This makes me want to cry.

So we now have a case where an immigration screening officer essentially raped a woman after attempting to blackmail her into performing sexual favors in exchange for a positive review. Here is the full story, with the coda that the woman's immigration status is still unclear.

I have enough friends who were not born in the US that I am well acquainted with the run-of-the-mill complete and utter ruin of our immigration departments, but, no. How is that so many people in this country do not seem to grasp that these sorts of bureaucracies are one of the central facets in how the rest of the world sees us? Though this is about an attempt to get an EU visa, this post by Hatshepsut gives a good picture of the horrid experiences most of the world has when they try to come to Europe or the US and it isn't pretty. If want stories inside the US there is the saga of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, who sends people to jail in pup tents and is the personal nemisis of my friend Kate, who's trying out the Southwest after living most of her life in that bastion of gentility, Charleston (this is an approximation, you have no idea how many towns are encompassed by Charleston).

The INS in this country has become a backwater where political flunkies get stuck because they can't do any real harm and because nobody cares to fix it. Any attempt to create an system for immigration that makes sense and is, in any way compassionate and reasonable, gets attacked by multitudes of people that seem to forget this country was founded on the idea of negotiating difference (granted the founding fathers had no idea what that would mean 200 years later, but still). I know there is a good deal of middle ground on this issue, but it bothers me that it is so hard to get people to understand the way the hardline conversation and dehumanizing bureaucracies really do hurt our image in the world and our ability, as a country to attract the very people who would enrich us. It is even more important, to me, (and this is why my father considers me a naive bleeding-heart liberal) that people understand that these problems hurt people. The only reason the case I linked to above came to court was that the woman tape recorded some of the perpetrators threats, this man has processed over 8,000 green card applications; does anyone really think this is the first time anything like this has happened? We have to do better.



On a lighter note: can I point out that there is a hit television show that had the completely wacked nature of our immigration system as a central storyline last year and it is beyond awesome and coming back next week.


Update: After I wrote this, I also realize that some of the problems that are caused by this system's tendency toward dehumanization are very similar to the root of what happened at the Jefferson Memorial. Though the police officers asked the dancers to stop, there were no arrests until one of the participants (ostensibly quite politely) asked "Why?" This question should never be a taboo when dealing with law enforcement. The least our law enforcement officers should be able to do is explain why when they order a change in behavior.