NEW GAME, NEW RULES

Let me set the stage.  I am a U.S. citizen and a permanent resident of Germany.  In other words, I am an immigrant.  That status didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t come easily. 

When we moved to Italy, it took me five years to convert my visa to a Permesso di Soggiorno.  When we subsequently moved to Germany, I had to surrender my Italian residency permit, and it took me another five years to obtain my Daueraufenthaltstitel.  In each country, I jumped through the hoops, produced the necessary documents, fulfilled the language requirements, attended the obligatory immigration appointments, paid my fees, didn’t attempt to work until I could do so legally, and counted the days.  In short, I respected the process and the law.  It has always been crystal clear to me that I live here at the discretion of the German government.  If I screw up, they can “ask” me to leave. 

Therefore, I don’t have much sympathy for people who jump the line, bitch about immigration rules, violate local laws and customs, or evade deportation orders.  Nation states may be a relatively modern, arbitrary (but generally respected) construct, but that’s the world we live in.  Nations mean borders and borders mean rules about who can come in and who cannot, who can stay and who must leave.  That’s immigration.

As a person who respects immigration rules, I expect the people who enforce them to respect them also.  So, it really, really pisses me off when I see the rules enforcers disobeying the rules and making up their own.  As much as I have zero sympathy for people who enter a country illegally, I have 100% sympathy for people who enter legally and are harassed, humiliated, and traumatized by U.S. immigration agents nonetheless and all the more.    

Let me be more specific.  It is common knowledge that the United States immigration system is broken.  We have all heard that lament/excuse ad nauseam for years and it is not hyperbole.  The system is overly complex and internally inconsistent from a legal perspective, and it is woefully (maybe even deliberately) underfunded from an enforcement perspective.  It is also gamed by human traffickers and people who claim asylum but are actually only looking for work.

But they are not the only ones who game the system.  For decades, immigration has been a political football in a blame game played by both home teams with no time outs and no winner.  But just this week, with the Declaration of a National Emergency at the Southern Border, the previously-scheduled game was changed.  Now there is a new game with new rules and no referee.

Let me illustrate my point:  What triggered this post is an email I received yesterday morning from a good friend.  It made me so angry I decided to post it (with his permission) in full.  I hope you will share it further.  Here is the email:

I sent this message to both Maryland Senators and my U.S. House Representative this morning (I will be sending to several news organizations also):

Yesterday, my son Jason’s girlfriend of three years, from Panama, was accosted at the border at IAH by U.S. Customs officials — as she attempted to pass through Customs in a routine border crossing with a 6-month tourist visa.  She was interrogated relentlessly for over three hours before being allowed to enter.  During that time her phone was confiscated and she was repeatedly accused of working in the United States illegally despite there not being any evidence whatsoever to support that.  When she was finally admitted, Customs flagged her immigration status with a requirement that she leave by Feb 29 — despite having a valid 6- month tourist visa.

She called my son after the experience hysterical in tears, and after making her connecting flight to San Diego by minutes, she arrived in San Diego clearly traumatized.

She and Jason have gone back-and-forth for three years without ever having a single problem before yesterday.  She comes from a middle upper income family with a successful businessman father and a diplomat mother.   She herself is a very sweet unassuming 30 year old.  She was headed to San Diego to celebrate Jason’s upcoming 30th birthday with him there before going on to Hawaii with him.   Now she is shaken and in shock.

This comes after the Trump administration declaring a Southern Border Emergency on Tuesday — and amid ongoing threats to Panama’s sovereignty.   I suspect these are not coincidences.

Today, I am ashamed to be an American.   We must do everything in our power to prevent the victimization of innocent people entering the United Stated legally. 

Thank You !!

Apart from all the other questions this disturbing incident might raise, one wonders:  1) how could this woman possibly prove a negative--namely, that she does not work in the U.S., and 2) under what authority was her validly issued and in vigore tourist visa summarily and arbitrarily modified by U.S. Customs at the border?  Are the rules enforcers now making the rules?

This is wrong.  This young woman from Panama did everything right and she was still made to feel like a criminal.  So please spread the word that there is a new immigration game with new rules at the southern border and that, so far, both sides are losing.   Take it from an immigrant.

Keep it real!

Marilyn