any investment in the country. The civil war officially ended in 2005. Violence still plagues Sudan as the War in Darfur continues today.

The “Lost Boys” ended up walking hundreds of miles to seek refuge in Ethiopia, where many stayed for a couple years, until the Ethiopian government became unstable and they had to relocate to Kenya, where the UN had set up a refugee camp along the border. It’s been said that this group was one of the most badly traumatized groups of war victims ever. Many did not make it to Kenya, dying from the elements or disease, or starving to death. A program by the US government brought more than 3500 of the refugees to America in 2001 – almost 10 years since the original village attacks – until the program was halted after 9/11.

The Movie

This documentary gives a background on the boys, mostly showing footage of them telling their own stories. It includes footage of the boys’ arrival into Kenya and shows life in the refugee camp. The story continues when, after 10 years in the camps, many boys begin to get placed in the US through a resettlement program. The film documents the refugees’ trip over and the arrival of 2 groups in 2 cities, Syracuse and Pittsburgh.

It was very interesting seeing the guys experiencing modern life for the first time – using electricity, watching TV, cooking, etc. It was sad to see their difficulties with adjusting to the culture differences, new language and way of life, while wondering about the family and friends they left behind. I found it especially sad seeing how lonely they were – saying they never spent any time together since they all worked at least one job and went to school. This was a big contrast to their former lives, where the families and friends were together many hours out of the day.

It was nice to see in the movie that several of the young men were reunited with their families eventually. Several of them finished college, and a group of the young men put together an organization to support their countrymen and bring awareness to the situation in Sudan. One of the guys got a business degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and his goal was to go back to Sudan to start a company and be a leader in the growth and development of his people.

My Thoughts

One thing that I really enjoyed about this movie was that it was not especially opinionated or political. They stated the facts and remained objective for the most part. Yea, the point of view was through the eyes of the refugees, so you automatically sided with them. But, I didn’t notice any annoying comments that made obvious political statements. The people portrayed by the documentary were sympathetic enough characters, so such undertones would have been overkill. At least in my opinion.

I knew little to nothing about the civil war in Sudan before watching this film, so it was a good learning experience for me. It was hard to imagine the struggle these refugees went through, and certainly makes me grateful to not have been born into such a situation. The fact that the events of this documentary occurred very recently made it very real, while the scenes filmed in Pittsburgh brought it all “close to home.” It made the young men feel like real people living real lives, rather than just characters on film. Yes, I realize it’s a documentary and they ARE real people, but some documentaries just don’t get that point across as well.

Today there are “Lost Boys” in nearly every US state. According to the documentary and other internet research I’ve done, it seems that this relocation was very successful. Many of the boys have completed degrees and nearly all of them are self-sufficient productive US residents now. It’s nice to see that these boys are doing well here. This is definitely a film worth watching.

I am sitting in the Rio airport on my way home. I was going to work on my post about the food in Buenos Aires, but I don’t think I can write anything good about food after the girl in front of me on my Tam flight to here barfed all over the aisle. She had spaghetti for lunch. I was lucky I guess… it landed on two guys’ flip flopped feet as well. Can anyone tell me why the heck Tam does not put barf bags on their planes?

Anyway, I thought I would make some observations about immigration after going through Brazilian immigration 4 times on this trip. And how inconsistent it has been. Now, I know this is not just a Brazilian problem, but this is the country I have the most experience in as a foreigner so I have the most observations here.

Each time I enter Brazil, my visa is handled differently. I have a Brazilian business visa because when I was planning my first trip to Brazil I was also potentially going there for a business meeting. Since it doesn’t make sense to get two visas and you cannot do business on a tourist visa, I decided to just get the one. I confirmed with the Brazilian consulate that it would not be a problem to visit as a tourist on a business visa, and they advised me that this was the best approach. They even said having two visas would likely confuse the immigration officers and make things even more difficult.

So, the first time I visited Brazil it was actually for tourism. I indicated as much on my immigration card and when I entered Brazil, the officer lady looked it over, looked at my visa, and changed the check box to business on the card without asking any questions. I didn’t say anything either, and went about my “business.” The next time I entered, I put tourism again and nothing was even questioned, and no one changed the card. Finally, the last time, coming back from Argentina I did the same thing. And the immigration officer was NOT happy with me! She called over 3 other people, looked through my passport, and asked me if I have a tourist visa. I said no, just the business visa, and explained that the consulate had told me but they didn’t want to hear it. I had to fill out a new card and put business, and they told me next time I need to get a tourist visa to visit as a tourist. I think there was also some “imagine if we tried to do that in the US” snarkiness to go along with it.

So I kind of understand that there are specific types of visas for specific purposes, and you really should have the right kind. But come on, do people really get both kinds of visas? I think all the immigration officers are doing is making me want to lie about my trip’s purpose and put business every time to shut them up. I mean, they do the same thing so it must be ok for me to lie about it too, right? Seeing that it’s accepted to brush the issue under the rug by just making sure the forms match doesn’t make me want to fork out another several hundred dollars for another visa. Next time I will just be putting business!

Another issue I had this time was with my the tourist card or whatever it is that you fill out and keep. Each of my trips, I was never actually told to hang onto it, and my first trip the immigration officer did not ask for it upon my departure. But, when I went to Argentina, the Gol lady asked me for it and it never even occurred to me to bring it. She said this might be a problem and I had to go downstairs and talk to the federal police (in charge of immigration). But, she gave me a boarding pass and checked my luggage. Roberto and I decided we didn’t want to sit in the little room and argue with the police, and we would take our chances with immigration on the way to the gate.

So when we went to immigration the officer asked me for the card. I explained that I had lost it, but he was able to look in my passport for the information he needed. We asked what that was, and he said it was to make sure I had not overstayed in Brazil. If I hadn’t had the stamp in my passport saying I had entered Brazil on that date, and since I didn’t have the paper card, I could have been fined for overstay. So, let me get this straight… I need the card just in case I do not have a stamp in my passport saying I entered Brazil legally, or in case I do not have my passport. I venture to guess not having the card would be the least of my worries if I did not have a stamp in my passport or did not have it at all! I don’t know why they made a big deal out of it. By they way, when I went through immigration to leave Rio, I gave the card to the lady who threw it away without looking at it.

So, those are my immigration inconsistencies. Another mildly amusing thing happened when I was checking in with US Airways earlier. The guy asked me if I had a ticket, and I said “no, aren’t I supposed to get my ticket here? He said yes but he needed a printout of my itinerary. I told him I did not have one (I’ve never heard of this before!) but I was going to Pittsburgh. He told me “well, we do usually require you to have a printout of your itinerary, but I trust you since you are American and all.” Trust me for what? Knowing what city I am going to without a printout? Not trying to do something shady or illegal? I found it funny that being American = able to be trusted with knowing which city I am to fly to. Would this story have ended differently had I not been American? I was amused by this, but I have definitely never heard of needing a printout. Hopefully I can continue to use the American excuse… I don’t know why immigration didn’t get the memo that they are supposed to trust me with my business visa since I’m American and all!