“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
The above is a piece of Emma Lazarus’ sonnet to the Statue of Liberty, the words of which have been inscribed on a bronze plaque on its pedestal since 1903.
America then had wanted and welcomed the world’s immigrants with open arms as the “teeming” thousands passed the Mighty Monument of the Lady with the Lamp, itself a gift to America from the French.
Now those familiar with me and this sixteen-year-old column would appreciate my “fascination” with two themes: the moral dilemma of good, upright religious folks who (knowingly, sometimes willingly) support businesses and projects established by Drug Barons and secondly, the now global issue of migration. Most briefly, once again, I explore through fiction and fact, one aspect of the migration rush to the United States of America. The U.S., of course, because of its Capitalist accumulation of wealth since 1776, its use of the world’s poor; its economic organization of the globe consequent upon its involvement in the massive Second World War, as well as its current battles in faraway lands- justified or not- is the country many people love to hate. Even as they find the most innovative and dangerous ways to try to actually live in that same USA.
My spiel today is inspired by the refusal by the American Consular officials in Kingston, Georgetown, to grant a Visitor’s visa to an applicant I know, who wished merely to attend her father’s funeral in Brooklyn, New York (NY), as well as what I see on the tickets airlines charge for travel to America- still one of my favourite destinations. I’ll return to the Embassy’s refusal a few paragraphs hence. But let me tell you about Ms Guy Annabelle originally, from an East Coast, Demerara village.
GUY CONTRIBUTES TO THE U.S.
Guytree – her whole first name- somehow persuaded the Consular official at the US Embassy in Georgetown a year ago to grant her a one-year (B1/B2) Visitor’s Visa. She was not regarded to be “An intended immigrant” just a potential visitor, a Guyanese “tourist.” But illegal immigrant is just what Ms. Annabelle became in New York.
She declared her intention to “work hard, pay her (legal/illegal) taxes and be “a model illegal alien.” With her sense of humor intact, she has promised not to harm the USA through acts of Middle Eastern-like terrorism. She, the still illegal alien, claims she once sent the FBI a tip, which resulted in the arrest of a Pakistani with ties to a very naughty anti-America group. A genuine illegal heroine!
She now works at two jobs- three some weekends, contributing to the economic survival of one of New York City’s boroughs. A Jewish American lawyer, learned in American Immigration law, is about to “straighten out” Ms. Annabelle’s status shortly. Proudly, she sends her monthly remittances to the suffering masses back on Demerara’s East Coast and now realises how much money the US makes every time immigrants send money to their various homelands.
But it is the same Guy Annabelle who reminds the world’s visitors, tourists, students, businesspersons, immigrants and would-be immigrants how much they pay to get to US ports of entry by air. (Besides the medical expenses immigrants face and the $131.00 (US) Guyana visitors contribute towards their visas granted or not.)
THAT AIR TICKET!
So you Guyanese are passing through Trinidad’s Piarco airport? Well your air ticket includes a T and T Concourse fee. Then there is a US Customs Inspection Fee, a US Dept of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Fee!!; a US Immigration-User Fee, a US Airport-Facility Charge, a US International Departure/Arrival Tax, a US Federal Security Tax; an Airline Fuel Surcharge/Security Fee; oh, yes and your own Guyana Travel Voucher Tax.
All on Annabelle’s ticket- and yours! See how some airports are fabulous?
THE VISA AS FRIEND- AND WEAPON
Please understand that I am aware of many of the reasons the American consulates refuse foreign applicants any visas to visit.
Since the Thomas Carroll Scam and Scheme here embarrassed the Georgetown Embassy a few years ago, it seems that the Visitor-Visa Quotas (per month) his trial transcripts revealed, has made the current visa officers more impersonal and less compassionate. US Homeland Security regulations know no sympathy or compassion even when my late friend’s daughter wished to attend his funeral. (Now thousands of dollars more have to be found to bring him home.)
So the lucky applicants sometimes meet friendly consular officers. Others suffer from all the wicked precedents those officers encountered from devious applicants over the years. (Then there are the visa-holders who take the cocaine to the USA! I no longer take my daughters’ favourite tamarind balls, sugar cakes or seasonings to New York or Florida. Those couriers have made every innocent gift suspect!)
Oh but I’m solidly with the Americans for denying or revoking the visas of crooked local politicians and officials. What! They can’t enter the Capitalist America! The US visa as a weapon of punishment. It should be used much more. I think.
REFLECTIONS…
The Chief of Guyana’s National Darts team told me a few years ago that the US Consulate refused visitor visas to a few members of the team who had none before. Even though then Florida Governor Jeb Bush endorsed their invitation so there…
Ovid in my head: My late Buddy of 38 continuous years, former GNS Captain Owen Ovid Isaacs will be given a farewell at Baron’s Funeral Home on Avenue D. in Brooklyn N.Y. tomorrow, Saturday morning.
He will “enjoy” another, more local farewell. This coming Monday or Tuesday at Lyken’s.
His style and vocabulary of immense humor are amongst his legacies to me.
Physical death denies you the opportunity of appreciating what more your departed relative or friend had to offer. But the spirit lives on. Eternally!
‘Til next week
(Comments? allanafenty@yahoo.com)
