I was watching "Face the nation" yesterday morning and Colin Powell made my jaw drop. He explicitly admitted that he "shut down" the visa system when he was Secretary of State in the aftermath of 9/11. Here's a link to the full transcript of the interview on the CBS News web site (warning, it' a PDF). The quote below is the 3rd paragraph on page 10 of the transcript.
"And one point I have to make. It really comes out of the things that have been written lately. That is in the first year after 9/11, we did everything we could to stop the possibility of another 9/11. We put in place the PATRIOT Act. We used enhanced interrogation techniques. I shut down for the most part the visa system until we could fix it. But after about a year-and-a-half when it looked like things were relatively secure and we were doing a better job, then we started to relax the visa system once we fixed it because we can't keep moving in that direction with putting people in jail forever without resolving their cases. We're not letting people come to our country."
My spouse and I, and many of our friends and acquaintances, suffered from inexplicable delays in visa processing in the years after 9/11. This caused lots of stress and real hardship. We patiently accepted the explanations given at the time by the US government that due to the increased threat, more rigorous security checks were necessary. The common and often inexplicable delays were unintended, unfortunate and would go away when the new procedures had been streamlined.
According to Powell, it sounds like the US government was intentionally causing friction in the visa process to effectively shut it down and discourage foreigners to come here. Pretty disappointing news! I would have appreciated some honesty at the time, possibly to make alternative plans.
We already knew that it has become quite difficult to visit or move to the US. I'm not keeping up-to-date as much since I got my green card last year, but I know things are far from back to normal. Last fall I was involved in organizing an international scientific conference. We wanted to have it in the US, but Russian, Indian and Chinese scientist said they would boycott it because of the unacceptable delays in getting visas. They said only half of them would get their visas in time anyway. The conference was recently held in southeast Asia. Next time it will be in Europe. There are no plans to have it in the US, unless things change here. Not the end of the world, but long term it's not good for US science if no international confereces are held here.
We'll see if things significantly improve over the next couple of years, but I'm not too optimistic. People with visa problems can't vote, but their immigration lawyers not only vote, but more importantly they lobby! It's a pretty sweet way to make a living to charge people $200 an hour to help them navigate Kafkaesque visa and immigration processes. Probably well worth defending.
Sorry for my cynical mood today. Happy Memorial Day!
Hello!
ReplyDeleteI just recieved my passport back from the US embassy. I applied in the first week of April for a conference I had to go to in the first week of May. I did not get it on time but I was happy that I would get a 10 year visa as the immigration officer told me. However they have only given me a year long visa. So I have to find a conference to go to before this expires!
It would be interesting to know that I am an Indian PhD student in Australia.I am a bit disappointed but I fail to understand the rationale behind these kind of delays even for non-immigrant visas.
I read up on this and realized that I am a "threat" because I am doing a PhD in chemistry and I was attending a symposium on fuels! It was quite frustrating because my Greek labmate who applied on the same day got his visa in two days.
I would respect them more if they just accept that they are specifically delaying Indian visas. The world is a big and beautiful place. And people who want to do good work and contribute to the world knowledge can do it from whereever they are. Scientific community gets to mingle because of conferences but that is not the only way to get noticed. So the US immigration department can get rid of its diplomacy (which they are not good at anyway) and just tell the applicants very frankly that they have issues with their nationality.
People keep telling me that I lost a very big opportunity very early in my PhD career because of this conference but I disagree. Your destinations are only as important as you think. US is a popular destination for scientists because of their previous policies. But with the new ones, things will change and infact I am glad to be a part of that changeover!
Hello Saee,
ReplyDeletesorry to hear about your missed conference. If it's any comfort, you're in very good company!
I think it was in early 2004 that chemists and physicists suddenly started experiencing month long visa delays. Back then it happened to all nationalities, but now I think it's primarily Russians, Chinese and Indians.
Things might be even more difficult for you, since you're living in a third country. That's often seen as an indication that you might try to stay illegally in the US, having a weaker bond with your home country, already being an expat.
I do think this will hurt science in the US long term, but don't see any indications that the situation will improve anytime soon.
I hope you get another opportunity to visit the US, it's a wonderful country, once they let you in...