I wonder who makes these rules about moving countries ... I imagine a little man, someone who goes to his windowless office in a suit everyday, talks to no one and goes home to an empty house. A man who never travels and who accidently found himself the maker of rules about residency and work permits ... a mistake made when his tea-making certificate was seen as an application for the job of rule-maker to the immigrants ... a race he's never met but he fears because he receives the extreme right's newsletter in his mailbox. And I don't think my grandfather and all those other New Zealanders had to wait almost a year to be processed and enter Belgium when they came here to fight and die during the First World War ... how times change, how we evolve.
We were talking about immigrant woes the other day at the Nerd's Eye View West Coast International HQ. See, my sister-in-law's mom just got tagged in the Portland, Oregon airport by Homeland Security. Her paperwork was absolutely impeccable, but some "little man" got it in her head that she was a problem, and so it goes, they are off to a special hearing to explain why this 70 year old Chinese grandmother was - well, what, exactly? Because her paperwork, as I said, was impeccable. Some official at the gate fought with his wife that morning and blammo, Chinese granny gets the short end of the stick and the family has to make a trip to Portland. Total absurdity. I am thankful, often, for the ease of our processing, on both sides.
ReplyDeleteIt's that total absurdity that keeps me out of the States now.
ReplyDeleteI have some lovely friends there and really enjoyed my time over there in the past but there's no way I would subject myself to the indignities of 'arriving'.
Somebody needs to put windows in the offices of the little men and get them out and socialised again.
70 year old Chinese grandmother ... oh what a farce. I hope she was able to explain herself ... It's good to see the McCarthy era stands as an memory of all that is farce.
Oh news from Europe ... remember the recent racist shooting that killed two here ...? The latest political polls in Belgium show the extreme right neck and neck with the christian democrats ... We may have the extreme right in after the elections in October ...
Less said the better, as I'm lost for anything nice to say about this turn of events.