Trần Anh Dũng
(TranAnhDzung)
New Member
The Visa Trap
By YILU ZHAO
Published: January 18, 2004
For Yang Wang, 2003 was a year of waiting. A 26-year-old doctoral student in civil engineering at Stanford University, he had returned to China to visit his parents in December 2002.
He had planned to stay just three weeks. He would have to stay at least 11 months, which is how long it took Washington to conduct a security check for his return visa to the United States.
Bored, he started an Internet chat room for those in a similar plight, and it quickly became a regular haunt for hundreds of students awaiting security checks. The visitors exchange tips about American visa officers in Beijing (''Don't go to the bald guy if you can manage it. He's mean. The pink-faced woman is nicer''). They offer advice on how to approach powerful people to intervene in their cases, including a template for letters to members of Congress. Most important, the chat room lets visitors vent.
One post from Beijing read: ''I have been back for five months now. My parents have spent most of that time worrying about my visa. They wait every day beside the phone for the call from the embassy. I am almost despondent now. For the first time, I understand what it means to be helpless.''
Occasionally, some of the site's Beijing visitors meet at a coffee shop or teahouse. More than a dozen, including Mr. Wang, attended a recent gathering. Their voices were tinged with sarcasm and bitterness as they spoke of their experiences. Some wouldn't give their full names to a reporter, fearing that criticism of the American government could bring retaliation.
Over cups of bubble tea -- flavored teas with tapioca beads -- horror stories were exchanged. Jane Wang, a 22-year-old who is not related to Yang Wang, had to postpone her wedding, which was scheduled for December. She was in Beijing waiting for a visa to attend Ohio State, while her fiance, a Chinese graduate student already studying in the United States, had decided not to return to Beijing to avoid being stranded. ''What the American government is doing to us is not humane,'' Ms. Wang said.
Another student, also stuck in Beijing, said he was close to splitting with his wife, who is at the University of Washington in Seattle. Their relationship has withered under the pressure of a long wait.
Yang Wang, who goes by Andy at Stanford and wears spiky hair and loves American culture, wished for some predictability in the checking process. The American Embassy tells applicants that their visas could arrive any day and that most checks last six weeks. After waiting half a year, Mr. Wang's case was mysteriously closed in July by Washington, forcing him to reapply.
''The cruelest part is the indefinite wait,'' Mr. Wang said. ''You don't know when or whether the visa would come. If they had told you it definitely would be six months or a year, you could at least plan your life.''
Another student, Fei Liu, who has been admitted to the University of Washington to study medical image analysis, said: ''When you are young, you have the determination and the drive to get something major done. The wait really saps the youthful vitality out of you.''
American consulates started paying special attention to visa applicants with science or technology backgrounds in the summer of 2002, part of the State Department's response to a directive issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks. The directive called for stricter enforcement of immigration laws and greater surveillance of foreign students in the United States.
In May 2002, the department sent a memorandum to all American visa officers asking them to watch for applicants whose areas of study appeared on the ''technology alert list,'' also known as the sensitive major list. Among the 150 concentrations of study are nuclear technology, engineering, immunology and seemingly benign fields like community development and urban planning.
The memorandum tells the consular officers, who have much discretion in issuing visas, to err on the side of caution and to send every uncertain case to Washington for review. The aim, the State Department says, is to keep out terrorists and to prevent the transfer of sensitive technology to certain parts of the world.
By YILU ZHAO
Published: January 18, 2004
For Yang Wang, 2003 was a year of waiting. A 26-year-old doctoral student in civil engineering at Stanford University, he had returned to China to visit his parents in December 2002.
He had planned to stay just three weeks. He would have to stay at least 11 months, which is how long it took Washington to conduct a security check for his return visa to the United States.
Bored, he started an Internet chat room for those in a similar plight, and it quickly became a regular haunt for hundreds of students awaiting security checks. The visitors exchange tips about American visa officers in Beijing (''Don't go to the bald guy if you can manage it. He's mean. The pink-faced woman is nicer''). They offer advice on how to approach powerful people to intervene in their cases, including a template for letters to members of Congress. Most important, the chat room lets visitors vent.
One post from Beijing read: ''I have been back for five months now. My parents have spent most of that time worrying about my visa. They wait every day beside the phone for the call from the embassy. I am almost despondent now. For the first time, I understand what it means to be helpless.''
Occasionally, some of the site's Beijing visitors meet at a coffee shop or teahouse. More than a dozen, including Mr. Wang, attended a recent gathering. Their voices were tinged with sarcasm and bitterness as they spoke of their experiences. Some wouldn't give their full names to a reporter, fearing that criticism of the American government could bring retaliation.
Over cups of bubble tea -- flavored teas with tapioca beads -- horror stories were exchanged. Jane Wang, a 22-year-old who is not related to Yang Wang, had to postpone her wedding, which was scheduled for December. She was in Beijing waiting for a visa to attend Ohio State, while her fiance, a Chinese graduate student already studying in the United States, had decided not to return to Beijing to avoid being stranded. ''What the American government is doing to us is not humane,'' Ms. Wang said.
Another student, also stuck in Beijing, said he was close to splitting with his wife, who is at the University of Washington in Seattle. Their relationship has withered under the pressure of a long wait.
Yang Wang, who goes by Andy at Stanford and wears spiky hair and loves American culture, wished for some predictability in the checking process. The American Embassy tells applicants that their visas could arrive any day and that most checks last six weeks. After waiting half a year, Mr. Wang's case was mysteriously closed in July by Washington, forcing him to reapply.
''The cruelest part is the indefinite wait,'' Mr. Wang said. ''You don't know when or whether the visa would come. If they had told you it definitely would be six months or a year, you could at least plan your life.''
Another student, Fei Liu, who has been admitted to the University of Washington to study medical image analysis, said: ''When you are young, you have the determination and the drive to get something major done. The wait really saps the youthful vitality out of you.''
American consulates started paying special attention to visa applicants with science or technology backgrounds in the summer of 2002, part of the State Department's response to a directive issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks. The directive called for stricter enforcement of immigration laws and greater surveillance of foreign students in the United States.
In May 2002, the department sent a memorandum to all American visa officers asking them to watch for applicants whose areas of study appeared on the ''technology alert list,'' also known as the sensitive major list. Among the 150 concentrations of study are nuclear technology, engineering, immunology and seemingly benign fields like community development and urban planning.
The memorandum tells the consular officers, who have much discretion in issuing visas, to err on the side of caution and to send every uncertain case to Washington for review. The aim, the State Department says, is to keep out terrorists and to prevent the transfer of sensitive technology to certain parts of the world.
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