Shoulda Been a Terrorist

Terrorists enjoy a speed of visa processing that leaves the rest of us imports stunned and downright furious. Bin Laden's flyboys did not burn colossal sums of money on immigration lawyers or endure hours of pointless phone calls for their upgraded student visas. If they had moved here and legitimately married an American at the time they filed their paperwork at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, they would still be waiting for a nonexistent reply. I speak whereof I know.

In January 2000 I married my wife at City Hall. Neither of us has a clue as to what the lady judge said during the three-minute ceremony, but we emerged very married. Mrs. Hunter is American and I am not. Within six weeks the INS sent all the forms and instructions required to formalize my presence in the United States.

Three months later we sat all day at the INS New York headquarters on lower Broadway, only to be told by a bored drone that there was nothing she could do about the delay in processing. My father-in-law bought me a book called How to Get a Green Card in the vain hope that it might have some useful inside information. It didn't.

Phone calls to recorded INS messages proved profitable to no one except Verizon. More than $1000 had been spent on medical exams and INS filing fees. Correctly filling out and posting the forms requires no legal expertise. Even non-English-speaking terrorists can do it. A couple more G-notes helped spin an attorney's rolodex to a name and number of a bureaucratic contact. This immigration specialist informed me that the envelope with my forms had probably not been opened. The contact found the envelope and the rusted INS cogs started to turn.

At about the time of the Subway Series I received a draft card, Social Security number and something called an "adjustment to status." By federal law I was supposed to have had this within 90 days. This involves having a blurry red stamp slapped on a passport page and allows me to work while they go through the motions of processing the green card application.

With true INS logic, green cards are actually pink. Without a green card I could not easily leave the country and re-enter. That would require a separate application to the State Dept. and an inevitable wait. Waiting seems to be the big test for journalistic imports, as I am informed by about a dozen fellow hacks that waiting for a green card through marriage can easily take five, six or more years. More than 10 years is not unknown.

INS inefficiency has a long history. Steve Dunleavy was so fed up with them in the 1960s that he packed his bags, accepted a job offer in South Africa and said his New York farewells. His JFK-bound taxi was revving and ready to roll. A last-ditch effort by his British employers saved the day, and he has now happily been a resident alien for 35 years. It takes the lightest mention of the INS for his old rage and condemnation to return.

The pivotal moment for the betrothed is when the INS interview husband and wife, under oath, about their marriage. The government is required to determine if the marriage is kosher. Fair enough. We are ignorant of the color of each other's toothbrushes and preferred brand of deodorant, but predicted it would go well.

It is now April 2002, and neither Mrs. Hunter nor I have answered any questions. We are not likely to, as we were sneakily separated by someone else a few months ago. The devilish sneak actually snooped around my photocopied INS papers to see if I could be deported on some technicality. Shedding light on my alarming green card future will require more unwelcome lawyer's bills, and Homeland Security grandee Tom Ridge seems hellbent on wiping out my finances.

The mooted merger of the INS and Customs into a gigantic government department will slow things down even more. When was the last time any government service was improved by throwing thousands more public servants at a problem? Or computers? Or new-and-improved databases? The CIA spent the 1990s begging for better intelligence resources and Bill Clinton just threw unwanted supercomputers at them. No wonder they had no warning of 9/11.

Processing simple forms is neither as difficult nor time-consuming as learning to fly multi-engined jets, and these snail-paced office wallahs have no excuse for delays. None. A heavy workload is no excuse?we all have heavy workloads. Rather than wrestle the sleepy bureaucratic monster again, I might just pop down to Florida and enroll in flight school. It seems to get the INS rolling.