Dear Land of the Free

Dear Land of the Free, I need help understanding a recent decision that you made to deny my Argentine boyfriend a visa to visit me.
You told me to study hard, so I did. You taught me to love diversity and new experiences, so I sought after them. You helped fund my study abroad last semester to Buenos Aires, Argentina, so I was able to go. You told me to try not to hang out with Americans much so that I could be deeper immersed in the Argentine language and culture, so I did. My second weekend there, I took a risk and went on a retreat with a local Argentine church. They needed a translator during the sermons because American missionaries were visiting, so I gladly helped out.
It was that weekend that I met my boyfriend. His dark, handsome features and colorful Ecuadorian hat caught my eye, and he quickly swept me off my feet with his hospitability, musical talent and eagerness to help me improve my pronunciation.
As our relationship grew over the semester, so did our plans for the future. He would visit me the first of April, we had decided, so that he could meet my family and get to see Chapel Hill in bloom. Then, I would be back in Argentina soon after exams so we wouldn’t have to go too long without seeing each other.
Plans changed after you denied him a visa at the beginning of February. Sure, he has all kinds of factors going against him. He is a recent college graduate, doesn’t live with his parents, works several jobs and has a girlfriend in the States, which apparently is code red for “likely to stay in the U.S. to form a life, so he can’t come in.”
I think your policies are contradictory and whoreish. What I understand from this situation is that it is okay for U.S. citizens to study and learn and become better human beings from their experiences in foreign cultures and bring back the knowledge and love we gained abroad to share with people at home. But we’re not going to be good hosts and allow the people who taught us abroad to visit and learn from us if there is the slightest possibility at all that they might want to form a life here. You sold me out, America. I feel like I used the beautiful country of Argentina, their universities, the church and all the kind people who helped me along the way. I thought I was getting involved in a cultural exchange, which to me, occurs when both sides win. As much as I’d like to think that Argentina greatly benefitted from hosting me, I don’t think it compares to the ways in which I benefitted from being there.
Next time, please make it clear to all people who want to pursue foreign travel or work that they should avoid all possibilities of falling in love while they are abroad—that is, if it’s the kind of love where you would want to see the person again.

Another visa denied

There are few things that frustrate me more right now than the U.S. visa system. I will begin with the newest disappointing story I heard. Yesterday after church, I was talking to Pastor Enrique about his family and asked where his wife was. He told me that she had gone to Mexico to get her 87 year-old father a visa to visit their family in the states. The old man's wife, Alicia's mother, is also living with their family in Chatham County. So Alicia took her old father to the U.S. embassy to say, "This is my father and I came back to Mexico to get him. He's coming home with me to visit the rest of our family and his wife." They denied him a tourist visa to visit his family. My assumption is that they figured he would go to the U.S. and stay. And even if he did? He's 87 and certainly not going to fill up a job that "belongs to an American." At the very most he might use health resources he's not paying for (although his family is through taxes). Although I believe he completely deserves that, simply because his daughter does laundry at a hotel, his son-in-law pastors a Latino church and makes $16,000 a year, and also he has probably worked some job in Mexico from which Americans have benefitted in the form of cheap labor or goods. I say, "Thank you, compadre, we would be honored to host you in our country and wish you and your family a happy reunion. Let me say this again, his son-in-law is a pastor. That means he's keeping young kids off the street and men out of bars and leading a healthy environment focused on God and positive family environments. And they wouldn't let him in.

I won't continue for tonight. I'll save similar stories, and my personal visa situation, for another day. I just wanted to bring back the blog because I'm a woman with a lot on my mind and not enough ways to sort through it all.

Buenas noches.