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Music Scholar Barred From U.S., but No One Will Tell Her Why
[Quote:]
Nalini Ghuman, an up-and-coming musicologist and expert on the British composer Edward Elgar, was stopped at the San Francisco airport in August last year and, without explanation, told that she was no longer allowed to enter the United States.
[..]
After a year of letters and inquiries, Ms. Ghuman and her Mills College lawyer have been unable to find out why her residency visa was suddenly revoked, or whether she was on some security watch list. Nor does she know whether her application for a new visa, pending since last October, is being stymied by the shadow of the same unspecified problem or mistake.
[..]
Mr. Botstein, who wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the hope of having the visa problem resolved before the music festival, said Ms. Ghuman’s case is symptomatic. “This is an example of the xenophobia, incompetence, stupidity and then bureaucratic intransigence that we are up against,” he said, also citing the case of a teacher of Arabic at Bard who missed the first weeks of the spring semester this year because of visa problems. “What is at stake is America’s pre-eminence as a place of scholarship.”
[..]
In a written account of the next eight hours that she prepared for her lawyer, Ms. Ghuman said that officers tore up her H-1B visa, which was valid through May 2008, defaced her British passport, and seemed suspicious of everything from her music cassettes to the fact that she had listed Welsh as a language she speaks. A redacted government report about the episode obtained by her lawyer under the Freedom of Information Act erroneously described her as “Hispanic.”
Here’s the short version: they saw a woman who looked vaguely Middle Eastern (they probably don’t know what Sikh means); funny accent; traditional dress; claimed to be an expert on someone called “Elgar” (again, no idea who that is). They did the math and decided that she posed some sort of MUSICOLOGICAL THREAT.
The rest is just bureaucratic ass-covering. It’s genius, really.
And if you think it’s just foreigners who are fucked this way, check this:
[Quote:]
Beginning in February 2008, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will implement their ¨Advance Passenger Information System (APIS),¨ the gist of which is that you will need permission from the United States Government to travel on any air or sea vessel that goes to, from or through the U.S. The travel companies will not be able to issue a boarding pass until you are cleared by DHS. This applies to ALL passengers, US citizens and visitors alike. And how do you get said permission to travel? That´s for your government to know and you to never find out.
[via]
Cue scene:
TSA #1: Hey, looky here. It says she speaks “Welsh.”
TSA #2: Huh? What? Welsh? Like don’t ‘welsh on me?’ That’s no friggin’ language. It’s a fucking phrase. What? She trying to trick us into thiniking there’s a country called Weland or sum’tin? Ya’ know people from England speak English; Welsh from Weland? Hahaha. She’s must think we’re idiots.
TSA #1: Dunno.
TSA #2: Yeah try finding Weland on a map?
TSA #1: I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and uh, I believe that our, ah, education like such as in South Africa, and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., or should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.
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