Results 1 to 7 of 7

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #1
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Santa Clarita Ca
    Posts
    9,714

    Thousands of Mexicans wait patiently for U.S. visa

    Thousands of Mexicans wait patiently for U.S. visa
    Chris Hawley
    The Arizona Republic
    Apr. 13, 2007 12:10 AM

    MEXICO CITY -The huddled masses gather well before dawn, hands jammed into pockets and jackets pulled tight against the morning chill outside the U.S. Embassy.



    They wear dresses and suits and well-polished shoes. They carry folders bulging with life histories. They check and recheck their visa applications, preparing for their interviews with consular officers. advertisement




    If the 21st century has an Ellis Island, it is here, on a patch of street between the marble walls of the embassy and a restaurant named, appropriately enough, the Manhattan Deli. Every day, 1,800 to 2,400 people quietly assemble here to ask for legal entry into the United States, making Mexico City the State Department's busiest visa office in the world, according to the embassy. And the crush could get even worse under immigration-reform proposals floated recently in Washington.

    "The American Dream - this is it," Juan Cano of Mexico City said as he waited in the street for his daughter, who was seeking a work visa.

    The dream, however, comes at the end of a grueling application process that probably drives some Mexicans to cross the border illegally out of frustration, many applicants say.

    Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. embassies and consulates around the world have become the front line in efforts to secure the U.S. border. Digital photos and fingerprint technology have turned foreign service officers into sleuths as they sift through documents and databases to weed out terrorists, criminals and people who may decide to overstay their visas and become illegal immigrants.

    Nowhere is the workload higher than in Mexico, which shares a 1,900-mile border with the United States. Officials are bracing for an avalanche of new work: About 2 million "border crossing cards" issued in 1998 are about to begin expiring next year.


    Ticket to the U.S.
    A man with a bullhorn paced the sidewalk outside the embassy, talking applicants through the visa application as security guards herded them into neat rows. Vendors sold ballpoint pens, cups of coffee and churro pastries.

    Unlike Americans, who can enter Mexico simply by showing a passport, birth certificate, or driver's license, Mexicans need a pre-approved visa to enter the United States. These come in two forms: a piece of paper pasted into a passport, or a plastic border crossing card, which is issued to Mexicans who need to cross frequently.

    Last year, the State Department's 10 offices in Mexico issued 941,581 visas, more than twice as many as in any other country. Nearly 80 percent were temporary-visitor visas, issued to people who want to take a business trip, visit family, see the sights. They are good for 10 years.

    Temporary workers accounted for an additional 13 percent of visas. Those visas must be renewed more frequently.

    Getting a visa can take months. First, applicants request an interview by calling a 1-900 telephone line ($1.50 a minute) or filling out an online form ($10).

    The wait for interviews is longest for first-time applicants and ranges from two weeks to three months. As of Thursday, the wait was 19 days in Mexico City and 58 days in Monterrey, but only a few days along the border.



    To be granted a visitor's visa, the most common type, applicants must prove they will return to Mexico. So applicants come armed with documents: bank statements, home deeds, car titles, pay stubs - anything to prove they have no intention of staying in the United States.

    Getting a work visa is even trickier: Applicants must have a job offer and be sponsored by an employer, and the number of visas allowed annually for unskilled laborers is usually used up within a few months.


    Detective work
    The young consular officer studied the elderly woman standing on the other side of a bulletproof-glass window. She was asking for a tourist visa to visit family in the United States. With a crinkly, nervous smile, she looked like someone's doting grandmother.

    A little too doting, according to the computer in front of her interviewer.

    The screen showed a mug shot taken in 2004. An accompanying note said the woman had been deported from the United States for trying to bring her three grandchildren across the border with phony U.S. birth certificates.

    A few windows over, a screen full of mug shots stood between another applicant and a visa. He had been caught three days in a row in 2002 while trying to cross the border illegally. Minutes later, another interviewer's computer red-flagged a fugitive wanted in the United States on theft charges.

    Since August 2003, officials have been required to interview almost all visa applicants, whereas before they could waive many interviews. Computerized fingerprint checks were required in 2004.

    In Mexico City's visa office, a one-story, aluminum-sided building behind the embassy, applicants are fingerprinted twice and photographed before their interviews.

    A computer system lets the 23 interviewers tap information from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Border Patrol, the FBI and other sources.

    As long as a person has a clean record and a valid reason to go to the United States, the criteria for getting a visa is simple, said Tony Edson, deputy assistant secretary of State for visa services: Applicants must prove they have enough ties to Mexico that they will return when their stay is up.

    But whether someone is likely to go AWOL is a subjective decision, and interviewers often get it wrong.

    A study by the Pew Hispanic Center in May estimated that as many as 45 percent of illegal immigrants in the United States entered with visas, then overstayed them.


    Thumbs up, thumbs down
    Mario Martínez was stunned. A high-ranking city official in the tourist town of Taxco, he had been invited to address a group of Mexican expatriates in the United States.

    Then, he was turned down for a visitor's visa.

    "I don't understand it," he said in a telephone interview after returning home. "I have a good job, I have a good reason to go there. There was no explanation."

    Meanwhile, Gustavo Palacio, a hardware-store worker from Maravatio, was jubilant. In January, he had been turned down for a visa to visit his sick brother in Chicago. This time, he asked for an emergency humanitarian visa and was approved.

    Consular officials said they could not comment on individual cases because of privacy concerns.

    Visa officials in Mexico are now gearing up for a crush of applicants. About 2 million border crossing cards, issued en masse when fingerprints and photos were first required in 1998, expire next year.

    In Mexico City, the embassy plans to renovate the visa building and add consular offices to handle the workload.

    The lines could get even longer if U.S. lawmakers decide to include a so-called touchback requirement as part of an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. Under the most hard-line proposals, about 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States would have to return to their home countries and reapply for entry at embassies and consulates.

    "That would shut down the embassies. There's no way they could handle it," said Crystal Williams, deputy director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

    Given the difficulty of getting a visa under the current system, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans don't even bother trying the legal route. From 2000 to 2005, the number of illegal Mexican immigrants increased by 1.5 million, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates. During the same period, the number of immigrant visas issued to Mexicans dropped by 47 percent.

    "Most of the people who go to work illegally are people who don't have an education, who don't have opportunities here in their country," Mario Otero of Zimapán said as he waited for his daughter to emerge from the visa office.

    "So they say, 'Why should I travel all the way to Mexico City, why should I invest $200 or $300 . . . when they're probably going to reject me? I might as well just go.' "

    http://www.azcentral.com/business/artic ... 0413.html#
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  2. #2
    mdillon1172's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Heart of America
    Posts
    458
    why are these "essays" making the implicit assumption that foreigners who want to come to the US do have the right to immigrate to the US?

    do Americans no longer have the rights associated with "sovereignty" to determine the who and how many will be allowed into our "home"?

    just patiently waiting for a visa does not constitute heroic status to be praised and cuddled...

    Illegal is still 'ILLEGAL'... which means that the act is against the rules implemented on behalf and with the approval of the American people...

    and what happened to DIVERSITY and DISCRIMINATION? if themajority are Mexican and/or Latin... that makes it DEFACTO DISCRIMINATION IN FAVOR OF LATINOS/Mexicans...
    No soy de los que se dicen 'la raza'... Am not one of those racists of "The Race"

  3. #3
    MW
    MW is offline
    Senior Member MW's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    25,717
    Nearly 80 percent were temporary-visitor visas, issued to people who want to take a business trip, visit family, see the sights. They are good for 10 years.
    I don't know about everyone else, but I have a hard time picturing "10 years" as temporary.

    I noticed Mr. Hawley was eager to give percentages to make his point. However, for some reason ( ) he failed to give us a percentage on how many so-called temporary vistors end up being criminal aliens?

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts athttps://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  4. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    NJ
    Posts
    12,855
    Quote Originally Posted by MW
    Nearly 80 percent were temporary-visitor visas, issued to people who want to take a business trip, visit family, see the sights. They are good for 10 years.
    I don't know about everyone else, but I have a hard time picturing "10 years" as temporary.

    I noticed Mr. Hawley was eager to give percentages to make his point. However, for some reason ( ) he failed to give us a percentage on how many so-called temporary vistors end up being criminal aliens?
    Now this is something I sure didn't know.

    You make a very good point, MW.

    10 YEARS? for a business trip?
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Posts
    722
    I wish I could get a job working at the Embassy.

  6. #6
    Senior Member Hylander_1314's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Grant Township Mi
    Posts
    3,473
    Quote Originally Posted by camilleinchicago
    I wish I could get a job working at the Embassy.
    Very good!

    Also welcome to ALIPAC!

  7. #7
    Senior Member SOSADFORUS's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    IDAHO
    Posts
    19,570
    Camille, as you can see we need all the help we can get, just look what we are up against!!

    10 years temporary visa!
    How many kids do you suppose they have by then?

    know wonder they over stay their visa's their so dug into American society you can not drag them out of here, by then they believe they are a citizen

    . Does anyone in this government have anything that resembles a brain
    Please support ALIPAC's fight to save American Jobs & Lives from illegal immigration by joining our free Activists E-Mail Alerts (CLICK HERE)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •