Although dated, this story is still relevant to the hatred of international
marriages by a xenophobic and paranoid Bush government.
--------------------------------------------------------------
American NAZIs Interfere with Marriages Between US Citizens and Alien
Spouses
So this is the United States of America you love so dearly, right???
******
This story probably will not phase you if either of the following is true:
* you support without question---as a hardcore 30% of Americans do---the
policies of this government of the United States
* you think that one should not marry outside “the family”: that is, you
take a dim view of American citizens who marry foreign nationals
My wife, a Turk and university professor, is both spouse and mother to
native US citizens.
She lives in Turkey for the time being, and I have been trying to coax her
to come to live in the U.S. since my forced return to the United States.
Almost everyone who talks to her says what an excellent place the U.S. is
to live, which she did not really doubt until yesterday.
Last summer (2002), long after 11 September 2001, she applied for and
received a visa to visit the United States. No hassle, no bureaucracy. For
Christ’s sake, the very minute she applies, she’s eligible to receive a
permanent resident visa---known popularly as a “green card” (although I
don’t think it has been green in years---so why would the embassy hassle
her about a non-immigrant visa for visitors?
So this summer I want her to come with our child (a U.S. citizen) to
California, flying out 12 July to San Francisco from where she is living in
Ankara now.
My wife goes to the embassy for the usual process of applying for the visa,
but not only does she NOT get the visa straightaway, they even run her
through some ringer really intended to intimidate terrorists.
She’s told she’s going to have to wait---most likely to the Second
Coming---for her visa, and that in the course of the interview and
application process, if one statement is incorrect/false (knowingly?
unknowingly?), then she will be denied a visa for her lifetime!
What the hell kind of garbage is this!!???
Foreign nationals who have a record of numerous, unremarkable,
uncomplicated visits to the United States and who are furthermore married
to U.S. citizens, and they are being treated like the one-eyed cousin of
Osama bin Laden!!!
The United States government really has no goddamned business interfering
with the marriage between a U.S. citizen and a foreign national, especially
when this marriage is longstanding (the wedding performed on U.S. soil) and
the record of her travel back-and-forth is obvious even to the morons of
the Bush administration!
Now, the bastards at the State Department could say to me, her husband,
“Well, you can always leave the country to be with your wife.”
You’re goddamned right I could, and if that were the attitude, I’d be outta
here and renouncing my native U.S. citizenship upon arrival at my
destination faster than George W. Bush goes on vacation.
Fact is, I lived in Turkey for nearly 10 years, but was forced to return by
the United States government upon revocation of my passport for a financial
debt. I still can’t leave this country---a country now much more now like
the former Soviet Union than it’s ever been---until I get my passport back.
And the United States government won’t issue one, of course (let’s
reminisce about the Soviet Union, shall we!) What would this goddamned
government like more? To be rid of me, whom it would no doubt characterize
as a “no-account, first-class loser”? Or for me to finish off the debt re-
payment and be a pain in its side so long as I stand on this soil?
This government of the United States is a tyrant. And the Declaration of
Independence clearly spelled out what men must do when their government
becomes a tyranny. The history of the United States shows that the
“terrorists” this government worries about do not really come from outside
its borders, but more often from within. The paramilitaries in the
backwaters of the United States (Michican, Idaho come to mind.) The Chicago
Seven and the Weather Underground. The Symbionese Liberation Army. Even the
Rebels in the War Between The States. Their common goal, if you believe it
or not, was to oppose a government more often than not involved in the
denial of civil liberties, or advancing an agenda of corruption.
No one seriously believes for a moment that the hassle to which my wife is
subject advances the national security interests of the United States
government. None of what the embassy in Ankara does is about this at all.
It is about a petty and vindictive administration that did not get its way
with the Turks and countless others in its pursuit of an illegal invasion
of Iraq. It is about this childishness. It is about a contemptible foreign
policy.
And it is about irritating an American citizen who will show this
adminstration what open rebellion against tyranny is---they will call it
“terrorism,” of course---if their intention is an in-your-face up-yours.
I thought this administration was worried about the sanctity of marriage
after the latest Supreme Court ruling. By keeping an American husband
separated from his Turkish wife and child with this petty politics, how
does this advance the sanctity of marriage?
******
I guess I should not be too critical, huh?
There are American citizens who are being arrested and held without trial,
without access to a lawyer, without any civil liberties.
This administration has wiped its ass-end with the Constitution, and the
electorate is loving it. They cheer on the bully and brute, stiff-arming
their allegiance and loyalty. If this were vintage film being watched,
you’d swear the site was Berlin. But it’s not.
Mavi Gozler
American Patriot
3 July 2003
--
http://hume.realisticpolitics.com/ |