America! It has an incredibly high opinion of itself, but I am willing to concede there is no greater country in the world in between Canada and Mexico. It thinks everyone wants a piece of it, is just dying to cross its borders and live there for ever and ever. ICE is Trump’s fever dream. We all know about New Zealand mum Sarah Shaw and her 6-year-old son being detained for three weeks at an ICE detention facility in Texas. Anyone wanting a visa is sent on a fool’s errand.
America! Message from the US Consulate: “Under US law, all applicants for non-immigrant visas are viewed as intending immigrants until they can convince the consular officer that they are not.” The first thing you are advised when you seek a visa to the US is to delete all your social media. But they ask you for all your social media handles for the past five years when you send in your forms for an interview at the consulate. So many forms; when an appointment for an interview is confirmed, you are ordered to arrive with yet more forms.
America! The US Consulate is in downtown Auckland at 23 Customs St East in between St Pierre’s Sushi and The Tuck Shop. Its office is situated on level three of the Citigroup Centre. Tax Management NZ is on Level 5, and Eagle Lighting is on Level 13. A blackboard at street level advertises a shared office space that includes a desk for $499 per month plus GST. Beside the blackboard, a woman stands on the pavement and bangs a cooking pot with a stick. It symbolises Israel’s policy of starving the children of Gaza to death. A US flag sticks out from a pole above her head.
America! Twenty applicants for a visa are told to report to the US Consulate at the same time. They are shown into a very small room. There are two lines in front of two desks. A stern American woman sits behind one of the desks and a languid American man sits behind the other desk. They conduct the interviews; the room is so small that everyone can hear every word, including those to the Pasifika woman who applies for a temporary work visa because she has been offered a seasonal job as Mickey Mouse at Orlando Disney World. She gives her age as 60. The stern woman says to her, “You’re too old. Visa denied.”
America! Most of the other applicants are told their visas are at least temporarily denied, pending an investigation into their social media accounts. A French scientist was denied entry to the US in March after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages criticising the Trump administration. The US state department advises it is on the lookout for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States”, ie, an opinion.
America! Such paranoia and vigilance, such a high-security fortress around its precious shores; and when your visa is approved, you are instructed to pick up the all-important card from a piece-of-shit weatherboard shack on a sidestreet in suburban Greenlane. It’s at the end of a concrete driveway. A US flag sticks out from a pole at the side of the house. The front door is open. There’s a room with a microwave on a bench and potplants on the windowsill. You knock on a very thick office door and a Chinese woman opens it two, three inches, and says: “What you want?” You show her a set of carefully prepared documents. She snatches at them, closes the door, and opens it again five minutes later. “Here.” Welcome to the land of the free.
