A Reader Writes...

I get lots of interesting email reacting to this site. Just got a long anonymous piece from somone who works for or with the Department of Homeland Security who takes exception to a story I posted here a couple of weeks ago. It was the horrific tale of British journalist Elena Lappin who flew into LAX only to be detained, searched, jailed and ultimately deported -- all because she was unaware that the process for issuing journalist visas had changed and she didn't check a little box on the entry form.

Now, my anonymous correspondent asks to be able to make the other side of the case. Below I reproduce his entire note to me that explains the official view of this story. Please be respectful in response--stick to the issues and leave the ad hominem in a can somewhere:

Dear Mr. Cooper, I hope that you might read this and perhaps even post something about it. I just came across your post from 23 June about the journalist detained and turned around at LAX. I had also read the original piece, as well as a few other pieces like it in the past year. As someone involved in the process of visas to the US, please let me share some perspective on this incident.

I agree that it seems a silly rule that prevents journalists from visiting on the regular business/pleasure (B1/B2) visa. However, DHS is not really responsible for that- the visa category has existed for decades, in the Immigration and Nationality Act. It very clearly states that you can come to visit on a B1/B2, you can even have some business meetings, or develop contacts, etc, but under no circumstances can you do any paid work on a B1/B2. I agree that it seems excessive to bar journalists trying to enter (we all think, why, what harm could come of it?), but on the other hand, why should journalists be allowed to work on a B1 when every other type of worker needs to get an H1B or L1 or whatever other visa is needed? So there's two points in that paragraph- one is that Congress wrote that rule decades ago, and two is that journalists really need to stop thinking of themselves as outside the rules that everyone else needs to follow.

Now, I agree that some DHS inspectors can be jerks. On the other hand, so can some journalists. Or taxi drivers. Or whatever else. I think it shows a phenomenal lack of perspective to think that a DHS inspector being a pompous jerk is somehow proof that the terrorists are winning, or that "Ashcroft's America" is turning into a police state. Frankly, as someone working on the visa issues, I guarantee you that the US federal government (following Congress's laws) is one of the most lenient, insouciant entities in the world when it comes to caring about who enters the country and how. After 9/11 we've tried to NOT restrict entry to people, but only to ask that people come on the right visa and do what they said they were going to do when they got the visa. The fact that we've started enforcing those rules doesn't mean that our quality of life has deteriorated immensely.

Trust me. I see people every day who abuse their visas and sneak into the country, and we don't do anything about it- we are trying at least to be a bit more careful about giving people the right visas now, and people make it look like we're turning into a police state. Have you ever traveled outside of the US? Every other country I have ever visited makes tourists register, makes tourists fill out their passport info at every hotel they stay in, or worse confiscates the passports at the hotel, and in general is absolutely paranoid about foreigners. All we are trying to do is 1) ask people to get the visa that corresponds to their purpose of travel and 2) let us know when you enter and leave the country. Get some perspective.

Obviously, I'm very sorry this woman was arrested. That is pretty excessive. But she (and a lot of other people) need to get over the idea that asking journalists to get a work visa to do work in the US is some nazi tactic.

Thanks for listening... sorry for the anonymous letter- I can't really write this under my name given my job, but I hope that it gives a little perspective on the incident anyway.

Comments

[Bob]

Well, the guy may be right about the visa stuff, or he may not. But (at least in my experience) he's wrong about this: "Every other country I have ever visited makes tourists register, makes tourists fill out their passport info at every hotel they stay in, or worse confiscates the passports at the hotel, and in general is absolutely paranoid about foreigners." Great Britain doesn't do this; nor does Germany; nor does Italy (at any rate, they didn't the last time I was there, all within the last couple of years).

[steve]

agreed, I've not had that experience travelling in Taiwan.

[Woody McNair]

I don't care what certain other countries do. I care about what is best for the U.S. (Do you hear poeple in other countries saying, "Well, the U.S. does it--so, shouldn't we?")

The U.S. suffered a terrible terrorist attack and is currently being targeted for more. A department charged with administering foreign visitor laws, passed by Congress and signed by the President, is trying to do its job to reduce our risk. I say it's about time.

If someone objects to simple cooperation with us and refuses to follow our laws, then they should consider staying away.

I don't remember who said it, but there was a quote about not getting into a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. It seems that this journalist likely has overreacted and is trying to get back at us using her power of the press. Of course, she is as wrong to do that as she was to ignore our straight-forward, reasonable rules.

[steve]

A department charged with administering foreign visitor laws, passed by Congress and signed by the President, is trying to do its job to reduce our risk. I say it's about time.

--even the letter writer admits that the agent went overboard. i wonder how far we go with this woody, is it ok to beat the woman journalist too, or detain her for a week or two [what the heck, we do it to people like brandon mayfield for being a muslim, er, i mean for uhm, well no one is exactly sure why...]

[Suzanne O'Connor]

Having traveled widely I can tell you that countries taking passports is common. Though the civilized world of Europe may not do so, I have had my passport confiscated by various authorities including hotels in the Philipines, Japan, Guam, and Mexico. I was on a working visa in all those countries. Hopefully they treat tourists better.

[Michael Turmon]

Hotels taking tourist passports used to be relatively common in Europe -- this happened in large cities in France when I first went in 1989 and again in the early 90s. But not so much in the towns, and I've not seen it at all since 1995 even in Paris hotels. When it happened, the hotel clerk would take my passport over the first night, and then give it back if you asked the next day, even if you were staying on. Presumably the local gendarmerie were having a look.

On the substance of the post, there are a lot of threads to unravel. First, general visitors should not be treated in a way that presumes they are terrorists. What purpose could that serve? Even trying to see past the writers own biases (e.g., assume she threw a tantrum at some point, because I sure would have) reveals they pushed way too hard. What could have been the rationale for a body search, or for a multi-hour interview?

Second, the bureaucratic sheltering behind "it's just the rules" does not seem very persuasive. This must happen regularly, so why aren't the inspectors more sensitive to this kind of problem, and why aren't they making better efforts to let journalists know about these weird rules?

Third, this rule making an exception for journalists seems asinine. ("You may not accept unauthorised employment or attend school or represent the foreign information media during your visit under this [visa] program.") Why single out that one class? Especially since in her case, the Guardian was paying for the visit, so she was not accepting unauthorized employment.

The Guardian piece is at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1230539,00.html

[steve]

never had that happen in taiwan, china, vietnam, thailand, korea, Malaysia, or Indonesia. fwiw.

steve

[steve]

What could have been the rationale for a body search, or for a multi-hour interview?

--you mean you haven't heard about the recent revelations of british female journalists sneaking bombs into the US to be used for future acts of terrorism? maybe they thought they had her fingerprint or one that looked like hers or maybe, like in the brandon mayfield case say, they just felt like detaining her for no apparent reason?

[Woody McNair]

Steve wrote, "...how far we go with this woody, is it ok to beat the woman journalist too, or detain her for a week or two...."

Steve, be reasonable. Do you expect me to say, "Oh, sure. Beat the woman first and ask questions later--ESPECIALLY, if she is a journalist!" Of course, not; and, our system doesn't allow anything like that. If she has a grievance, then let the legal system take control, as it can and should.

Laws of our country serve to guide and protect both those under authority (in this case, the journalist being asked to adhere to procedures she should have followed) and those in authority (in this case, those who are hired by the government to enforce the laws.) If either side, (again for emphasis--EITHER SIDE), steps over the boundaries set by those laws, then there are consequences.

It is difficult to believe that this woman had to be forcibly subdued unless she was refusing to cooperate, and I highly suspect (again, suspect, because I wasn't there) that she was also creating a disturbance. That seems a reasonable interpretation given the available information.

There are two sides of the issue, and those being accused by her don't run a newspaper or broadcast network to stir up emotions. Therefore, it may take time to get the side of those authorities; but, they have a right to be heard and not pre-judged. If force went too far, as she claims, there are legal avenues to review the charges and punish the guilty. If not, and if she has made overstated accusations, then she should have the courtesy to apologize.

However, all of this is a side issue to the point addressed by the anonymous writer--that we have reasonable laws and enforcement procedures to monitor and control the visits of foreigners. Those laws are there for various purposes, and they should be respected by our visitors.

If some foreign visitors do not like those laws, then they can either choose to not enter our country or choose to deal with the consequences of breaking our laws.

That is the point, and side issues are mere distractors. Now, isn't this reasonable?

[steve]

Those laws are there for various purposes, and they should be respected by our visitors.

--if only the agents involved had the same respect for the spirit of the law in their country.

[mike jenkins]

Anonymous,
Thanks for the e-mail. Obviously it is easier to stick to websites that more broadly agree with your point of view; I appreciate somebody writing an intelligent, respectful letter disagreeing with the host.
A couple of points. You stress "why should journalists be allowed to work on a B1 when every other type of worker needs to get an H1B or L1". Certainly if Ms. Lappin was coming to the US to work at the LA Times or to become the LA correspondent for the Guardian, she needs to get some kind of work visa. But European professionals come to visit my company for business meetings all the time without any special visa; the visa waiver (I-94W) that Ms. Lappin refers to in her article seems to apply to everybody except journalists and students. She comes here to interview a few people; I don't see why that is different from a business meeting with clients.
That brings me to my second point. I agree with Woody McNair; if we have rules, we should change them or enforce them. If we had rules that prevented terrorist types from getting into the country, but we made special exemptions that allowed journalists to bypass them, well, we know how the next set of bad guys will pull off their attack, right? But this ain't like that; it appears that Ms. Lappin is the ONLY British citizen not allowed in the country. And beyond that is Steve's point; if we have a lot a complicated rules, and occasionally someone makes a mistake and violates one of those rules, why don't we just shoot them? Probably be less mistakes in the future (and fewer nasty Guardian articles.) Sorry, I don't mean to be flip, there's too much of that in blog comments. But this war is going to go on for a long time; we've got to figure out how to meld security with respect for human dignity, especially after we've figured out that that we're not dealing with Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

[chris]

what bugs me about us customs isn't that rules have to be inforced, it's the complete arbitary enforcement. I am a foreigner, here on a visa. I tell every customs official exactly what I am doing here when asked. I take a full day off to update my I20 every time I need to leave the country. think DMV lines are bad? I waited 8 months for my employment authorization card to arrive. I follow the rules and laws, even though sometimes they are really difficult to obey.

yet I have experienced a wide array of different treatments. I never know what to expect, I line up based on the person behind the counter (smiling/serious expression), not the length of the lines. it's this uncertainty that worries me, the complete dependency on what kind of day the other person has had so far.

coming into the us as a foreigner means not knowing if you'll meet a customs official who will treat you just as another normal human being or be something else.

and that is different from all the other countries I have lived in so far.

a foreigner almost everywhere,
chris.

[Michael Turner]

Woody McNair writes: "It is difficult to believe that this woman had to be forcibly subdued unless she was refusing to cooperate, and I highly suspect (again, suspect, because I wasn't there) that she was also creating a disturbance."

It's happening again, GM Roper having been the first: somebody's commenting without having read the article they are commenting on.

Woody, read Elena Lappin's account. ACTUALLY READ IT. Nowhere does she say she was forcibly subdued.

As for the anonymous official whose e-mail Marc reproduces, well, yeah, journalists and taxi drivers can be jerks too. But how often have you been strip-searched and imprisoned by a journalist or a taxi driver? This anonymous official misses the point: abuse of government power is something nobody should take lightly. It's an offense of a different order, because it's taking place within the apparatus that is supposed to balance order and freedom.

Elena Lappin's reported behavior makes it clear that she had no idea that the United States had decided to start enforcing a law that lax enforcement had led her to believe didn't even exist.

Chris writes: "I tell every customs official exactly what I am doing here when asked." And yet, his problem (and mine, here in Japan, btw) is neatly summarized by this complaint: "what bugs me about us customs isn't that rules have to be inforced, it's the complete arbitary enforcement. I am a foreigner, here on a visa. I tell every customs official exactly what I am doing here when asked. I take a full day off to update my I20 every time I need to leave the country ... I follow the rules and laws, even though sometimes they are really difficult to obey."

And sometimes it's difficult to know what the rules are.

READ THE ARTICLE: Elena Lappin did say why she was entering the country. She volunteered the information, of her own free will. That's what set the whole story in motion. She said she was a journalist, coming to do a story, under the obvious assumption that it was no problem. An assumption cultivated by years of entering America when it WAS no problem. Even though there was this law on the books that nobody had ever even mentioned to her before. They changed some fine-print boilerplate FINALLY to reflect that law, but why are you surprised that she didn't notice it? That's like a speedtrap where they take a speed limit sign that had fallen down three decades ago, and re-erect it behind some bushes. And you're DEFENDING this behavior?

Woody, Mike: If it's all about the rule of law, where were you guys when this law wasn't being enforced? The anonymous e-mail says that immigration is "insouciant" about such matters, as if that were a nice thing somehow. Well, I've lived in Japan long enough to know that they keep all kinds of unenforced laws and regulations on the books here just to get a little extra latitude when they need some pretext to throw their bureaucratic weight around, to go from "insouciant" to "insolent" whenever they feel like it. Believe me, you don't want America becoming like Japan (in this respect, anyway.) Laxness about the rules as a bureaucratic smokescreen isn't charity - it's hidden, cancerous growth of government power. And what's American about that?

[Michael Turner]

Upon yet another re-reading (yes, I read - and even RE-read, unlike some here): Now I have to wonder if the anonymous e-mail writer actually read the article. He/she writes: "[Elena Lappin] (and a lot of other people) need to get over the idea that asking journalists to get a work visa to do work in the US is some nazi tactic."

Hey, where does she say that? She does talk about how getting a journalist visa has been pretty rare in the world, and associated with despotic regimes. But the N-word only comes up in her recounting of the fine print - suddenly amended to sweep her into suspect categories.

I haven't said it's a "nazi tactic", and wouldn't say that. But to have the rule of law, you need transparency and consistent enforcement.

By all means, require journalists to have a journalist visa, if that's the law. But I don't see anybody calling for the heads of immigration inspectors who didn't enforce that law for so long, and didn't even mention it for so long. It's not like they couldn't have been checking all along, is it? People with bylines are much more publicly visible, so it's much easier to build a database of international journalists, and no infringement on their privacy to do so, since they are already in effect public figures.

A law enforced is a law made visible, and open to change if it is, or has since become, unreasonable. A law going unenforced - that's bad news. A law spottily enforced, with no clear criteria for who gets nabbed and who is allowed to pass, is even worse news. The framers of the Constitution aimed at the rule of law, not the rule of men. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, true enough. But what excuse is there for hiding the law, laxly enforcing it, enforcing it case-by-case with criteria that remain unknown? Where is the prison cell with the dirty toilet for those people?

[Michael Turner]

"There are two sides of the issue, and those being accused by her don't run a newspaper or broadcast network to stir up emotions."

No, what they do is what they did: start cutting entry papers for journalists who (for reasons that become obvious if you READ THE ACTUAL article) didn't know about this law.

And why did they start doing that? For the equally obvious reason that they realized they were screwing up, badly. Elena Lappin supplied the needed corrective stimulus, and got the obviously required response: more people know about rules that were revived only stealthily, and what few journalists DON'T know after all this publicity (or who have important stories to cover but not enough time to amend their visa situation before their scheduled arrival) are being treated more reasonably.

End of story, I'd think, except that it's still an arbitrary process: nobody knows why some are being detained and others let through with a warning. Far better, to my mind, to detain all known journalists entering the U.S. without the required visa, but treat them much more nicely in detention, even if they fuss. Like, "I'm sorry, sir/ma'am, but we have to obey the law, and so do you, until it changes. Don't worry - we'll put you in clean room, you'll be properly fed, and while we'll have to screen your calls, you won't be held incommunicado."

[Michael Turner]

Anonymous again: "The fact that we've started enforcing those rules doesn't mean that our quality of life has deteriorated immensely."

Please. Singapore has better "quality of life" than most of America, but is an undemocratic police state, a (mostly) benign dictatorship. Quality of life is not what this is about. This is about opaquely selective enforcement of laws and regulations, and disproportionately severe treatment of those who (either arbitrarily or because of political profiling) end up huddled under the magnifying glass. The day "quality of life" trumps America's very real freedoms is the day I start looking into becoming citizen of some other country.

[Matt Welch]

An important bit of context is that the Visa Waiver program effectively transferred the consular burden for processing 15 million annual U.S. entries from the State Dept. to individual border guards.

Some other notes on Anonymous' points:

* "but under no circumstances can you do any paid work on a B1/B2. […] why should journalists be allowed to work on a B1 when every other type of worker needs to get an H1B or L1 or whatever other visa is needed?"

The point is not necessarily B1/B2, but I-94s, or Visa Waivers, and Visa Waivers do explicitly allow people to conduct "business" in the United States (even do "independent research"), and furthermore people can do “paid work” as well. When the 10 French & British reporters were sent back from attempting to cover the E3 conference last year, a woman traveling with them who identified herself openly as a publicist who would be working at E3 was let right in. Last night, at an L.A. Press Club panel I moderated on the topic, Customs and Border Protect Protection Assistant Director for Immigration Policy & Programs Peter Lowell Gordon could not provide a definitive point-blank answer as to whether a publicist can do such work on an I-94. I would add that such lack of knowledge by an enforcement manager speaks volumes about the confusion in the current law.

* "journalists really need to stop thinking of themselves as outside the rules that everyone else needs to follow."

Actually, journalists were placed “outside the rules that everyone else needs to follow” by the original Immigration and Naturalization Act -- the special visa for Foreign Media Representative was created as a privilege, a “non-immigrant” exemption from the usual immigration rules, not as some kind of creepy tracking device. The precise definition of this exempting eligibility is telling: “upon a basis of reciprocity, an alien who is a bona fide representative of foreign press, radio, film, or other foreign information media, who seeks to enter the United States solely to engage in such vocation The key phrases here are “bona fide representative,” and “seeks … solely.” After the Visa Waiver program was introduced in 1986, the I-visa remained on the books (it is, after all, an excellent way to stay here for five-year stretches), but people coming for short stints just used Visa Waivers, and they were waved on through. Only after the Department of Homeland Security took over in March 2003, and only after unknown Los Angeles officials or guards decide to begin shipping journalists back, did the special Journalist definition -- which was originally a privilege-receiving exemption -- become instead a barrier to entry.

And not just a barrier, but a barrier with an ever-expanding definition: You no longer need to be a “bona fide representative,” and you no longer need to seek entrance “solely to engage in such vocation.” Gordon said last night that a journalist here on vacation who decides to cover an unplanned news event -- an earthquake, say, or a terrorist attack -- risks being found in violation of his visa, and barred from future entry. Freelancers hoping to scare up a story, but not necessarily under contract, can and have been stopped and sent back, even though the prevailing interpretation of the law (not the enforcement, but the actual law) was until last year that freelancers did not need an I-visa. Journalists *are* "outside the rules" -- the rules that allow publicists to travel on the same flight to the same conference and do work on an I-94.

* "All we are trying to do is 1) ask people to get the visa that corresponds to their purpose of travel and 2) let us know when you enter and leave the country. Get some perspective."

Sounds nice. Problem is, that’s not “all we are trying to do.” We are demanding to know precisely how long that long-term I-Visa holders will stay in the country this time (which is not supposed to be asked, according to Gordon), we are trying to intimidate journalists with perfectly valid visas (The Independent’s Andrew Gumbel, an I-Visa holder, says an LAX customs threatened to deport him anyway, while bragging that “We've been deporting quite a few British journalists recently"); we are asking journalists with I-visas and French passports exactly where they stood on the Iraq war, we are asking extremely detailed questions about the content and tone of the stories reporters are covering … and we are doing all this to people who 1) have typically been on a plane for the previous 10 hours, and 2) live in constant fear that an overzealous guard could at any time smack a “no entry” stamp in their passports. It's hard to get "perspective" when you're spending the night at a detention center in downtown L.A.

* "Have you ever traveled outside of the US? Every other country I have ever visited makes tourists register, makes tourists fill out their passport info at every hotel they stay in, or worse confiscates the passports at the hotel, and in general is absolutely paranoid about foreigners."

I travel outside the country constantly (as recently as last month), and lived abroad for eight years, in formerly totalitarian countries, and my experiences have been nothing like that. Furthermore, the only countries that asked for remotely similar documentation to America’s newly required I-Visa were Cuba and Serbia. I would hope we have our sights higher than that, especially since this new enforcement has absolutely zilcho to do with preventing another terrorist attack.

Michael Turner responded: "Woody, read Elena Lappin's account. ACTUALLY READ IT. Nowhere does she say she was forcibly subdued."

I admit that I did not read her account. Honestly, I really have a job, a wife and kids, and a life--so, I cannot read everything. Therefore, I often rely on other accounts which may infer information that is not always accurate. Judging from the outrage, one might easily conclude that she was beaten worse than Rodney King. Nevertheless, that was not the main point of the topic at hand. But, thanks for bringing this to my attention, and I don't mean that sarcastically.

----------

Michael Turner responded: "Woody, Mike: If it's all about the rule of law, where were you guys when this law wasn't being enforced"

Didn't you ACTUALLY READ my comments on another site a couple of years back about my feelings of immigration laws not being enforced? (That part was sarcastic.) Anyway, I'm for enforcing the law and always have been.

I once remember that Ronald Reagan, a great President!, once said something to the effect that a country that doesn't enforce its borders ceases to become a country. He was so simple (more sarcasm), but he was right. Also, I didn't like it when Jimmy Carter (I know, Steve, Reagan was just like Carter, but Venti vs. Tall.)...when Jimmy Carter gave legal status to millions of illegal (not undocumented, but illegal) immigrants. That was right around the time that he welcomed all of Castro's misfits into this country and gave a blanket pardon to thousands of law breakers who had fled to Canada. I also objected to wholesale voter registration of illegals in southern California. So, I care about the laws and those that pertain to our borders.

---------------

Anyway, I might have a few details wrong, and I can count on some to "correct" even the most minute errors, but my overall conclusions are logical and sincere--and, generally on point except when some want to side-track me.

Now, you guys can take the next several days putting in the last words. That's it for me and this topic.

[steve]

Wil rewrites history stating: I once remember that Ronald Reagan, a great President!, once said something to the effect that a country that doesn't enforce its borders ceases to become a country. He was so simple (more sarcasm), but he was right. Also, I didn't like it when Jimmy Carter (I know, Steve, Reagan was just like Carter, but Venti vs. Tall.)...when Jimmy Carter gave legal status to millions of illegal (not undocumented, but illegal) immigrants.

--from http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/07/16/bush.mexico/

"President Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to illegal immigrants when he signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that affected mostly Latino immigrants living in the United States since 1982.

Of the nearly 4 million illegal immigrants eligible to apply for legal residency under the 1986 law, 55 percent were from Mexico, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The law gave immigrants who came to America before 1982 one year, between May 1987 and May 1988, to apply for temporary resident status and permits for employment."
--------------------------

Wil also writes: Judging from the outrage, one might easily conclude that she was beaten worse than Rodney King.

--in other words until she is beaten to a pulp for no apparent reason, well it's a non-chalant posture toward immigration officers who don't seem to understand the spirit of the law they're charged with enforcing.
--------------------------

[steve]

Rosedog,
Dean won that debate hands down. Sometimes it's sad to see him carry water for a DNC that did him in, but he won that debate clearly enough. And I'm not a little unsympathetic to a good number of Nader's arguments, but he didn't present them in any clear systematic way--which is what was necessary to defeat a smart guy like Dean in a debate.