Section B

Borderline Ridiculousness

The hardest thing about getting into Britain is walking the excessive distances around Heathrow Airport. No one has ever searched my baggage, or asked anything more than where I planned to stay and for how long. Likewise in other European countries I've visited but not so in America. When I go there not only must I make a declaration of all purchases and gifts acquired abroad, I am obliged to list every country I visited. What business is that of the Finance Department? The information probably goes into some computer, never to be removed; and while I have nothing to hide, the thought is unsettling.

This is the preferential treatment I enjoy as an American citizen. Foreign nationals have another, longer form to complete before being granted a U.S. entrance visa. The questions include: "Have you ever been a controlled substance (drug) salesman, or a sex slave or pimp?" "Do you seek to enter the United States to engage in export control violations, destructive or terrorist activities or any illegal purpose?" "Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organization?" "Have you ever ordered, caused, assisted, or otherwise participated in the torture of any person because of race, religion, national origin, or political opinion under the control, direct or indirect, of the Nazi Government of Germany, or of the government of any area occupied by, or allied with the Nazi Government of Germany, or have you ever participated in genocide?"

An untruthful answer gives authorities another arrow for their attorney's quiver. If they can't get you for pushing drugs, maybe they can deport you for denying you pushed them before. But what self-respecting terrorist would agree he belongs to a "terrorist organization"? The vagueness of the language suggests its purpose is as much rhetorical as legal. It tells the rest of the world that troublesome visitors are unwelcome.

The rhetorical intent is clearest in the question about Nazis. It sounds legal and precise, but examine it and it turns out to be ridiculously broad. Consider that Franco's Spain was an ally of Hitler's Germany. Many, if not most, of its government employees can be said somehow to have "participated in the torture" of persons on account of "political opinion". How, then, should a former Spanish official, reply to the question? And why such a particular fuss about Nazis, now that most of them are dead?

My mother is a U.S. immigrant, and my father is the son of one. So it is with personal disappointment that I observe the current tendency to keep out new arrivals. I am myself a stranger in a strange land — Italy. Because I am married to an Italian citizen, establishing residency was easy. I dropped in at our local police station and in less than two hours received my "resident permit", good for two years. If my wife and I choose to live in the U.S., however, she must apply for a visa ahead of time. This is supposed to take two months, but an attorney assures me it can easily take six. As it happens, we don't plan to live in America. It was challenging enough going there on vacation.

Shortly after our wedding, we decided to spend a couple of months in the States. Luckily I mentioned this to an embassy official first. "The immigration officer might not let her in without a green card," he warned.

"Couldn't she just enter on the 90-day tourist document, like any other citizen of the European Union?" I inquired.

"If someone's married to a U.S. citizen, the assumption is they intend to reside there," he explained.

I said my wife had no intention of moving to the U.S. She had a teaching job in Italy to return to at the end of the summer. The immigration officer might believe her or he might not, I was told. Too many foreigners slip in as tourists and then try to remain on grounds of marriage. The procedure for determining that such unions are not tricks to obtain the treasured green card takes time (sometimes separating couples for more than a year, I later learned). But surely there aren't many cases of marriage fraud involving Italians, I suggested. There would be little reason to doubt my wife's word. The official gave me a look of pity for my simplicity. "I think you can understand why we can't have one policy for white Europeans and another for Filipinos and Mexicans," he said.

So when my darling wife arrived at the airport in Washington, she wasn't wearing her wedding band, lest it provoke inconvenient questions. To be safe, she hadn't even packed it in her luggage. Nor had she flown on the same plane as myself — doing so would have meant answering "yes" when asked whether she was traveling with any member of her family. Thus, she passed unhindered through the gates. When I met her on the other side we laughed with wicked pleasure, as we'd gotten away with a crime.