Visas

Seems like a question with very broad scope.

It’d technically include adult men coming from all countries that still have compulsory military service. So that’d include all of my male in-laws and in my own immediate family (British – so no national service now) it’d include just about every adult man apart from me! [less of the black sheep and more of the effete intellectual sheep of the family…]

I presume the question is supposed to catch Al-Qaeda weapons technicians and the like. These questions always seem designed to protect the immigration service from liability rather than to actually detect anyone – since clearly you’d just lie. Ditto for all those “do you intend to overthrow the government of [insert country] by violent means?” questions…

I am always puzzled when academics point out poor writing by (I’m willing to bet) a college graduate: doesn’t that mean you and your colleagues aren’t doing your jobs?

Just remember, the point of such questions isn’t to get you to tell the truth, but to allow for you to be thrown in a dark hole w/o councel for ages on end if it ever seems convenient for an “immigration violation”. Also, all resident aliens, please don’t forget to update DHS/USCIS when you move, since not doing so is also something to get thrown in the hole for.

WSM: your comment is bizarre. Surely you are aware that documents like this are not written by one person, but filtered through a trillion commitees and executives, all full of people who might have gone to college many years ago but whose only CURRENT priority is to cover their asses, and to hell with it if the language in question ends up being ambiguous to the point of nonsense.

The post in general: This kind of question makes me really, really mad. There are a few on every visa application I’ve ever seen, and there’s never a way to clarify what they mean (the closest you can get is a dubious “well, gee, I guess” ruling from some guy who has no real knowledge, no authority and who’ll forget all about your question in an hour). They are, as Matt says, basically traps.

And do you know why governments write their visa forms this way? Because they can. Because the threat of not being permitted to enter the country is the ultimate stick. If you want to enter the country, you’ll just have to eat the shit they give you at the front door. It makes me furious. Why set up this hostile, confrontational relationship with every single person who asks to come inside?

Nothing to do with specialist skills, but here’s an uncomfortable fact about a UK visa:

The nearest UK equivalent to the US Green Card is known as Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). This is the visa you need for regular residency in the UK, and the next step up is naturalisation. (NB: I have no idea how the process works for those who came over with work visas; this description concerns those who come over on a spousal visa.) There is no long-term alternative to the ILR; once you’ve got over the early hurdle (eg a spousal visa), the ILR is all there is (sans naturalisation).

A quirk about the ILR: technically it expires any time you leave the country, and it’s up to the immigration officer you see upon your return to decide whether or not to “renew” it. So getting back in the country, even if you’ve been living here for years, isn’t guaranteed. Which means that when it’s 7am and an immigration official hasn’t had his second cup of tea yet and is feeling particularly petulant and wants to be a bit of a bully, the only thing to do is to put one’s tail between one’s legs and be a Very Good Boy Indeed until it’s over.

Not the worst fate in the world, and I can understand the need for safety precautions, but it’s amazing how much fear re-entry can cause. After all, when one’s life and all that that entails is now in the UK, and one surly immigration official has the power to end that in the blink of an eye, and you know you don’t have the funds for a long legal battle… well, it’s not the most pleasant of situations.

On the other hand, my experiences with British immigration officials have generally been quite positive (American “quite”, not British). Anecdotally at least, American immigration officials are far more prone to use their power to be jerks.

Also, all resident aliens, please don’t forget to update DHS/USCIS when you move, since not doing so is also something to get thrown in the hole for.

Also applies to non-residents (ie, H1-Bs like me).

I can’t find the article now, but I read something the other day that quoted the amount of these change of address forms that have been lost. It was a horrifyingly high number.

I also wonder how long it takes them to get from receiveing it to processing it/typing it in your file. And if your screwed if you travel in the interim.

At least if they sent a little “we got it!” receipt we’d know with confiidence when stepping through immigration next time around.

BfromB:
From an op-ed in the El Paso Times:
INS has a track record of losing and misplacing documents filed by immigrants. Recently, INS found more than 2 million missing documents in a Missouri warehouse, including 200,000 change-of-address forms. With INS’ record, it is likely that immigrants who comply will be wrongfully punished.”
That would be 200,000 forms that we know about, although I’m having trouble verifying this story through an independent news search (the relevant searches tend to turn up a lot of sites about how to get your green card).
BTW: If you’re a non-citizen and you’re unsure about your immigration status, or maybe even if you aren’t, do not take any photographs that may include federal offices or bridges.

Philosophy has probably killed more people over the centuries than firearms, anyway . . .

;)

Reuben – anecdotally, my worst immigration experience to date is with a British officer at Heathrow in ’94. He beat out the East Germans who invited me into a small room to discuss the contents of my wallet (but who turned out to have a sense of humor in the end) and the Belarusians who were clearly angling for a bribe but couldn’t be bothered to be really unpleasant and picked on the Russian-speaking Cuban in my compartment instead. The representative of HM Government clearly thought that I had come to sponge off the welfare system, since I didn’t have an onward ticket (London is the discount travel capital of the world, hello, I should be buying my transatlantic ticket in Helsinki instead??) and planned to visit dodgy people like Aussies and Kiwis.

I kept a civil tongue in my head and was allowed to sample the glories of London, which at that point included a complete lack of lodging because there was a train strike and everybody was staying put. As I was headed to the tube, an announcement came on saying that there was a fire in the terminal and no one was to move at all. “Is this normal?” I asked the Indian fellow who had been helping me find a place. “Oh yes, happens all the time.”

I’m told the UK does get better than that.