The Consuls' Files

Bravo, Sarajvo

2011-10-28T20:11:00.001-04:00

Madam was very pleased and relieved to read about the gunman who fired at our mission in Sarajevo today. He wounded a policeman but was fairly quickly subdued and taken into custody.

Why the pleasure and relief? Because - aside from the policeman whose injury is tragic, unnecessary, and deeply regrettable - no other innocent bystander (such as, for example, any NIV applicant) was hurt. Since the attack took place in mid-afternoon, perhaps the visa applicants had simply cleared out by then. Or perhaps the consular section takes the safety of its customers seriously, and assures that none are ever compelled to wait in that world-wide danger zone, on the sidewalk outside a US embassy. Madam has never been to Sarajevo, but the second possibility appears more likely than it might in another place, because Sarajevo's NIV backlog is only one day for all visa categories: the first sign of a thoughtfully- and humanely-run consular section.

If only luck and timing were responsible for the lack of civilian casualties, Madam hopes that the mission will take note and take more care. If it was deliberate policy that kept the innocent out of harm's way, respectful kudos are due to Anne-Marie Casella and her staff.

Let It Be Me

2011-02-27T16:55:00.002-05:00

Many of us worry desperately about - and might admire enormously - those truly courageous souls who dare participate in the wave of protests and demonstrations now occurring and spreading in the world. Where will this wave go now? Maybe not China, maybe not North Korea, but not long ago we might have poo-pooed the idea of Libya, so we don't know.

As we read about our colleagues - only peripherally in the ordinary news, which at most might mention a ship or a flight 'arranged by the US embassy' - it is only human for a true consular officer to feel a tiny tug of envy.

Because in every such officer's heart is a wee little voice that whispers, "Me. Involve me. If it's going to happen, please let it happen while I'm here and while I can try my best to pass the ultimate consular test - to think fast and creatively and without hesitation to help and protect my employees and my American customers.

"Test me. I can do it. I'll think of everything, I'll think a step ahead of danger. Let it be me standing on the tarmac, on the quay, on the train platform, on the side of the highway, waving goodbye to the last of those who trust and depend on me, as they race away to safety by means that I arranged. Let it be me who will be able to say - "

" - Goodbye, hon. Be careful out there."

Bienvenue, Enfants

2011-02-10T07:00:00.020-05:00

The NIV chief had a problem. Her officers were having trouble getting away from their pro forma, routine questions (Got a job? Married?), and their reliance on job letters, bank statements, and prior travel to other countries. They were unconvinced by their chief's assurances that these customers might be deliberately fitting themselves into the patterns of their countrymen who had succeeded in obtaining US visas; they did not believe their applicants were that clever, or that their evidence could be fabricated.

After stewing for a while, the chief came up with a plan.

"Do this," she told the officers. "If you intend to refuse an applicant for any reason and if the passport is still pristine, tell him in exactly these words, 'I'm sorry but you don't qualify for a US visa. After all, you've never traveled out of your own country before. You've never even been to France.'"

The officers laughed and complied, because they liked her but still wanted to prove her wrong.

And guess what?

In less than a month, every single NIV applicant's passport showed a week's recent travel to France: a visa, and Charles de Gaulle airport arrival and departure stamps.

Faced with this phenomenon, the officers stepped out of their routines to ask questions whose answers surprised them. Where had the travelers stayed in France? With friends. What friends? Just friends. In what city? They didn't know; the friends 'took them around.' What had these travelers seen in France? They couldn't name a single sight.

Those visas and stamps? When turned over to the FSN investigator, they proved to be all masterful counterfeits.

Those officers are now scattered all over the world doing many kinds of interesting mid-level work, but every one of them remembers this experience with chagrin and gratitude. They call it The Day the Refusal Rate Went Up.

So This Guy Walks in and Says...

2011-02-07T07:00:00.012-05:00

Madam's nag last week had to do with the incautious handling of sensitive paperwork. But what about incautious speech?

What could be more amusing than to relate the latest you-won't-believe-what-this-one-did Crazy Amcit story? There are times when we could be excused for believing that our resident Americans could not possibly have thought that up all on his own, and we can't help but wonder what the heck he was thinking of. And we could, briefly, be excused for believing that this will make a great story to tell colleagues and co-workers in the cafeteria, the elevator, anywhere we gather.

And so it might. But please don't do that.

The Privacy Act of 1974 and 7 FAM 060 are extremely specific about who can be told what about Americans and their antics. And while most of these references concentrate on official documentary records, any note a consular officer has jotted down and stuck into a folder or onto a computer screen is part of those records. In practice, so is anything the American told a consular officer that hasn't been written down yet.

Can you tell the story if you leave out identifying information such as the person's name?

Consider: you can't be certain that a listener won't be able to connect the story with a specific individual. She might have seen him walk into the section and might know him from church, from the neighborhood, from the Hash. She might know details about his life that make him immediately recognizable. Even without any obvious identifying data, release of any information to another USG employee - even another consular employee - is still limited by the need to know.

It is routine for consular officers to discuss cases among themselves. Such discussions can serve as excellent learning and training tools. But be very wary about disclosing anything about any case involving an Amcit or LPR, even to closest colleagues. If you couldn't clearly and lucidly explain the sound professional reason behind this disclosure in front of a Congressional inquiry, think twice.

Of course, only Americans and LPRs are protected by the Privacy Act. But might that very funny visa applicant be a friend, relative or countryman of a local staff member who happens to be within earshot?

Maybe we could talk about the political section's latest stunningly clever dimarche instead. Or the weather.

Can We Put That Away, Please?

2011-02-02T07:00:00.008-05:00

No, Madam is not referring to the occasional disturbed Amcit who believes that his personal parts are so attractive that local ladies - or gentlemen, or children - would like to admire them in public places. She is talking about consular records.

Some otherwise well-run consular sections remain cluttered after hours with files of ongoing fraud investigations, death and custody cases, immigrant visa cases, and loose documents such as birth certificates and Social Security cards - anything and everything left where it was used last.

As you know, Madam will be the first to say so if she believes that the FAM or the consular management handbook have wandered off base. But with this issue she stands staunchly with the most conservative of our managers.

We need to remember five points:

- There are people who pass through the consular section after hours, from the MSG to painters and plumbers. An escort can only watch so many workers. These folks might be absolutely honest, but they still have no need to know about consular cases. The temptation to learn about them should be removed.

- Even within a consular section, need-to-know rules apply. No consular employee - officer or LES - should have casual access to a file or a case that he or she is not actually working with.

- Mischief can happen.

- If there isn't enough secure space or containers to store everything as required, it is the consular chief's responsibility to acquire that secure space or those containers.

- A cluttered desk is NOT a sign of genius.

In a well-run consular section, every day is lockdown day. At every close of business we must make sure that computers are logged off, of course, but also all files and sensitive documents are secured; foils, passports, cash, stamps and seal are locked up. And it should be the section chief himself or herself who makes it obvious that he or she is cleaning up his own work space and locking things away properly, then performing the benign but firm final sweep of the entire section. Leading, as always, by example.

The Job Isn't Finished Until the Paperwork is ... Ignored

2011-01-20T07:00:00.007-05:00

In July, Madam expressed very clearly her experienced opinion of the documents that applicants like to bring to their NIV interviews:

What is it about paper, that consular officers love it so much? There is no document anywhere in the world that can't be produced on demand, either as a genuine document fraudulently issued, or as a work of art created by Madam's dear friend Ali on the Corner, all of whose children have graduated debt-free from good US universities thanks to their father's work.

If it's not a mandatory I-20, DS-2019, I-797 or the like, it is not just useless; it is a dangerous distraction. Because let's be clear: there is nothing about a piece of paper, however fancy, that will tell an officer anything about a visa applicant's intentions. Documents are crutches; flipping through them to look for a reason to issue or refuse is a futile task. A bank book, a job letter, a lease, a car title: none of it means anything. If the customer intends to stay in the US, he will willingly leave all those things behind - even if they really exist and he really owns them - without a glance. And besides, an officer's job is to interview applicants, not shuffle papers.

How do you resist the pull of papers? Don't ask for them. When offered, don't take them. If refused applicants, in their later complaints, eventually get around to the worldwide whine "...and the officer didn't even look at my documents!" the proper response is, "the officer interviewed you."

Coming to a Visa Line Near You?

2011-01-14T07:00:00.014-05:00

"The most notorious corrupt official in Indonesia not only left his Indonesian jail cell to view a tennis tournament in Bali, he also traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Macau.

...and to the International Space Station?

"Gayus Tambunan, who is a former mid-level tax officer, told officials that he was on vacation when he exited his jail cell and traveled abroad with his wife in September last year.

"After his arrest in Bali, Tambunan admitted that he paid in excess of $40,000 in order to be let out of jail on 68 occasions."

Madam notes, by the way, that Pak Tambunan's annual salary was about $1400.

She is amused, but also hopeful that a routine name check will keep him from vacationing in Tulsa next summer.

And by the way, of course 'authorities' are blaming the wife, not the 10,000 cops who could have kept his silly, arrogant ass in jail. And the government officer who issued the passport on which he traveled has been promoted.

We Need to Talk

2011-01-12T07:00:00.012-05:00

Here, chosen purely at random, is a sporting attempt to explain the complexity of crossing into the US with an adopted child. Not only is it written in English by way of Babelfish,

but a lot of it is simply wrong.

And here is an attempt to make sense out of US passports for children.

If a cheery, ambitious, articulate entry-level officer were assigned to skim local or suspect web sites and correct, respond to, or comment on such attempts to clarify people's situations, he or she would not only provide a valuable public service, but would also give a supervisor a very nice item or two to include in the next EER.

But of course, we don't do our jobs for rewards, do we. We do them because they are our jobs and we love them.

Congratulations, Sort Of

2011-01-11T06:54:00.002-05:00

These days, most US consular sections use appointment systems of one kind or another not only for IVs and NIVs but also for various ACS applicants: notarials, CROBAs, and the like.

Well, good. Except...

Does this mean that when an applicant arrives at your mission ten minutes before the appointed time, s/he is admitted immediately? Is s/he called to or welcomed at the intake window at the exact appointment time?

If so, good on you. If not, you do not have an appointment system; you only have crowd control.

Madam has heard far more often than she likes the argument that either

1. This is the best the consular section can do, and/or

2. The people here don't expect any better.

To which, after a suitable expletive, she must respond, "No, it's not" and "So what?"

If you made an appointment for any purpose anywhere in the US and that appointment worked the way that your section's does, would you feel you had cause to complain?

If so, fix it. Remember the part about setting a good example, and the relentless need to present the best possible face of the US in all interactions overseas? Please. You have an appointment system; now make it work like one.

Call My Embassy!

2010-11-19T07:00:00.001-05:00

From one of Madam's favorite web sites, a photo that reminds her irresistibly of a typical Amcit emergency.

Of course, the rental agent assured the tourists that the car-top carrier was perfectly aerodynamic, could hold all their luggage, and would not fall off. There is, however, no mention of its being burglar-proof.

And which of the monkeys is eating the passports? Ah, that one.

Talking to Them

2010-11-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

Consular sections find so many ways to communicate with the public, and Madam has yet to hear of a single method that either failed or that the section regretted.

Here are just two totally random samples:

The first is someone's personal web page that has linked to the official embassy web site's emergency evacuation information, in a country where evacuation could be a serious issue. While the consular section didn't deliberately draw attention to its page, it did at least make the information available to be found. How many consular sections have any such information available to the public at all? Sadly, very few.

The second example is more forward: a regular feature in a local newspaper, no doubt negotiated and agreed to by the consular section and the paper itself. Notice that the the newspaper filters the possible massive flood of queries (it is, after all, Jamaica), a flood that the consular section might struggle with, and the result is win, win and win.

Consumer-friendly consular sections also hold periodic warden meetings, public meetings with the Amcit community, even open public information sessions with whomever wants to come.

In places with high rates of student applicants, consular officers meet regularly with groups of students to explain the visa process and - if the F1 refusal rate is high - to encourage students to not put all their eggs into single baskets.

Some consular sections participate in on-line lists and groups, or at least follow them to see if misinformation is being passed around, and to correct those errors.

Some write regular columns for the local newspaper.

Some hold press conferences.

Some schedule regular "ask the consul" on line forums.

One section, in a country where it was rumored to refuse all NIV applicants, simply posted its monthly issuance numbers on its outdoor bulletin board.

Every consular section that has used any one (or several, bless their hearts) of these methods has found that the phones ring less and the public hostility scales back. The worst that has happened, in Madam's knowledge, is that a few individuals in public meetings became aggressive, and were deftly brought under control by their fellow countrymen. Communicating actually reduces the workload rather than increasing it. And it makes it appear that we have nothing to hide.

Please Put Them On

2010-11-17T08:49:00.000-05:00

Two different IG reports describing similar conditions but very different results recently came to Madam's attention. Both reported semi-absentee consular management, but in one this absenteeism had created chaos, open cruelty, crying in the rest rooms and possible resignations while the other had caused first tour officers to band together to produce quality products on their own.

What was the difference? What crucial management behaviors allowed ELOs to soldier on in one case, while forcing them to offer up one another for human sacrifice in the other?

Madam contends that there was no difference that mattered. No one made the out-of-control ELOs rip at one anothers' jugulars; no one allowed the Little Ship Steered From the Engine Room to stay reasonably on course. To work and behave as they did were the choices of the officers themselves.

While management in the Lord of the Flies-like post received a well-deserved trouncing from the OIG (as did that of the Little Ship, but far more lightly), in the end it was still the officers' own responsibility to implement the training they had received, use the FAM as it was written, and behave civilly and adult-ly to one another, to consular customers, and to the local staff exactly as their mothers probably once had taught them. WTF did their parents pay for college educations for, if these children reverted to savagery at the first opportunity? And what do these reversions imply for the children's professional futures? One shivers to anticipate a DCM who found the Flies posting to his or her liking, and is carrying those lessons to a position of power.

Does Madam even have to write a conclusion here? How about this?

Going Walkabout

2010-10-27T08:49:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time there was a consular section with a very high NIV refusal rate, a customer base that insisted on queueing up at 3 AM, and a layout that required consular officers coming to work to pass that queue. Habitually, the officers would stride along the sidewalk with a no-nonsense gait and eyes firmly fixed anywhere except on the waiting applicants. One officer, however - a large and naturally cheerful soul - would smile, make eye contact, and greet the people as he rolled along. They would respond with smiles, straightened posture, and startled hope.

When he interviewed these applicants he refused nearly all of them, exactly like his colleagues did. Interestingly, however, although the culture was one of determined complaint in the face of any adversity, this officer's refusees only rarely complained. And when the did complain, they always complimented him and only griped about the law.

Is there a lesson here? Well, of course, and here it is: A very small amount of effort can yield positive feelings, even in the face of disappointment.

Do positive feelings matter, especially now that the NIV process is so complex that officers don't often even make eye contact with their applicants? Madam would insist - and often does - that positive feelings are more important now than they ever have been. American's current reputation in the world is very low; more than anyone else, a consular officer can lift that reputation for the applicants he meets. And Madam would argue - long, loudly, passionately and tiresomely - that he should. Rather, he must. Period.

How do you like us now?

Appointment systems were one of the first innovations to improve applicants' experience. (Never mind that that wasn't usually the systems' goals. They still worked that way.) So why are they so often so badly done? It does no one good to give a customer an appointment that you have no intention of honoring. And yet that is the effect of most such systems. Does it annoy you when your doctor or dentist lets you sit in the waiting room for an hour or more? So why do consular officers routinely do that to their customers? There is no good answer to this, and it should not occur. Not ever. Your appointment system is dysfunctional? Fix it. Period.

What else could be fixed to make customers' experience more positive? That's a very good question, and one that could be easily answered by any knowledgeable consular officer who is willing to get off a chair, come out from behind a computer, walk through the process as if he were an applicant - that is, a real human being who made an appointment and has other things to do today - and determinedly fix any hiccup that slows him down. Period? Yeah, period.

FSOs Gotta Write

2010-10-25T07:00:00.022-04:00

FSOs - and consular officers in particular - know some great stories. The temptation to record these stories can be powerful, and could also be extremely entertaining for the reading public.

So why don't we write more often? Several reason, perhaps.

First, who would believe us?

Second, it's hard to assign our wonderful anecdotes larger meanings, but that is necessary for success beyond one's immediate circle of other consular officers.

Third, for all writers, publishing is a tough world; hard to get into and hard to succeed in.

Fourth, people with full time, complex and demanding jobs (consular officers, for example) often find little time to spend on the full-time, complex and demanding work of writing.

Fifth, writing is a very deep, cold pool to step into alone.

But there is some company out there. The Northern Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Writers' Club is hosting the statewide annual writers' meeting in November. The speaker will be the redoubtable John Gilstrap and his subject is one that might especially interest FSOs: becoming a successful writer after decades of trying. The venue is charming, the food will probably be fine, and the subject is on point for writing wannabees. The cost will be $35 per individual or $60 for a couple, and although the flyer doesn't say so, non-members are welcome.

Madam is not a member of either club and will not profit from any FSO participation in this program, but it looks like fun and like a wonderful start.

The only difference between a writer and a non-writer is that a writer writes. Let's go.

And The Answer Is ...

2010-10-22T07:34:00.000-04:00

A 2004 GAO report estimated that one-third of illegal residents in the US - some 2.3 million - had entered with valid visas or through the VWP, and then had overstayed. Efforts to refine this number were only partially successful, but all pointed to high rates of overstay: 31%, 27% and 57%, not taking into account the large number of Canadian and Mexican visitors who did not complete I-94 forms, nor the numbers of visitors who overstayed for relatively short periods of time and then went home. And these numbers don't all account for changes and adjustments of status by those who entered with B1/B2s.

While this and other such reports emphasize security and terrorism concerns to justify efforts to track overstays, we must remember our role in this: security risk, terrorist, or Greek restaurant dishwasher, many of these individuals received visas after interviews with consular officers.

Making it worthwhile, Madam believes, to remember that in a visa interview, the correct answer to a consular officer's inner "I don't know" is 214(b).

A note - if a reader knows of more current or accurate stats, please post links in the comments. Thx!!

2010-10-21T14:27:00.000-04:00

"Welcome to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization Web Site"

One Officer's Paradise ...

2010-10-01T07:00:00.005-04:00

... is another's Luanda, we sometimes say, and vice versa.

And Barbados? Pretty nice gig, one might presume: sun, sand, sea, fresh fish, fancy sailboats, gorgeous new facility that isn't too small yet ...

...but a consular schedule that might daunt the most hardened travel lover.

The post just announced an upcoming consular visit to the British Virgin Islands to provide US citizens' services.

Still not impressed? How about the fact that US Embassy Barbados is accredited to seven different countries - more, as the State OIG points out (see pages 4 & 5) than any other mission in the world - and has varying degrees of responsibility for numerous other European possessions. The chart on page 5 of the OIG report should serve to put Paradise in perspective: it's not only warm and sunny; it's diabolically complex, with consular responsibilities for Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Martinique, Netherlands Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba), St. Barthélemy, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Martin, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Never mind that, stuck all together, the total land area of consular responsibility hardly adds up to Kansas: that is a lot of air time (much of it requiring third-country transit, all of it requiring at least one and usually two overnight stays) many times per year. But the consular section soldiers on. Fly on, Barbados!

A Whisper in My Ear Said “Give Up!”

2010-09-30T07:00:00.003-04:00

Every consular officer has had to read or listen patiently to seemingly endless complaints about how difficult some customers find the US visa application process to be. But Madam has never, so far in her life, seen a complaint as complex, detailed, thorough and probably even true as that of Mr. Kenneth Best, whose journey in search of a Schengen visa appears to have encompassed nearly all of West and Central Africa and finally resulted in - a visa! Kudos to Mr. Best for his persistence, patience, and grace under extreme aggravation.

Consular Leadership Speaks

2010-09-29T07:08:00.000-04:00

Consular Leadership has its own Facebook page. Play nicely, please. Or not.

The Lucky Thirteen

2010-09-28T07:00:00.003-04:00

Not long ago, the Department formulated a list of the qualities it looks for in FSO candidates. No harm is done by an occasional review of this list by those who have succeeded in joining the service, and so Madam presents it here for your thoughtful consideration.

If Madam had to choose a personal favorite, it would have to be "Judgment," which she suspects falls in mid-group simply because the list is in alphabetical order. But no favorite you might choose can possibly be wrong. Enjoy. And let's always remember: this is why they hired us; it's what they pay us for.

• Composure. To stay calm, poised, and effective in stressful or difficult situations; to think on one's feet, adjusting quickly to changing situations; to maintain self-control.

• Cultural Adaptability. To work and communicate effectively and harmoniously with persons of other cultures, value systems, political beliefs, and economic circumstances; to recognize and respect differences in new and different cultural environments.

• Experience and Motivation. To demonstrate knowledge, skills or other attributes gained from previous experience of relevance to the Foreign Service; to articulate appropriate motivation for joining the Foreign Service.

• Information Integration and Analysis. To absorb and retain complex information drawn from a variety of sources; to draw reasoned conclusions from analysis and synthesis of available information; to evaluate the importance, reliability, and usefulness of information; to remember details of a meeting or event without the benefit of notes.

• Initiative and Leadership. To recognize and assume responsibility for work that needs to be done; to persist in the completion of a task; to influence significantly a group’s activity, direction, or opinion; to motivate others to participate in the activity one is leading.

• Judgment. To discern what is appropriate, practical, and realistic in a given situation; to weigh relative merits of competing demands.

• Objectivity and Integrity. To be fair and honest; to avoid deceit, favoritism, and discrimination; to present issues frankly and fully, without injecting subjective bias; to work without letting personal bias prejudice actions.

• Oral Communication. To speak fluently in a concise, grammatically correct, organized, precise, and persuasive manner; to convey nuances of meaning accurately; to use appropriate styles of communication to fit the audience and purpose.

• Planning and Organizing. To prioritize and order tasks effectively, to employ a systematic approach to achieving objectives, to make appropriate use of limited resources.

• Quantitative Analysis. To identify, compile, analyze, and draw correct conclusions from pertinent data; to recognize patterns or trends in numerical data; to perform simple mathematical operations.

• Resourcefulness. To formulate creative alternatives or solutions to resolve problems, to show flexibility in response to unanticipated circumstances.

• Working With Others. To interact in a constructive, cooperative, and harmonious manner; to work effectively as a team player; to establish positive relationships and gain the confidence of others; to use humor as appropriate.

• Written Communication. To write concise, well organized, grammatically correct, effective and persuasive English in a limited amount of time.

Come to America; Bring Money

2010-09-27T13:23:00.002-04:00

There was a time when Madam believed that there were still depths to which the USG would not stoop. No more. The new ESTA fee has finally served to reach those ultimate depths. At least this month.

In case you might have missed it, the Travel Promotion Act of 2009, signed into law earlier this year, implemented a new "public-private partnership" between the U.S. government and the nation’s travel and tourism industry. (Since said industry is so responsible with its cash, apparently, and since similar ventures have worked so well in the past. Please excuse Madam while she gags.) That partnership will be financed by $10 of the $14 ESTA fee.

Never mind, if you wish, that every visitor already spends an average of $4,000 in the US per visit. Never mind that tourism revenues total $120 billion per year and support more than one million American jobs. There had to be a way to get more. And sure enough.

As Steve Lott of IATA told CNN, "It's like inviting a friend over for dinner and then charging them a fee at the door. If the idea is to make the United States more welcoming and to increase tourism, raising the entry fee seems to be counterintuitive to what you're trying to do."

Mr Lott should be teaching at Diplomat School, he is so tastefully gentle with his wording. Madam, on the other hand ... more than a year ago, you may recall, she complained bitterly and in detail about the proposed fee, which purported to be earmarked to 'promote travel to the US.' She might have mentioned in the course of that complaint that it seemed extremely unlikely that any of the money would ever see the light of day as far as foreign travelers to the US might ever observe. The US is widely considered one of the least welcoming of destinations to foreign travelers; creating a new public-private behemoth bureaucracy to spend $10 of every VWP traveler's money to make him glad he came ... what is the 47th degree of the word "counterintuitive?"

And to think that Madam remembers the days when US missions and the Department worked so hard to eliminate reciprocal visa fees. How naive she was then. And were we all.

Of All Places...

2010-09-24T07:00:00.007-04:00

In the interest of complete disclosure, Madam must admit that she actually lived in Los Angeles for several years. She also grew up with a father who used to say, "It's obvious that California is the lowest part of the US. Loose nuts always roll downhill." There's balance for you.

Even so, that well-known, long-time provider of non-news, the Los Angeles Times, recently carried a thoughtful and pretty complete article on the 14th amendment and immigration enforcement. Unlike most recent immigration-related rants*, Charlotte Allen seems well aware of existing laws and acknowledges the difficulty involved in changing the Constitution as well as in determining how, then, US citizenship might be determined and adjudicated. Of course, much more thought and planning would be required, but this is not a bad start. Well done, Ms. Allen.

Why, a consular officer might be asking, do I need to know about all of this discussion/debate/ranting going on in the US about these issues?

Because you are a consular officer and they have to do with citizenship, nationality, and legal status in the US, three things out of many others that you should be up on and should be ready to discuss - quietly, rationally, and with a sense of history and balance - with whomever brings them up at any public or private gathering, including on the beach or at a grocery store. You're an expert. People look to you for valid information (not uninformed opinion and prejudice) on deceptively complex subjects. Being able to explain all sides equally lucidly is part of your job. You will be practicing diplomacy.

* By the way, this is one of Madam's all-time favorite public rants. She is ashamed to admit that she would have tasered the good pastor, too, and probably far faster than the cops did. Especially when he got to the part about "some dog." Harumph.

Service? Who, Me?

2010-09-23T08:08:00.004-04:00

The Town Crier, who is far more courteous and diplomatic that Madam, recently reposted an article from a local newspaper somewhere out there in the world that announced the following:

Notarial services at U.S. Embassy

2010-09-19

The Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy has started offering a special notarial service session.

The service, which is only available by appointment for non-U.S. passport holders, is open every Tuesday and Thursday, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

All non-U.S. passport holders seeking routine consular services from the American Services Unit will be seen by appointment only during these hours.

Customers will need to make appointments on their website and enter through the embassy’s side or visa entrance and proceed to the third floor.

The embassy hopes that this change will make better use of consular section space and reduce crowding and wait times for all its clients.

United States citizens and those who need to accompany for the services are recommended to observe the consular department’s normal appointment-only hours from 8:45 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Monday to Friday. Walk-in hours are from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays except Wednesdays.
.

The Crier posted this with no comment except the slightly snarky title "SIT DOWN UNTIL WE CALL YOUR NAME !" Madam, however, can think of plenty of comments and a couple of questions.

First a comment:

For example, since when is limiting time so strictly that an applicant will need a stopwatch to get there on time "special?"

Since when is limiting the time available for a service that we are responsible for providing to 1/10 of available hours "special?"

Since when can such limitation reduce crowding and wait time, especially since anyone can correctly guess that it will create an instant backlog and the accompanying worry among customers that if they aren't there early they will miss their chance and have to make a new appointment, probably for several weeks in the future?
.

And wait, don't tell me: since a normal notarial takes less than three minutes total customer time to accept, process and finish, all of those "appointments" are probably for the same exact time. Since when is it a "special service" for a customer to show up for a purported appointment and find a hundred other individuals with the same "appointment?" And bloody since when is that going to reduce crowding? Perhaps in some sweet ELO's dreams.

In a major ACS unit for which Madam was responsible not long ago, one LES, one cashier (who also served other units) and one ELO routinely provided more than one hundred notarials per hour, and could do that for eight hours every day if necessary, without breaking a sweat and including a regular lunch break at lunch time (a different LES and the ACS chief took over the windows for that hour). That was their job, and they were good at it. Total customer time from walkin to walkout was about ten minutes. There were always seats available. Anyone in the country who suddenly learned that he or she needed a US notarial service could zip over and get it at any time during the normal working day.

There was no need to separate American from non-American customers, and no need for those customers to use a protractor and a volume of Kierkegaard to determine when exactly they might reasonably expect to obtain the services they needed.

Exaggerating? Madam doesn't think so. Consider again, if you care to, what a normal American might think of the hours that the embassy is willing to provide a service he or she needs: is it 8:45 to 11:45 Monday to Friday? Is it 1 - 3 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday? And what - utterly unthinkable, perhaps - if the American or non-American doesn't know what the word "notarial" means, but just knows that he needs a signature witnessed or to file an affidavit of support? Madam has long believed that our customers should not have to learn our jargon to obtain our services...efficiently, generously, pleasantly, professionally, and at their convenience.

Planning Outside the Box

2010-08-23T07:50:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time a clever and very successful DCM gave Madam some advice.

The subject was Careers with a capital C, and he said two things that she has found to be extremely useful in the ensuing years.

First, he said, it's okay to not share others' ambitions. You might feel weird or wrong if your A100 classmates salivate over, say, an extended tour as political counselor in Brussels or ambassador to London or Tokyo, while you hunger for a DCM-ship in Ulan Batar or econoff in Ouagadougou. But you aren't wrong. Just as one FSO's hellhole is another's paradise (and vice versa) one's dream job is not another's. It's okay to want what you want.

Second, no FSO's professional journey is straightforward. Look, the DCM said, for steps that will be fulfilling in themselves and will also carry you obliquely toward your goal, that dream job. Move to the right bureau or to the same area of the world; find a job that will get you the language; get training in that subject or one closely related; read up; tell your boss what you want (if he or she is trustworthy); volunteer to fill a gap or to go there to help if a disaster occurs. If you can, go there simply as consular cannon fodder very early on. It is extremely common for an ambassador, DCM or counselor to have three tours in his or her favorite country: as a JO, at mid level, and for that final dream job. Such progression gives an alert and professional officer a markedly superior understanding of the place and its people; it also introduces the officer early on to local fellow worker bees whom he or she will meet later as equals at the peaks of their own careers.

What this all means is simple: know your objective; be patient; gather the tools, the expertise and the reputation for professionalism; luck favors the prepared mind. So does the broadest possible thinking and planning.

Happy Hunting!!

Yes, Go!

2010-08-19T19:53:00.002-04:00

Continued from yesterday ...

But you've done nothing but visas for three years. How will you show what you can do out in the world of grownup FSOs?

Let's count up a few possibilities:

- You interviewed an average of X visa applicants per day for Y days, with patience, courtesy, and efficiency, never losing sight of the importance of your work.

- During six months in ACS you met with police, immigration and local officials, speaking The Language exclusively during all these encounters.

- You were an integral part of a team (not "led the team" unless you did) of officers and local employees.

- You referred Z cases for investigation. Q percent of those proved to actually be fraudulent, a higher percentage than any other officer's.

- You tweaked the appointment system to save every visa applicant at least 30 minutes at the embassy.

- You handled the case of an American citizen's suicide with sensitivity and tact. The family wrote a letter to the Ambassador thanking you by name.

- You rearranged the intake/221g/reapplication process to save time by reducing the passing of paperwork back and forth from four times to two.

- You faced every crowd every day with energy and professionalism, knowing that you represented the US to these people, and were in a large part responsible for their opinion of your country.

- You knew that consular work, for all its stress, repetitiveness, and apparent lack of direct relationship to that senior political counselor job you covet, was an essential part of your apprenticeship, and you welcomed the rigor, the discipline and the challenge as well as the reward of knowing you did your job well.

- Add specific, personalized, true details as you can. Find a balance between clarity and modesty, and stick to it.

- Remember that the quiet girl with whom you share a cubicle could be Bill and Hillary's niece who just wants to be loved for herself but will remember every Hillary joke she heard, and who told it.

- As in a resume', if you find yourself writing lots of "I" sentences, go back and edit for the "understood I": drop the "I" and start the sentence with an action verb. Such as, solved the long-standing case of a missing American; worked with PD to introduce the I-160 through press releases and TV spots; was an integral part of the NIV team that processed the most NIVs in 2009 with the fewest system rejections ... you get the idea. And you can probably write them to make them more catchy and compelling.

For the diehards who still dare to scoff at the work they have done for the past few years, final advice: shut up about that, and get a clue. Did you really miss the entire point of your baptism by fire?

Remember, you don't know which office director, which DAS, which COM is a consular-coned officer, or just loved his own baptism by fire in Addis or Manila, remembers it with delight, and will be permanently put off by any hint of a sneer.

And remember that word gets around. A second tour officer who shows that she thinks she is too good for the visa line will be remembered by those she least wants to be remembered by, probably permanently.

Now go forth and conquer the world.

Ready, Set, Go

2010-08-18T08:05:00.001-04:00

Not long ago it was correctly said that, despite the explosion of electronic communications (email, cell phones), 70% of business communication was still face to face. Madam has not seen any recent statistics, but whatever is going on out there in the rest of the world, in the Foreign Service that is doubtless not so any more, if it ever was at all.

For all ELOs who thought you had a job when you got here, it's time to go job hunting.

And here, from the collected wisdom and experience of many mid- and senior-level FSOs, are a few ideas for a successful hunt.

First and most important, research, research, research.

Make sure you understand what the job you are considering really entails, not just the job title, which can be very misleading. Ask your CDO, ask your classmates, lunch friends, your boss, the DCM. Someone will know someone who had that job before, and can describe it to you.

Try to find out who you will be working for. Note, please, that working FOR someone can be very different than working WITH someone. If you can, find someone who knows that person and can tell you what it's like to work FOR him or her. The notion of Kiss Up Kick Down is alive and well in the Service.

Find out who will decide. You're sure you don't know anybody who knows the person who will have the say on who gets the job you covet? You would be surprised. Hit the list above, and ask. They might not know that person directly, but will certainly know someone else who does. Then email the decision maker.

Three very short paragraphs is all you get, no more than three sentences per paragraph - and no run-ons, or cheating with semicolons. Introduction, description, closing. Like a good resume, it should leave the recipient with a desire to know more. It should take no more than 20 seconds to read, should include lots of white space, and it should consist of:

- Introduction: Where you are and what you're doing, what job you are interested in, why (you get only half a sentence for the 'why' part).

- Description: What you bring to the job you want. This is the place to put your education, your previous experience in and out of the Service, and no more than two or three of your proudest accomplishments and how they relate to the job you want. And they do relate, if for no other reason than that they demonstrate your decisiveness, your grasp of complex regulations and how to apply them correctly, or your appreciation for how good customer service affects relations with the host country. Note: do not exaggerate, and for heaven's sake do not make things up. Everybody knows almost everybody, and not only is this extremely easy to check, but a fib will give you a hallway reputation you might never shake. For ideas, Google "elevator pitch" or "elevator speech."

- Closing: Obliquely ask for the job, without asking directly or presuming that the recipient will respond to you.

Do not write the email and send it. Doing so will almost guarantee that you will wake suddenly in the middle of the night in a white-hot panic of regret. Write it, save it as a draft, review it tomorrow, run it past someone who knows the system and will tell you the truth. Adjust as necessary. Then send it, cross your fingers, and good luck to you!

How's that again? The Shortest Possible Guide to Effective Interpreting

2010-08-10T07:10:00.000-04:00

Interpreting, translating – what’s the difference? Most people tend to use these words interchangeably, but the interpreter translates orally, while a translator interprets written text. In consular work, officers who are not fluent in the local language must sometimes depend on local employees for both skills, but interpreting is by far the most difficult to master.

Interpreters must be excellent, discerning listeners; they must be able to process and remember several sentences, and repeat them accurately in another language. They have to possess excellent public speaking skills, and the ability to transform idioms, colloquialisms and other culturally-specific references into analogous statements the target audience will understand. And they must be able to do this for speakers who are not trained to use interpreters, and so tend to speak in paragraphs, forgetting the interpreter.

Madam once watched a news broadcast of Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, making a statement. He was slouched comfortably on a small stool; next to him sat a younger man, his interpreter. As the ambassador began to speak, the interpreter sat up very straight, concentrating on the speaker’s face and voice, clearly preparing to accurately and completely render his boss’s Pashtun to Urdu. But the ambassador spoke, and spoke, and spoke without pause. The young man’s forehead creased, his hands tightened into fists, his back tensed, his eyes widened. After well more than a minute, with no break in sight, it was the interpreter who broke. He suddenly let out his breath, closed his eyes, opened his hands, and surrendered. There was no way he could do that job, and he knew it.

Zaeef and his interpreter in better days

As consular officers, we cannot afford to leave our interpreters – our local employees – so dispirited. After all, we need the information that the person we are interviewing will give us, and we need to pass accurate information back to him. So here are the rules:

The officer:

It is you and the customer who are having the conversation. The interpreter is not a member of that exchange. Look only at the customer, glancing at the paperwork or computer screen as necessary, but never look at or speak to the interpreter.

Use simple, clear sentences; no convoluted, stream-of-consciousness, rambling.

Pause after every declarative sentence or two, and after every question, for the interpreter to catch up.

Wait for the whole response from the customer, and then wait for its interpretation.

If you want to consult with the interpreter about the possible veracity of the customer’s answers or for any other reason, get up and leave the window together, have that conversation, then return and resume.

Rinse, repeat.

The interpreter:

Stand or sit to one side, slightly behind the officer; your presence should be minimal. Your voice is the officer’s tool. You as a person are not there.

Translate only the exact words used. Do not preface any sentence with ‘The consular officer wants to know…” or “He says that …”

If the interviewee addresses you directly, continue to translate exactly what he says. For example, if he says directly to you, in the local language, “Oh sister, please please help me,” what do you do? You repeat, “Oh sister, please please help me,” in English.

Ambivalence

2010-08-05T06:55:00.000-04:00

It is known as the American War, and the majority of citizens were born after it was over. But its memories and ghosts survive, as do far more corporeal proofs that it occurred.

In nine years, the US dropped about two million tons of explosive ordinance on Laos, about 30% of which did not explode but remain in and on the ground, killing and maiming people - mostly children - and animals to this day.

On the other hand, Madam was recently approached by a perfect stranger who thanked her for the 1944 liberation of Paris.

There are forces at work that consular officers can at least partially overcome by treating all customers with efficient, pleasant and professional courtesy. Among the easiest to overcome are rumors and anecdotes about abuse and disrespect of previous visa applicants. Among the hardest are "Baywatch" reruns, and history.

Americans often feel they can fix just about anything by pulling up their socks and making some effort. This tendency is considered both a virtue and an annoyance by our friends and neighbors. But while lousy TV shows can be lived down and laughed off to some degree, history - both deserved and undeserved - cannot.

What can individual officers do? Be mindful in everything we do, at every moment: we can't carry our trash to the curb without someone reaching some conclusion about us. Carry it well. Realize that they judge us just as we judge them, by tiny gestures more than by headlines. Realize that they might forgive far faster than we might. Pay careful attention during area studies. And hone that courtesy.

Ruminations on Creativity and Innovation

2010-08-04T07:20:00.000-04:00

In a former life, Madam was once tasked with the fairly enviable responsibility of enlarging her work unit. She interviewed several likely candidates and hired one, but the applicant who sticks in her mind after all these years is one that she didn't hire. This woman came with a reasonable pedigree and education, but when the unit's work was described to her she shook her head and said, "I don't know if I could be involved in such work. I am very creative."

Here is a near-rule that Madam has developed from this and many other experiences: When someone openly describes him- or herself as creative, he or she probably is not. This job applicant wore a number of scarves and had that thin, aesthetic, artistic look about her, but her conventionality was painfully clear: she saw 'creativity' not as a continuum, but as a free-standing unit untouched and unaffected by the real world. She could not see the application of creativity to that real world, except as art to observe, or to hang on a wall. She could not imagine the innovative possibilities of the work being done (which, by the way, the successful candidate did, and leapt into with joy and with wonderful results).

Madam might be confusing creativity with innovation, but although one sounds all artsy and the other fairly plodding, to her mind these are not two separate things. Creative thoughts are useless if they don't or can't lead to something material. Innovation without creativity is just Lotus 1-2-3 version 6,734,321.

So the lesson for today might be, don't worry if you secretly would love to be considered 'creative' but don't feel conventionally so. The proof of creativity is in genuine innovation, not in how many Indian pillows you might scatter on your sofa, or where on yourself you might glue a few sequins. Go ahead and wear that Ann Taylor black suit or those polished black wingtips; behave yourself at meetings; learn to write cable-ese. The proof will come when you suddenly think, "Hey, maybe we should try..." And that kind of creativity is always welcome in the world, even, eventually, in this one.

Which leads to the second lesson on this subject. This one can be very briefly stated, and was never explained better than by Howard Aiken, who said, "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."

Learning the Language

2010-08-03T07:03:00.001-04:00

While individuals might have personal complaints and frustrations about individual FSI programs - Madam herself has experienced mixed results, depending on the methods used to teach one language or another - the place as a whole is generally skilled and pretty reliable. Go in intending to get a 3/3, and you will most likely come out satisfied, if stressed and exhausted.

For those who need a bit more, however, there are some outside resources that many don't know about but can use to good effect without buying a whole separate course like Rosetta Stone. Here are a few:

Trading language learning with native users

The daily newspaper, as the language is written today about all sorts of subjects (not just pol and econ like most FSI handouts)

Local radio, for listening comprehension and all sorts of subjects: joining is free

Plus, of course, finding small and varied ways to use the language as much as possible before leaving the US:

"My Card"

2010-08-02T07:00:00.001-04:00

Last week Madam briefly mentioned dual-language business cards. Today she elaborates, starting with a mercifully brief history lesson.

Before 9/11 made the idea of kindness to our customers and efficiency in their treatment blasphemously unpatriotic, there was a movement in the US consular world called "best practices." These were ideas and processes that could be incorporated into consular work to increase, yes, kindness and efficiency. Conferences were held to present such ideas and promote their use. The CA web site displayed them prominently.

If you can find the best practices web page nowadays, many of these ideas continue to be good ones. One of the best is 'the card,' which is still used at many posts and deserves to be used at all of them.

While the ritual business card exchange at the beginning or ending of a meeting seems mandatory, the cards themselves are only rarely used again. But what if they were more useful?

Okay, maybe not THIS useful. But some consular sections print up business-card-sized cards with information on them such as the post's web site, the NIV section or call center number, IV information numbers, ACS hours, how to make appointments, and the after hours emergency number if it is different from the mission's daytime number. For good measure, cards can be printed on both sides: English on one, the local language on the other.

Savvy consular sections not only distribute these cards at the service windows, but also give them by the handful to non-consular officers to distribute whenever a contact asks about visas or ACS. They relieve our political, econ and management colleagues of the burden of explaining - or avoiding explaining - visa processing. And they do it using the 'give them something' rule, the one that says that courtesy often consists of not giving a person what he wants, but giving him anything he can use. It saves our colleagues from having to wriggle out of long conversations about a contact's cousin's wife's maid's hairdresser who was refused a visa, and how unfair that was, and getting back to whatever they actually want to talk about. And it guarantees that the information is accurate using the simplest and surest possible means, the written word.

They Shouldn't Be Alive

2010-07-30T08:26:00.006-04:00

Have you signed your Privacy Act Waiver, sir?

A group of Scouts and their leaders walk into the Grand Canyon with too little water, no marked trail and no survival plan. A pair of teenagers in a junky rowboat paddle directly into a massive ocean rip tide. A father and son in Turkey go skiing without checking the weather report. An ATV lover drives into empty desert alone, crashes his vehicle and is pinned underneath for days. Newlyweds take a walk in the Amazon jungle, arguing too intensely to remember to drop cookie crumbs behind them.

You got the optional rental insurance, right?

Madam is only a moderately rabid survivalist, preferring a dinner of veal oscar and a nice white wine to wickety grubs, and she would rather sleep on 500-count sheets with a scented candle in a quiet room than on a hippo-ridden jungle mud bank swarming with starving mosquitoes.

Nevertheless, she is riveted to the Discovery Channel to watch people for whom that river bank doesn't seem such a bad deal at the moment, and to Animal Planet to watch Darwin Award nominees like the fisherman sticking his fingers into a shark's mouth, since it must be dead. A man flapping a newspaper at a rutting bull elk. A wildlife photographer clicking off half a role of shots of a grizzly bear and two cubs advancing upon him with clear purpose. An out-of-shape and drunken American targeted by a very fit and clear-headed bull in Pamplona. A woman shooting flash photos directly in a half-tamed elephant's face. A large man mauled by a very small pony who has finally had enough of this.

Wonder what he's going to do next.

There are times that Madam is convinced that not only should these individual humans not have survived their personal attacks of freeze-brain, but the entire human race is doomed to face a revolution in which all other animals will rise in exasperation and stomp us into paste, every one of us. Any limping, disoriented survivors will be driven away from air conditioning, central heating, hand-knit fisherman's sweaters, pizza delivery and chemically treated water to suffer the fate of the terminally out of touch.

And well deserved, would say the three-pound Chihuahua who shouldered the responsibility of administering Madam's most recent reminder of what animals really think of us.

Until that particular Revolution, however, we consular officers need to remember to stay in regular, positive touch not only with police and hospitals, but also with tour companies, public bus stations, cafes and coffee houses in all population centers however modest, and hoteliers of all levels from the Sheraton through respectable B&Bs to the owner of the four rooms over the train station, reminding them that should lost or troubled Americans wander into their facility, we will be happy to take the Americans' calls.

Our wardens are masters at distributing such dual-language business card-size reminders listing numbers for ACS and the duty officer, and the ACS email address that is closely monitored by a bright and savvy ACS local staff member. So that until the ponies and Chihuahuas and the earth itself finally get their turn, we'll take their calls and assist however we can. However hard we laugh as soon as we hang up.

Show Jumping Fail

2010-07-29T07:00:00.005-04:00

Quick, raise your hands, everybody who knows a lot about show jumping. Yes, that thing that people sometimes do on horses.

Hmm. Not many of you. Okay then. Raise your hands, everybody who didn't raise your hands before but still think there is something very wrong with what's happening in this photo.

See? You don't have to be an expert to know when something doesn't look right. And most of the time - says one of Madam's favorite laws, the one about William of Occam's razor - if something doesn't look right, the simplest and therefore the most likely explanation is that it's wrong.

Remember this the next time you're buried to the ears in a hard-bound multi-colored tabbed 6-inch binder about an H or L case. Even if you aren't an expert in the employer's field, if something looks or feels or smells wrong, you're probably right and it probably is. Follow the scent; you'll find the proof right there. It might not be as obvious as, say,

but you'll know when you see it that it's a 'fail.'

And all the rest of the time, keep your head up and your heels down.

"A free press can iron dirty laundry..."

2010-07-28T07:00:00.020-04:00

"...but then you'll pay for the heat."

Faithful followers might remember long ago when Madam wrote,

"With apologies to the half-dozen highly competent immigration attorneys that Madam knows -- what the heck is with the rest of them? Is there no test of competency or even basic knowledge before an 'immigration attorney' can hang a shingle?

"At AILA [American Immigration Lawyers Association] conventions one can only be stunned by the incredibly clueless questions some attorneys ask, and the information they try to offer. In panel presentations, it is not uncommon that audience members are so ignorant of the law and so instantly hostile toward US consular representatives that their fellow attorneys have to shush them and drag them back into their seats.

"A hint: if you have to use six different fonts in a letter expressing your indignation about a case that hasn't been going your way; if you can't find relevant legal decisions and so quote - at length - decisions that actually have no bearing on your case; if you find yourself insulting, name-calling, and quoting at length from an interview that you did not attend; maybe you need to consider one of two things:

"one, maybe your applicant is not going to get a visa for some very good reason, such as he doesn't qualify under the law.

"two, maybe you need to go back to the books and learn what you're trying to practice."

That was a very fun rant to write. But now here is another that puts Madam's little pique-fit to shame. It was written to an AILA-members-only info board by a disgruntled and disillusioned AILA attorney, and it is a doozy. It is quite long, but a positively rolicking read that, like all great literature, hints at deeper, wider issues of the utmost seriousness. Enjoy.
...................................................

AILA’s InfoNet Message Center (MC)

   Let me start by confirming what many of you already know: I am not a big fan of the organization known as AILA. But I digress.

   The Message Center is another of AILA’s attempted suppression of free speech and its almost vitriolic hatred of the Federal Government and how it tries to enact, interpret, and enforce its immigration laws. It’s not even remotely an open question anymore, for AILA as an organization and too many of its individual members don’t even recognize the concept of the “loyal opposition” (to wit, those who don’t think the government is automatically wrong, 100% of the time.). This can be seen on an almost daily basis on the MC.

   (And, by the way, let me here insert an interesting tidbit, to reinforce what some of you may already think about me. I only started recently posted on MC because I learned that Google uses website listings on blogs and places like the MC as part of its algorithms for rankings, and thus every time I post something on the MC and use my website address of www.rinzler.com, it helps my business. In short, it’s free advertising, but at least I am honest about it. While I also enjoy being a mentor, I have found that effective mentoring generally requires the attorney to call the mentor to discuss the facts of the case in detail, rather than posting some ridiculously incomplete statement of “facts” on the MC. This rationale would seem, of course, to put me and every other MC poster in violation of the MC’s laughable “Terms of Use”, specifically “[When posting a message, you must agree] (e) not to use the Message Center for advertising of products or services.” Everyone who posts on the MC is advertising themselves and the opinion they have to offer as much as anything else. Yes, we all know that many, if not most, people who post do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but from where I stand many more seem to do it because they like seeing their name in print and it’s a contest as to who can post the most and the fastest.)

   That being said, the MC Rules open with “The message board is designed to provide an informal open forum to AILA members for the exchange of information, experiences, and ideas.” It also states that “reproducing or publishing any contents of the Message Center in any other forum or forwarding contents to others is strictly prohibited.”

Under Terms of Use can be found: When posting a message, you must agree: (b) not to use the Message Center for the posting of any material that is defamatory, offensive, blasphemous, or obscene;
The statements you post may be actionable for defamation, invasion of privacy, or other legal cause of action. Readers must avoid comments that are false and injurious to others.
Repeated violations of these standards may result in the Member being barred from access to the Message Center.

   Please tell me this overly broad, incredibly subjective, and completely unenforceable language was not written by lawyers, especially lawyers who are supposed to be champions of free speech. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled that one may say curse words on TV. And “blasphemous”? Are you serious? Did AILA get that suggestion from the Pope or from Al-Qaeda? When did AILA become the keeper of the public’s morals? Who gets to determine when someone is offended and, if so, whether it merits 40 lashes or just ten?

   As for not “forwarding contents to others”, then we might as well close up shop. How about emails between colleagues? Listserves? How about all the so-called liaisons sharing information with those evil U.S. Government (USG) personnel in an effort to help the membership? What about the talks I have with my mom, my neighbor, my Congressman? But those are technicalities, and not what I really want to discuss here.

   I do not feel constrained by the MC’s mostly stupid, yes stupid, rules, and thus I do not feel the need to abide by them. That statement should be enough to get the conspiracy theorists in a lather. And as for explicitly and/or implicitly agreeing to them by using the MC, I’d offer the analogy of when one installs software on his computer: if you don’t “agree” to the 10,000 word license and click on the “Next” button, you ain’t getting to Kansas, Toto.

   So please, moderators and other keepers of the faith, stop telling us what the MC rules are, and how that if we share what we read, we will not only burn in hell but might have our posting rights revoked. It’s not for you to decide and it’s an unwarranted infringement of the right of freedom of speech, as well as simply undermining AILA’s credibility in so many ways. If you feel you’ve been personally defamed, then sue. Otherwise, move on. And as for the constant reminders that MC postings are sacred texts not to be shared with anyone, I suggest you enter the 21st century. Any adult who posts on the internet, anywhere on the internet but especially to a forum where one knows that at least 5,000 members or so have unfettered access, has no expectation of privacy. If you don’t want it spread around, then don’t post it. You’re afraid of breaching attorney-client privilege? Don’t post it. You don’t want someone else to talk to an FSO and say “watch out for this future applicant’ or have your statements possibly misinterpreted, then don’t post it. You want confidential advice from a colleague, pick up the damn phone, don’t post it. Again, it’s not rocket science. And, ironically enough, anyone who follows the blogosphere knows that the State Department has already punished numerous FSO’s for their blogs and for not toeing the party line. One would hope AILA would be above that.

   And speaking of intentionally or unintentionally sharing postings with the government, when did Uncle Sam become AILA’s enemy? Why are government attorneys prohibited from joining AILA? Not that any rational one would want to, but are they not one of the key groups we need to work with in this life? And as to the State Department’s Foreign Service Officers (FSO’S), why is it that the only thing AILA and the overwhelming majority of its ignorant, yes ignorant when it comes to the realities of what FSO’s do and the conditions and expectations they operate under, membership ever says about them is that they are relentlessly incompetent, inefficient, uncaring, and opposed to letting anyone – anyone – into this country at any time and for any reason? With the exception of the late Steve Fischel, it is almost impossible to find a positive reference by AILA and the majority of its members to an FSO. And this from a group who is relatively clueless about how American diplomatic posts operate, who have generally not been to a consulate unless it’s to the ACS window when they lost their passport while overseas or Aunt Tilly kicked the bucket in Florence and they need to ship the body home, who have not ever witnessed first-hand a visa interview or have had to face the difficult decision of whether some applicant might be the next terrorist or is “simply” someone who might be lying through his teeth. The FSO’s don’t make the laws; they are charged with enforcing them. And they don’t get a commission for every applicant they reject. And by actually living and working in-country, often under quite trying conditions, and by speaking the language, they are actually often more knowledgeable than an attorney from the U.S. who can only cite regulations (often without understanding the rationale behind them) and who unquestionably believes every single thing his paying client tells him, to the point that if Lady Macbeth came in for a consultation with blood covering her hands the first and maybe only question the attorney would ask after accepting payment was if she needed a napkin for that.

   The stated mission of AILA is “to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members.” How is that possible if we always treat the government as the enemy? And how is that possible if AILA believes that virtually any violation of the immigration laws should be forgiven by a waiver so that anyone can get a visa or remain in this country, that an attorney should virtually never say to a prospective client “Hey, I may not turn you in but I sure as hell don’t want to represent you”, or realize that some clients lie or at least conveniently forget key facts and couldn’t/wouldn’t accurately relate what transpired in a consular interview if their lives depended on it (which they sometimes do).

   This past week there was a posting on MC which raised some very serious ethical issues as well as freedom of speech ones. It appeared that a CBP officer had broken the law in some quite serious ways, thus potentially opening himself up to extortion attempts and other national security issues as he is a law enforcement officer on our Southern border. I struggled with whether I should contact law enforcement authorities on this, and I advised the poster to give her course of action a lot of thought about what he/she might want to do. I also commented that I thought it was “sad” that so many of our colleagues were more concerned with the theoretical aspects of how to help this client accomplish his objective, rather than with the possible ethical and security considerations involved about having personal knowledge of someone who is charged with protecting our country’s security. Only one other poster thought I raised some valid concerns, while another made a joke about grabbing a firearm and making a citizen’s arrest on the officer. But at least there was some discussion, and then at one in the morning the string vanished.

   Since then I have learned the how and why of the string’s deletion. In short, one of the moderators thought he/she was doing the right thing; a motive I respect, but I question as to why we feel the need for someone to have to be in that position in the first place. Also, why was my posting removed, rather than just the original poster’s; do I not have any say in the matter? The original poster didn’t see the need to delete (because, as explained to me in an email from that person, after posting he/she didn’t feel the need to be on the MC the next day), so why should AILA? I can only think that the primary reason was that too many members were afraid that someone would contact the government or that the government was monitoring the MC. You know what, maybe the government does. Why the hell do we care? Again, if you don’t want it out in the public realm, don’t post it; AILA cannot and should not be the big brother (in all senses of the term) in such matters.

   I know many FSO’s, both professionally and personally. Living in Washington, DC, and having travelled to forty countries helps account for that. Some of them are fantastic at what they do, some less so, and a few are, frankly, terrible. Funny, but the same can be said about AILA members. The difference is, however, that the typical FSO understands the attorney’s purpose in the visa process, and even enjoys working with those attorneys who show a modicum of respect for the FSO’s responsibilities, display a decent amount of competence and evidence of having done their homework, and try to see the case from the FSO’s point of view. Unfortunately, in my experience – and in that of most FSO’s --the same cannot be said of most AILA members. And if you think FSO’s are naïve enough or vain enough or stupid enough that they will show favoritism to an attorney simply because he tries to curry favor with them, well then you just keep on believing it because I have no energy nor desire to correct the limitless misconceptions held by AILA when it comes to FSO’s. In closing, I’ll even let you in on a little secret: while security concerns are one valid reason why some posts don’t like to admit attorneys absent exceptional circumstances, the overwhelming reason is because too many attorneys have proven to be incompetent, abrasive, and arrogant. The real reason posts have been limiting attorney access is because the people promoting it the most for the past 20 years are the same ones who have pissed off the most FSO’s. And consider this: we won’t let them into our house, why should they let us enter theirs?

Got The Bug?

2010-07-27T07:33:00.003-04:00

The temptation is a powerful one. Most long-term consular officers (that is, those who keep doing tour after tour as conoffs, whatever their cone) have been hit with the bug.

An extraordinarily strange day on the visa line will do that to you. A perfectly ordinary day in ACS will, too. Closing down at the end of such a day, any consular officer can be forgiven for thinking, "Some day I'm going to write a book about this stuff."

Consular work gives would-be writers a generous supply of unique material, sometimes every day. Even if you remove the fussy law-related details that readers don't understand and don't want to learn, many consular stories are powerful enough to stand on their own as riveting just-so tales about the human condition and its complexities. In fact, any story that will make listeners laugh out loud and want more when related in a friendly bar, can also make readers laugh out loud and want more. (A tip: the very best parties are the ones attended by both consular and DHS officers. Each of us knows half of a great story. We know the opening, they know the punch line.)

The US diplomatic community has, of course, proven itself to be an eager consumer of these stories, as recent editions of both the Foreign Service Journal and State magazine have proven. So why not reach beyond the choir, and tell them to the rest of the world? With a few exceptions - such as this absorbing tale from O Henry - this can prove more difficult than we envision.

First, of course, is the difficulty of writing. The world - as everyone knows - is divided into two groups. In this case those two groups consist of those who want to write, and those who actually do write. Writing is a surprisingly difficult and bossy taskmaster that, if it doesn't suck up every speck of your mind, energy and time, will go sulking off to afflict someone else and leave you with ten pages you will never get beyond. As a dear and often-published friend of Madam's says impatiently to those who claim that they 'want to write', "Look. You're either a writer or you aren't. A writer writes. Everybody else talks about writing. Choose." The British writer/impresario Alan Moore says, “It’s just constantly raising expectations for myself, to the point where, inevitably, I must surely collapse under my own mass and become some sort of creative black hole.” Unless this observation makes you nod in rueful agreement, you're not likely to add much to those ten pages.

Second is the Privacy Act. Some stories are so unique that we can't help but give away who the ~~fool~~ citizen was who got himself into such a pickle.

Third, and the highest hurdle to get over, is the fact that so many of our fellow citizens, safely moored in the warm and amiable harbor of the US borders, find it extremely difficult to grasp the situations in which their fellows find (or bury) themselves: they are truly great stories, but who will believe them? When we finish with some of them, even we can hardly believe them. When we think of telling our consular stories, we remember that most often it is our fellow officers who roll on the floor laughing; even our own loyal family members smile politely but uncomprehendingly.

Should these difficulties stop us? That's up to us and us alone. You're either a writer or you aren't.

Get Out of the Office and ...

2010-07-26T07:00:00.001-04:00

Try Geocaching

Run with The Hash, from Singapore to St Louis

The Sort of Official Hash Page

Harrier.net to find your closest club

Adopt a new pet

Learn to dance

Practice the language with a native speaker

Teach someone a new skill

Make yourself useful

Volunteer

Or just get some fresh air

Always Something

2010-07-23T07:00:00.012-04:00

Americans, bless 'em. They will...

Gather together smarts enough to get a passport and obtain a visa for some exotic country, but not smarts enough to actually READ the visa. Like the part that says how long they can stay.

Pack 45 changes of clothes for a two week vacation, but not their antipsychotic medication.

Spend the whole hour on the bus from the airport to the hotel criticizing everything they see out the window.

Rent a car in a foreign country, then use it to try to teach all the 'locals' how to drive correctly (as it is done in Ohio or Oregon) instead of the way they actually drive there.

Fall in love with a ragged, ratty, diseased and completely undomesticated pet-type animal from the streets and expect to take it back to the US on tomorrow's flight.

Fall in love with a ragged, ratty, diseased and completely undomesticated human from the streets and expect to take him/her back to the US on tomorrow's flight.

Publicly and loudly complain about the quality of - or total lack of - toilet paper.

Believe that food cooked in front of their eyes on the street must be poisonous, but food that wanders out of an unseen hotel kitchen must be germ-free.

Bargain like pit bulls over 37-cent taxi fares.

Laugh at the local money because it looks funny, is funny colors, feels like play money, and they can't figure out what it's worth in 'real' money.

Stick cameras into the faces of innocent people without asking.

They will also...

Laugh at their own sorry efforts with the local language, but keep trying. Especially 'Please' and 'Thank You.'

Give coins to beggars.

Try scary food.

Try to save the lives of ragged, ratty, diseased and completely undomesticated pet-type animal from the streets. No matter how drunk, they would never do this.

Help old or infirm local people cross the street or carry heavy packages home, in directions the Americans were not going.

Smile at everybody until the locals think they must be crazy, but secretly like it anyway.

Overtip.

Pay their hotel bills without arguing and go home on time. Usually.

Show up on Friday at 4 PM to ask for help with a problem they created on Tuesday morning.

Yep. That's ACS for you.

Great. Now Everybody Will Want One.

2010-07-22T07:00:00.012-04:00

Once in a medium-sized, busy consular section a visa applicant went crazy. Now, Madam knows this is not an extraordinary event; but wait.

The woman had made an 8:30 appointment. She got to the embassy at 8:20. She was admitted at 9:15. She turned in her passport at 9:45. She was still waiting for her interview at 10:20 when she lost it.

She flew out of her (hard, uncomfortable plastic) chair, ran to the intake window, hurled her coat and handbag to the floor, and started to yell. The intake FSN, startled and a little wary despite ballistic glass, backed away. Everyone in the waiting room sat up, suddenly alert and glittery-eyed, like hungry predators recognizing weakness. The woman yelled something like, "I made an appointment for this and it's been two hours! I have an important meeting! My secretary doesn't know where I am! I have a lunch appointment! I - I - I "

What might have happened then happens far, far too often: the section chief might have gone to the window, defended the (slow, ill-planned, disrespectful) visa application process, engaged in a criticizing contest, and finally might have called the local guards to send the woman away.

Instead, a new, first-tour consular officer, at post only a few weeks, went to the window, eased the FSN aside, leaned forward, made eye contact, and said, "May I help you?"

Panting and glaring, the woman shouted a shorter version of her rant.

The officer said - get this now - "I am so sorry. Would it help if you could call someone?"

"Call? Call! They took my phone away at the gate. I can't call!"

The officer reached into his pocket, took out his own embassy-assigned cell phone, slid it through the teller window, and said, "Use this one."

The world did not end, but it caught its breath. The woman stared, then grabbed the phone, turned and began punching buttons. The officer waited a moment to be sure the phone was working for her, then returned to his desk. The world lurched back into its normal rotation.

A few minutes later, the intake FSN returned the officer's phone. The woman got her interview, during which she was brisk, polite and good humored. She left the embassy a little flustered but also satisfied with her experience there. A crisis was - and perhaps lifelong dislike and resentment for the US in general were - averted by the most basically courteous gesture one person can make to another: recognizing and acknowledging the other's distress, then acting decisively to relieve that distress in the simplest, most direct, most practical manner possible.

May we all view our customers as people first, visa applicants only a distant second. And may that smart, quick, humane and sensible officer enjoy a long and entertaining career.

Stumbled Upon

2010-07-21T07:00:00.026-04:00

Have any readers noticed how Madam sometimes throws in FAM references to bolster her complaints and admonitions? Are you tired of it yet?

Well, too bad. Here she comes again. Her new favorite FAM item, encountered purely by chance:

3 FAM 1330 CUSTOMER TREATMENT

3 FAM 1331 AUTHORITY
(TL;PER-292; 9-15-95)

3 FAM 1332 POLICY
The treatment of our customers is an important aspect of how we are perceived as an agency. Because people will generally treat each other the way they are treated, good customer service must begin with the way we interact with each other. It is the policy of the Department that our employees must treat each other, as well as our external customers, with proper respect and courtesy at all times.

Did you see that? Did you see how this little paragraph assumes that we treat our customers well, and so uses that as a basis to remind us to treat one another well, also? How quaint is that? And yet it was written in 1995, not in the 19th century...and not in the 21st, in which it sometimes seems that everything is always about somebody who can't be convinced that he is responsible for the consequences of his own selfish, myopic, arrogant behavior.

Madam hates to be a nag (well, not really) but she is happy to take this opportunity to repeat, yet again, what we were all told in A100, in ConGen, and in at least a hundred different places on the CA intranet: treating customers well is mandatory, period. The Department even promises - yes, promises, read it yourself - decent treatment to applicants in public, in print.

A consular officer might be the first American that a visa applicant meets. The experience of making and attending an interview appointment can be momentous; people dress up for that. They fret and worry. And then - without consciously meaning to - they sometimes can't help but judge the entire US by their treatment at the US embassy, just as we might do if the situation were reversed. When their anxiety is met with efficiency, patience, understanding and courtesy it's not only the perception of the agency that benefits, but it's the US as a whole.

After all, consular work is not about consular officers; it's about consular customers. Yes, all of it.

This little saying is too cute, too trite, too old, and too still true:

Ali On The Corner

2010-07-20T07:00:00.003-04:00

Madam is very fond of Ali, whose three sons and four daughters all earned masters' degrees from top US universities, their educations fully funded by 221(g)s.

In warm countries, Ali sits under a tree a few steps from the US consulate with a chair, a small table, and a manual typewriter. In cooler countries, he rents a tiny office a few steps from the US consulate with a chair, a small table, a manual typewriter and a space heater. He doesn't put out a sign; he doesn't need to. He strolls to his work station - accepting respectful greetings from the queue of consular customers with great dignity - and sets up his typewriter every morning an hour or so before the consulate opens. Then he waits for his first customer.

Here is Ali, at work on a visa application for Pakistan for some lucky customer. You might notice that Ali was able to provide the blank form. He can also provide forms and fill in very convincing data for property deeds, automobile titles, bank statements and census registers. He can write coherent and grammatical employment letters on any letterhead a consular officer might prefer. He owns a fine selection of fountain and ball point pens, with which he can produce any sort of signature appropriate to a document. He also carries an impressive line of ink and wax seals.

So when a consular officer refuses a nonimmigrant visa applicant 221(g) for any document that isn't required by the visa application, the applicant goes to talk to Ali. For a reasonable fee, Ali will provide the form or letterhead, the data, the signature and the seal. The applicant will return to the consulate and turn in the document. The consular officer will issue the visa and the applicant will travel to the US. Ali will deposit the modest fee - along with a dozen or two or three dozen other fees collected that day - in the education fund he has now opened for his grandchildren.

Wait a moment, you might say. What do you mean by 'any document that isn't required by the visa application?'

Documents that are required before a visa can be issued are forms like I-797s, DS-2019s and I-20s. Anything that is not required is irrelevant and should not be asked for; if offered, it should not be accepted. Why? Because it is irrelevant, it is distracting, it invites dishonesty, it substitutes for actual knowledge, and it keeps Ali employed.

But wait a moment, you might say. I need a (job letter, property deed, bank statement) to be sure that the visa applicant is what he claims to be.

No, you absolutely don't need a document to tell you this.

Then how will I know that he is what he claims to be?

You will interview him. And Ali's grandchildren will have to pay for their own educations.

"Acts of Futility"

2010-07-19T07:20:00.002-04:00

In the words of the wonderful cartoonist Hugh MacLeod, "All truly great ideas started life as acts of futility." A list of such great ideas would surely contain many that intended to make consular services easier and more efficient for - wait for it - consular customers, NOT consular officers.

It is true that consular sections don't have to be nice to their customers, don't have to provide them with appointments, don't have to give them chairs to sit on, don't have to post inspiring Statue of Liberty posters or endless loops on how to give fingerprints, which their appointment times fade into the distant past and they still grip virgin documents in weary hands. After all, consular customers are captive; they can't go down the street to the embassy that will treat them better.

Madam has even heard of consular sections dismissing their four- to seven-hour appointment-wait outside anyway-security-passport-fingerprint-interview-decision processes as perfectly acceptable since local officials don't treat their citizens any better. Sorry, but since when did the behaviors of penny-ante misanthropic sadistic and lazy local officials set the standard for American behavior?

Appointment systems that work only as crowd control are not acceptable. Appointment systems that are not honored by those who impose them are not acceptable. Appointment systems that require all applicants to come at a single time, or in two or three large groups, are not acceptable. Appointment systems that still leave dozens or hundred standing outside the mission's walls waiting to enter while exposed to any mayhem that might happen along, from gunmen to wearers of suicide vests, are not acceptable.

In the 1998 bombings of US embassies Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, 12 Americans died. More than 300 Kenyans and Tanzanians died and over 5000 were wounded. The majority of that 5300 were visa applicants, already queued up for hours waiting to submit applications, were the applicants friends or relatives, or were vendors selling drinks and snacks to the applicants and their friends and relatives. Twelve years later, in some missions, very little has seriously changed to reduce the number of potential civilian deaths.

Public road on one side, blast resistance on the other, 50 people with 7:30 appointments in between. Who would survive?

How can Madam put this politely? In every US consular section, some responsible consular officer needs to pull his head out of his - pocket - walk outside, and count the number of innocent (214b is NOT a capital crime) civilians who would be killed or wounded in a suicide attack.

Then understand that you were hired because you are smart and responsible. Prove it. Generate and act on that truly great idea. Fix this. Today.

The Other End of the Leash

2010-07-16T07:00:00.015-04:00

This is the title of a justly popular best-seller among dog people, a book that - uniquely at the time it was written - looked at peoples' behaviors from dogs' point of view.

Completely unlike dogs, Madam hastens to begin, immigrants also have points of view, needs, desires, misunderstandings and impulses that differ wildly from those parts of the immigration process that consular officers know or believe they know. To be able to see the entire complex tapestry (sorry) of immigration is not only extremely helpful for consular officers, it can prove extremely helpful, as well, for the customers those officers serve. In fact, consular officers' knowing how immigration works in its entirety can keep them out of embarrassing situations, and keep well-intended customers from being inadvertently led down the garden path to the PTS room.

Once upon a time, a jock-ish young man was teased by his football team mates when he was caught with a dogeared copy of "Glamour" magazine. Undisturbed, the young man answered, "Look at it this way; it's like capturing the other team's playbook."

Gaining access to on-line forums ('fora' for us purists) that sometimes or solely address immigration issues works that way, too. Not only is one able to see more clearly what immigrants or intending immigrants were thinking of when they did whatever they did, or tried whatever they tried - many of them believing that those actions were perfectly legal under US immigration law - but a well-run forum in which hysterics and wild accusations are not tolerated and in which skilled experts answer questions sensibly and simply can be a powerful learning tool for a consular officer. (Can you explain the H1B cap? Know what an EAD is? Know that many individuals who enter the US on the VWP ARE allowed to adjust status under several different circumstances? Well then.)

Consular officers overseas are encouraged to join such forums, both to listen for problems and to help resolve them. Domestically, one of the best can be found among Yahoo Groups. It is owned and run by two immigration attorneys who do not permit whining and mud-slinging, and who give their answers in quick, clear, accurate bites. One must be a member to read the questions and answers, but signing up is easy and learning about the rest of US immigration - that is, what happens before, during and after the parts that consular officers are familiar with - is extremely useful and even eye-opening. There is no need to feel obliged to answer forum questions; the owners do that. And they appear to understand consular processing far better than consular officers understand domestic processing, to our detriment. By simply following the Qs and As, consular officers can gain a broader and extremely useful understanding of the process they thought they knew well; the other team's playbook; the other end of the leash.

Solomonic Decisions

2010-07-15T07:00:00.002-04:00

Every adoption tale is complex at the very least, and often frustrating, heart-rending, risky, expensive, terrifying, fraudulent and shamelessly illegal as well as joyous and fulfilling, as an earlier entry here considered. There is, however, one adoption story that might be totally unique; for which there might be no precedent. It is so unusual not because of the circumstances that developed - those are far too common - but because of the way the families dealt with those circumstances.

Americans adopting domestically suffer nightmares that include pregnant women repeatedly passing them over to choose other parents for their children. They include last-minute mind-changes in the delivery or recovery room. They include popup fathers or other family members suddenly demanding - and getting - the child back. It is the fear of such possibilities as much as the lack of available American infants that drives would-be adopters overseas.

Overseas, the nightmares include unconscionable adoption 'fees' (as much as $45,000 per child). They include seemingly healthy children who begin to demonstrate mental illness or uncontrollable violence brought on by deprivation, abuse, or drug- or alcohol-abusing birth mothers. They include the fear that the child was purchased or stolen from loving but destitute parents. And they include the fear that a child's birth family was sold an 'adoption' process that included constant contact, a US education, regular visits, and final return, after high school or college graduation, to the birth family...that is, no relinquishment but only a fixed-term lease.

The May 15 episode of the PBS series "This American Life" includes a 31-minute segment called "Where’s King Solomon When You Need Him?" You can access and stream it here, or download it from Itunes or Audible.com. See how American adoptive parents learned the truth about what their new daughter's birth family was told, and what they all did about it. The choices they made would not be viable for everyone, but the reasoning behind them is worth a careful listen, and consideration. And after that 31 minutes it might be a bit harder to dismiss parents' fears too easily. Even CA/OCS/CI has a role in this tale.

ACS Dissonance in Kigali

2010-07-14T07:00:00.063-04:00

"NAIROBI, Kenya -- A U.S. lawyer released from a Rwandan prison on medical grounds credited America's Secretary of State with his release but said Sunday the U.S. Embassy did not help him secure food or medicine while in prison

"Peter Erlinder, 62, said he had to sleep on a concrete floor without a blanket and without assistance from the embassy after his May 28 arrest in Kigali, Rwanda's capital. The Minnesota law professor thanked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for saying Rwanda shouldn't arrest lawyers [emphasis added] but said embassy officials in Kigali and Nairobi have not helped much. 'My government insisted that I take my medications from my captors rather than bringing me medications directly,' Erlinder told a news conference in Nairobi, his first public comments since his arrest. 'It was impossible for them to arrange a doctor whom I would pay so that I wouldn't have to get my food and my medication from my captors.'

"A spokesman in Kigali said the U.S. embassy there offered regular assistance to the imprisoned lawyer. 'Embassy officials visited Erlinder every day and were in constant touch with his family,' embassy spokesman Edwina Sagitto said. 'The Embassy also provided him food every day, and medicine from his doctors in the United States every day.'

"Erlinder did not outright say that he feared taking food from Rwandan authorities, but that was the implication. He added that it wasn't clear to him that 'my own embassy was working in my interests.' He did not elaborate."

The story goes on (find the rest here) but perhaps this is enough.

The story does not mention which Rwanda prison. This is Gitarama. Wonder where these gentlemen get food and medicine daily.

Anyone could find the contradictions in this story: the embassy didn't help, didn't provide the exact help he wanted (implying that there was help, just not his favorite flavor), didn't provide its help in the way he wanted... And by the way, Madam has searched the net in vain for the Secretary's statement to the effect that lawyers shouldn't be arrested - can someone else find it? There are SO many possible (and shamelessly funny) responses to that observation that Madam simply can't choose between them.

Nevertheless, welcome home, Professor.

As Madam often says, consular officers don't do their jobs for thanks. But thank you, Kigali! And never mind.

Child Abuse

2010-07-13T07:00:00.002-04:00

Immigration gives so many adults such excruciating headaches, why would anyone choose to inflict something so arcane, complex and divisive on a child? After all, children are meant to be protected and cherished, not tortured. Besides, there are very good reasons why consular officers' children refuse to participate in "take your child to work" days - they already know more than they want to about what we do, how and why.

And children think of our founding immigrant ancestors, as our dear Gore Vidal famously noted, as "boring but perfect."

Nevertheless, the US is a nation of immigrants, etc, etc, etc; immigration is often a subject of family stories and legends; and despite childrens' very sensible propensity to presume that whatever news readers, newspapers and adults are discussing is deadly boring and has nothing to do with them, immigration can actually be made to be pretty interesting, even for them. If anyone can do that, it would be the folks of Scholastic, that fine old organization that still publishes the "Junior Scholastic" magazine that Madam remembers fondly from her own youth.

Just a glance at this page of resources and suggestions can give any consular supervisor a half dozen ideas not only to genuinely amuse the children in spite of themselves, but also to shape a worthwhile Consular Leadership Day, in place of the usual character-building (boring, really; come on!) lectures, films and crisis management exercises.

A US Political Ad That Appeals to Sane People?

2010-07-12T07:00:00.012-04:00

This will never work. Not in the past decade, nor probably in this one. Americans seem to have far too much fun ranting illogically. Still, together with the Pulitzer-winning PolitiFact (which brilliantly and responsibly concentrates its efforts in the regions richest in easy pickings: Washington, Texas and Florida) perhaps it's an early sign of better things to come. Perhaps even a safe place to send our puzzled and concerned foreign friends when they insist on gently laying the backs of their hands to our foreheads to check for fever or contagious rising national idiocy.

Say What?

2010-07-09T08:41:00.000-04:00

It seems to be a contest: who can get into the most trouble quickest via social media? Neither ambassadors nor reporters are immune to scolding and even firing for expressing opinions not held - or at least not spoken aloud at that moment - by their superiors.

Earlier this week, our beloved Diplopundit devoted an entry to patient dissection of the new 5 FAM 790. Madam strongly recommends that any State employee or dependent who is even thinking of blogging or tweeting study this very carefully. Especially the part about how "the Department encourages the responsible use of social media consistent with current laws, policies and guidance that govern information and information technology." And how "Department organizations will not arbitrarily ban access to or the use of social media" despite the dozens of anecdotes that appear to contradict these very statements, from new A-100-ites to veteran spouses.

As Madam often insists, the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data.' Still, the treatment of the spouse who was ordered to take down her personal blog in which she wrote that she did not love Oakwood still seems pretty harsh, as does the fate of the new FSO who was ordered to delete the personal blog in which she dared to admit to finding A-100 tiring. Not to mention the blanket instruction to A-100-ites (officially denied but subject to dozens of first-hand confirmations) to not blog, period, lest they in their newbie ignorance make any statement that could in any way be construed as criticism of the Service or any of its processes.

Consider, on the other hand, the admission by Margot Carrington, the highly skilled and otherwise well-qualified principal officer in Fukuoka, that "Despite having worked six years at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, I initially encountered a bit of culture shock when I arrived in Fukuoka. First, I had to contend with our local dialect of Hakataben and not knowing what yokinshatta (welcome) meant!" Madam can't help but wonder if such a public-media admission of ill-preparedness by a lower ranking FSO might have been so quickly glossed over in favor of breathless admiration for her kabuki efforts - which, fortunately, the local population appeared to find flattering rather than offensive. But then, this admission by the ranking US diplomat at post was published via Embassy Tokyo's DCM's official blog. So it's all good.

Heat / Light / Children

2010-07-01T07:00:00.008-04:00

Every consular officer knows how delicate the subject of adoption can be. Emotion runs extremely high; costs can be astonishing (spending tens of thousands of dollars for a child is routine); the complexity of the process can drive the most stable of adults to serious drink; and it's absolutely true that child-hungry would-be parents can fall frantically in love with a child they've never met and might do anything to get that child 'home.'

The internet is full of sad stories, desperate stories, joyous stories, untrue stories, hilarious stories, unfair stories ... very few thoughtful, well-balanced stories. The New Yorker published one of the few such stories in May of this year. It is written by the adoptive father of a Haitian orphan whose processing - all done by the book in both Haiti and the US - was complicated by the January earthquake. But he never lost his cool and the article, although long, is well worth reading by any consular officer.

The article includes a history of the whole international adoption phenomenon. For example, the writer took the time to research the numbers: in response to the often-asked question, "Why don't Americans adopt American children?" he wrote, "Since the seventies, the supply of healthy infants available through domestic adoption has contracted sharply... In 1970, a hundred and seventy-five thousand [U.S.] newborns were adopted; by 2002, that number had dropped to under seven thousand. Most of the fifty thousand domestic U.S. adoptions each year are of older children in foster care." The article also, of course, includes his family's own compelling and ultimately successful story.

For more adoption-related numbers from a variety of reliable sources, check here.

America's Desk Drawer

2010-06-30T07:00:00.006-04:00

Social media? Ho hum. MySpace is history, your mom is too cool for Facebook, YouTube still has its moments - mostly capturing people doing stupid things they shouldn't tell their best friends about, but put on line for millions to see instead. (Famous last words in the US: "Here, hold my beer and watch this!")

But there is another web site that is not so personal, yet is still more than worthy of exploration. It's vision, it claims, is 'to liberate the written word.' What does that mean? It means, it appears, that if the Smithsonian is the nation's attic, this place aspires to be the nation's bottom desk drawer. (You know the one, at home or the office, where we dump the things we're going to sort out some day very soon - the hotel receipts, dog licenses, half-finished letters, birthday cards, manuals for electronic toys, broken pencils, half-used 2003 calendar pads, new fillers for long-lost pens, obsolete forms, printouts of thinky cables we really meant to read and think about, dead calculators, expired Cup-of-Noodles, old shopping lists, new panty hose, the first draft of The Novel - which turns into years and years).

Consider:

A scholarly look at modern Estonian death cults

The 1934 study of psychic phenomena in Jamaica

The 1944 report on intelligence activities on Saipan

No interest? Then how about...

ICE's 2009 lesson plan on consular notification

The top secret CIA OIG report on interrogation and torture of Al Qaida suspects

The memorandum of conversation between two State OIG inspectors and the consular officer who issued visas to 11 of the 9/11 hijackers.

An article on the murder of a key witness, the Clinton dictatorship, and a shot spotter device. Put on your tinfoil hat.

And enjoy.

Spooks Among Us - Quick, Who Can We Blame?

2010-06-29T07:00:00.011-04:00

Ten "illegal" individuals who lived in the US as American citizens for years were recently arrested and charged with espionage on behalf of the Russian government, after seven years of investigation by the FBI. Apparently their work involved the clandestine exchange of briefcases, secret codes, invisible ink - all the best features of truly cheesy '60s and '70s fiction, but for real. Their own children, it is said, did not know what the parents were up to. This group worked for so long that they apparently began some low-key squabbling - as sometimes happens in extended families that live too close together for too long.

The government of Russia has rejected the accusations.

Who is willing to bet that in a few days some US lawmaker won't be leading a baying pack demanding the resignations if not the heads of whichever consular officers or passport agency employees issued visas or US passports to these characters more than a decade ago? Madam has $1.50 on Chuck Grassley.

The Tenets

2010-06-25T07:00:00.003-04:00

* Inspire

* Model Integrity

* Develop the Next Generation

* Delegate Authority - but Not Responsibility

* Communicate

* Build Great Teams

* Lead by Example

* Follow Courageously

* Learn Constantly

* Practice 360-Degree Diplomacy

There are a few consular managers out there who might post this list on the wall, but seem unaware that the items on it apply to them. Some are a bit careless of them. Some seem to work quite hard to purposely violate all of them.

For those who work for such managers, please don't lose track of the fact that the tenets apply to all of us equally, from the most senior managers to the newest ELO. And while it is an excellent idea to follow good examples, following bad examples is a singularly bad idea.

It can be extremely difficult to practice excellence in a careless, unrewarding or even punishing atmosphere. It can be extremely easy to fall in with the dog eaters.

One of the bad things about the Service can also be a good thing: arriving for every new assignment one can feel as if - and feel one is treated as if - we were just born in the airport, with no knowledge, no skills, and no experience. That can be extremely annoying sometimes, but that blank slate can also be a clean slate - and an enormous relief for officers who have previously and rightly felt abused and poorly led, and need a serious change of atmosphere.

Before arriving at that post where we can start over, though, we must do our best to NOT pass badness down, even in a place infested with badness. We must do our best to practice the tenets anyway: with one another, with other mission sections, and especially with our local employees. We must follow the old Girl Scout tenet of leaving a campsite cleaner than we found it, never mind who else is littering. And look forward to that next airport.

Hunter Comes Home

2010-06-24T07:00:00.007-04:00

He refused to sign a PAW so CA/OCS/ACS isn't talking, but his brother delivered the news: Gary Faulkner, the intrepid American who trekked to Northern Pakistan armed with nothing more than a pistol, a sword, a set of night-vision goggles, plus probably exasperated impatience and a keen sense of righteousness, has been released by the (perhaps bemused) government of Pakistan and will be home soon.

He's not crazy, the brother says, and who are we to disagree...we who see really, really crazy so often?

Bin Laden himself might want to think about worrying. Maybe hiding in a cave isn't enough...

On the other hand, five younger American men were convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison in Pakistan. According to evidence and witnesses, they were planning to participate in clandestine attacks against Pakistan and its allies. The article fairly notes that the US government "has a duty to insure justice for its citizens" while it also has "pushed Pakistan to crack down on militancy." These are not, of course, mutually incompatible goals; for consular officers, the only goal of concern is the first one: see that they are treated no worse under the local laws and local care than a local person would be. See that, if convicted and sentenced, they are safely and adequately cared for. Follow the PAW and the FAM. All else is future.

And if they carried any Groucho glasses and noses in their luggage that they don't want any more, check into donating them to a worthy cause.

Certainty and Un-

2010-06-23T07:09:00.001-04:00

The extremely clever Malcolm Gladwell did consular officers an inadvertent favor with his best-selling book "Blink" which extolled but also warned about high stakes, instant decision making. His "New Yorker" article "The New-Boy Network," anthologized in the 2009 book "What the Dog Saw," goes a bit further to second guess such decision-making, and is worth a look by anyone required to make major decisions based on personal interviews. Such as consular officers.

Gladwell starts by describing studies that show how a first impression - created by nothing more than a smile and handshake - appears to hold up through the course of a long personal interview. But then he looks again, with the help of further studies, and writes, "That people who simply see the handshake arrive at the same conclusions as people who conduct a full interview also implies, perhaps, that those initial impressions matter too much - that they color all the other impressions that we gather over time."

Fundamental attribution error - the tendency to understand behavior as a function of personality and character rather than situation - and confirmation bias - the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms our preconceptions - can act together to cause us to make faulty decisions, especially in visa interviews. The solution is not, however, longer interviews; we simply use those - unconsciously but faithfully - to further harden that first impression. The solution is better questions.

Trust Me. I'm a Consular Officer.

2010-06-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

We are the only game in town; do our ACS customers really need to trust us? After all, they can't go to some competing consulate down the street if they don't like us.

But of course they need to trust us, or they won't accept what we tell them. What, in our world, inspires trust for our ACS customers?

How about knowledge, fairness, patience, and a willingness to hear them out?

There are so many possible ways to greet Americans at the ACS window. The most effective greeting by far, Madam has found, whether cold at the window or when you've been fetched by an FSN who is fuming over the way the jerk talked to her, is, "Hi. Can I help you?"

This colloquial language, coupled with a businesslike but not stiff air and a friendly look, is a never-fail tension cutter and stress reliever. It portrays us as informal, open, willing, and unaffected by his having made our favorite FSN weep with fury.

It proves instantly that we are 'real' Americans. This is critical for customers whose brains freeze when they have to try to communicate with other-than-native American English speakers, or who are inclined to distrust foreigners in general. They know for sure they will be understood, and will understand what we say.

It proves that we intend to help them with whatever their problem is.

It proves that we probably know what we're doing, and they will be safe in our hands.

And it requires the customer to tell the story from the top. That - oddly enough - is a stress reliever in itself. After all, if the customer has acted like a jerk, he probably realizes that he has, and this opening shows that we have not been primed to scold them or to be defensive, or that we have a canned response to trot out.

Finally, this greeting makes the customer start with either, "Yes" or "I hope so," the mere vocalizing of which lowers his guard and turns the stress level down. If he comes back with, "Didn't she tell you?" we can answer calmly, "Yes, but I want to make sure that I understand." Mollified, he will usually go on with "I'm trying to.." or "I need to..." or "I want to..." or a similar entrance which forces him to articulate what he wants materially rather than encouraging him to launch an unproductive gripe about the perceived inadequacy of the service he's gotten so far.

Once we have him talking reasonably and in an organized way, all we have to do is not blow it.

And after what our FSN had to put up with, that should be a piece of cake.

Playing Disaster

2010-06-17T10:00:00.000-04:00

Want to liven up the ho-hum weekly consular section meeting, one of those in which officers and FSNs sit quietly and politely, desperately trying to look as if they're awake? There is nothing easier. Just tape to the nearest wall a large-font printout of 7 FAM 1881's "Primary Rules:"

• Get to where you can best assist the affected U.S. Citizens/U.S. noncitizen nationals ASAP.

• Arrive well equipped.

• Do your best to assure that all U.S. citizen/ U.S. non-citizen national victims and families at the scene get appropriate, timely assistance and care.

• Keep your mission and the Department updated - report early and often.

Give everyone a moment to absorb this list. Then say something like: "It's three AM. You wake to the screaming of a thousand sirens. You go to the window and see that the biggest tourist hotel in the city is burning against the sky."

Pause, then nod to the seniormost ACS FSN and ask, "What one thing will you do first?" Then to an experienced officer, "What will you do first?" To the seniormost visa FSN, "What will you do first?"

In very short order the group will get away from their personal actions (call relatives, pack an emergency suitcase in case the fire spreads, wake the spouse to drive the children to grandma's) to their professional impulses prompted by the list. And you're off.

Don't move smoothly around the room but between people arbitrarily, including everyone, asking "Wait - what have we forgotten to do?" "What then? And what then?" Anything and everything, as discordant and out of order as possible, keeping everyone thinking and re-thinking. If you started this correctly, voices will almost immediately start interrupting, correcting, adding, re-sequencing. There will be excitement, eagerness, fast thinking, even laughter in the face of made-up catastrophe.

Let it run. There are no wrong answers today, no flip chart, no black- or white board, no written notes, no instructions. Time enough later - tomorrow - to rebuild your disaster SOP. The group that does that will be infinitely better prepared from having thought this through as if it were real, on the fly. The document itself will not sit dead on the shelf, but will be remembered and instantly available in everyone's minds if they should wake some night to the sound of sirens. And they will know what to do.

7 FAM 1800

Hunter

2010-06-16T10:00:00.001-04:00

You've probably already seen this story, and perhaps it reminds you of one or more of the teetering heap of truly execrable novels churned out in the past nine years about Delta Force members or writers or teenagers or hijabbed women or detectives or writers or - heck, who knows, maybe Condaleeza Rice - trekking into Pashtunstan to find and take out Osama bin Laden. But this story is real. Frankly, one can admire the gumption of a man armed only with night-vision goggles, a pistol, a sword and probably a powerful sense of righteousness and impatience, going forth to right what he sees as one of the world's great injustices.

But, of course, the most disturbing part of the story is the last part, about how Mr. Faulkner needs regular dialysis. Somewhere nearby, a consular officer is already sleepless.

Family Album

2010-06-15T10:00:00.000-04:00

This might not be new to you, but it certainly is to Madam, and she couldn't be happier to have discovered the Library of Congress's already-fabulous oral history collection includes a wonderful assortment of interviews with diplomats.

(Motor pool? What's a motor pool?)

These are not exotic strangers: they are our own aunts and uncles, our kindred in this business. Their stories are excellent, as are their lists of assignments and the highlights of each. They read like pages of a family album. Relive the old days, good and bad, before motor pool, before email, before anything but one's wits, reliability and elegance under fire.

You Might be a Consular Officer If ...

2010-06-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

.
- You start a conversation with the homeless drunk who is sharing your park bench. You find him interesting and articulate.

- You can't borrow anyone's bathroom without looking in the medicine cabinet.

- You will eat anything; after all, if a few million people like it, it must be good.

- When a group of people starts doing something you don't understand, you run over to see if you can do it too.

- A day in which you don't learn something surprising is a day that wasn't worth getting up for.

- You give a dollar to a panhandler and don't care that he probably won't spend it on a nourishing meal.

- You find non-American traffic patterns interesting and efficient, not weird and wrong.

- When people burst into gales of helpless laughter at your mangling of their language, you laugh with them.

- You would not be at a loss for words if you met the President unexpectedly. You would probably ask him how the toe of his shoe got scuffed, and offer him half of your cookie.

- You don't mind knowing that any local eight-year-old in rags, shoeless, bugs in his hair, never spent three seconds in school, is infinitely better at life here than you are.

- A day in which you don't laugh at yourself is a day you suspect you weren't paying attention.

Joining the Scrum

2010-06-11T07:04:00.000-04:00

.
A great philosopher once said something like, "If it weren't for habit and assumption, I couldn't walk across the room." What does this mean? It means that most human behaviors - including conversation - will follow certain very predictable patterns. Know the pattern - which for conversation is actually fairly universal - and success will follow. Words? We don't need no stinkin' words!

Here's an example. That first out-of-office conversation Madam referred to yesterday happened when she pulled up to a ferry, asked the man obviously in authority, "Where do I buy the ticket?" He answered something that didn't matter because he was pointing to a nearby building. "Thank you." Madam drove to the building, walked it, approached a woman behind a counter and said, "One person and one car, please." The woman named a sum - incomprehensible, but noticing Madam's hesitation, she displayed the appropriate tickets with the costs clearly imprinted. Madam paid - in exact change! - thanked the woman, drove back to the boat, and offered the tickets to the man. He accepted them, tore them, and handed the stubs back. Madam asked, "Where do I go?" He answered, "As you are going" and did that pointing thing with a flattened vertical hand. That seemed to mean "straight ahead" so that is the way Madam drove, trusting that if she was wrong, someone would loudly correct her. As she parked and got out, she suddenly realized that those people all (all two of them) absolutely believed that she spoke the language. And so, in fact, she did.

What other way to practice linguistic success? How about a local bus station?

There might be no scarier place to wander into, but think about it: what does everyone working there want? To make sure that you get to your destination.

So dive in. Walk with confidence up to a man who is relatively well-dressed and -groomed and has some item of authority - walkie-talkie, clip board, uniform vest, whatever - and no luggage. Say carefully, "Excuse me. I want to go to Xburg, please." Whatever he says next, you say, "I do not have a ticket ('yet' is optional but helpful)." He will either point toward the place where tickets are purchased, or will say something that includes the words "buy" and "driver," meaning that you pay on board. Then you either ask, "Which one is the bus to Xburg?" and he'll point, pause, then lead you there if you look puzzled; or else you go to the ticket kiosk/tent/window and repeat, "Excuse me. I want to go to Xburg, please." Once you've bought the ticket, check it to see if it tells you where the bus is. If you can't figure it out, ask the ticket person, "Sorry, but where is the bus?" If she is busy selling the next ticket, then go back outside and show your ticket to anyone, really anyone, and make that hopeless shrug you're getting used to by now. He or she will happily lead you to the bus.

Then, as great-grandpa used to say, "Quick as Bob's your uncle" you're on the right bus, headed to where you want to go. Taxis? Rental cars? Embassy vehicles and drivers? Who needs them?

Well okay. That's fine for bus tickets. But how will this help with visa interviews which, even Madam will admit, are just a tad more complex? By giving you cultural confidence and a knowledge of conversation patterns, and letting you relax enough to recognize words you know when they fly past you. Major steps on the road to fluency. Tres bien fait!

Yes, You Can SayThat

2010-06-10T10:00:00.000-04:00

Some readers might recall a posting some time ago in which Madam complained about the politico-econ leanings of language training, never mind the responsibilities to which the learners might be assigned.

After all, consular officers spend their work days in conversations that almost never relate to NATO, inflation, or elections. As she wrote at that time, consular officers need more than the first four or five lessons' "good morning, how are you, where were you born, are you married, do you have children," to help them handle "interviews with accountants, archaeologists, musicians, machinists, mechanics, cattle farmers, and chicken sexers. Not to mention the sensitive and urgent on-the-fly handling of airline hijackings, automobile crashes, emergency surgery, beatings by prison guards, pet murders, taxi scams, rapes, dismemberments, child abductions and lost luggage."

That aside, of course, as we say these days, "It is what it is." And being tongue-tied just won't help the queue of customers get home on time tonight.

Madam has known officers who used translators for every interview from the day they arrived at post until the day they left; she has known others who arrived with exactly the same ability, vocabulary and test score, and immediately started interviewing on their own - fumbling at first, but learning with every exchange and quickly totally independent.

What was the difference? The willingness to speak as if they could speak. And - since Vonnegut was right - soon they truly could. She remembers the sense of triumph she felt the first time she held her own in a casual conversation outside the office. She remembers her pride when she overheard her ELOs discussing where they might go for lunch and why - in the host country's language. And very recently she reacquainted herself with a language she hasn't spoken in many years and was delighted as it came trickling back - in overheard conversation, on road signs and billboards, and in simple exchanges leading to more complex ones. Nearly everyone there speaks some English, an easy trap to step into, but Madam is proud to say she did not succumb.

And you don't have to succumb either. Rehearse exchanges in your mind. Review conversations that fumbled, figure out the flaws, and realize that you COULD have said what you meant to say, if you had tried it THIS way. Walk through the streets assembling little speeches about what you see ("There is a dog over there. He is not barking. His collar is blue and his leash is red") Loosen up. Untie the tongue. Talk with the FSNs in their language, despite their fluency in yours. After all, what's the worst that can happen? You've been laughed at before and survived. And it will never be a mean laugh, but an understanding laugh, with appreciation that at least you tried.

So say something and watch the response - confusion, or an appropriate answer? Be willing to try a different way, until the eyes light up with comprehension. There's no feeling like it. And yes, you can say that.

I Know It Might be Schadenfreude, But I Like It

2010-06-08T08:22:00.000-04:00

If you're one of the few US consular officers on the planet who has not yet seen the National Geographic channel's "Locked Up Abroad," you NEED to remedy that flaw.

LUA describes its heroes as "unsuspecting travelers who embarked on what they thought would be a vacation, only to barely make it home alive." Um, and how do we define "unsuspecting" in English, again? Stuffing eight pounds of heroin into our underpants at the behest of three young men we met ten minutes ago? Swallowing a double handful of raw diamonds just before walking through airport security? Strolling down a road known as the fishing grounds for kidnapping terrorists, hoping to snap a few local-color photos? You mean THAT 'unsuspecting?'

Madam will not say whether one of her own favorite WTF-were-you-thinking Americans is featured on any LUA episode, but the inevitability of the characters' stumbling/wandering/staggering into disaster is riveting and hypnotic - even more so than the eye-wideningly ghastly decisions made by PMATNBs (people meeting animals that are not Bambi) on the other, wildly entertaining, "How the Heck can I Still be Alive After Doing Something so Incredibly Stupid" programs. And who said that American TV is going downhill? Not Madam!

What might be best about LUA is the familiarity of the quiet, tremulous-but-brave voices that tell these stories, the voices we know oh so well from answering the telephone at 4:48 PM on any given Friday, with "American citizens services. Can I help you?"

Pity, sympathize, empathize, even weep a little for the babes in the woods, but still enjoy.

Work in Progress

2010-06-07T10:00:00.000-04:00

Of course, no one needs a gentle reminder that FAMs are always works in progress. The web-based editions show every section or paragraph's latest revision date. There are updates that are well-publicized, like the welcome major 2009 revision of 9 FAM Appendix K which was announced by worldwide cable. But there are also small revisions underway all the time, most of which don't make the nightly news.

For a while there were monthly summaries; a list of revisions large and small. This list is still a useful reminder that even the most basic entries might be subject to tweak without fore- (or post-) warning. With on-line FAMs so easily accessible and searchable - and State's official on-line editions kept up to date so there is no need to trust a law firm's or anybody else's older postings - there is no reason to depend on memory, and going back even to old favorites can sometimes yield new surprises: for example, the requirement that consular officers confirm funding for student visa applicants. Especially if one has been out of the consular business for a while, even a fairly short while like, for instance, a year in Iraq, an assignment in another cone, sick leave, leave without pay, a teaching gig, a year-long language or other class, or a hundred other possible temporary distractions, looking it up is a very good idea.

Also an excellent idea for any consular officer who's been away for any of the reasons above or for reasons even briefer - such as you went out to buy coffee and had to wait in line - is enrollment in the short consular courses, such as automation and name-checking. Things seem to change daily, all for the better these days. You will be amazed and delighted and will have lots of fun.

Of Course I'm Sure. I'm Supposed to Be.

2010-06-02T07:46:00.000-04:00

"A weak man has doubts before a decision, a strong man has them afterwards."
- Karl Karus

With all due respect, Mr Karus - however much that might be - are you from Austria, or from the Planet Zarkon?

Better, in all ways, to pay attention to Jonah Lehrer, a rational Earthling:

"It feels good to be certain. Confidence is comforting. This desire to always be right is a dangerous side effect of having so many competing brain regions inside one's head. While neural pluralism is a crucial virtue - the human mind can analyze any problem from a variety of different angles - it also makes us insecure. You never know which brain area you should obey. It's not easy to make up your mind when your mind consists of so many competing parts.

"This is why being sure about something can be such a relief. The default state of the brain is indecisive disagreement; various mental parts are constantly insisting that the other parts are wrong. Certainty imposes consensus on this inner cacophony. it lets you pretend that your entire brain agrees with your behavior. You can now ignore those annoying fears and nagging suspicions, those statistical outliers and inconvenient truths. Being certain mean that you aren't worried about being wrong.

"The only way to counteract the bias for certainty is to encourage some inner dissonance. We must force ourselves to think about the information we don't want to think about, to pay attention to the data that disturbs our entrenched beliefs. When we start censoring our minds, turning off those brain areas that contradict our assumptions, we end up ignoring relevant evidence.

"The certainty trap is not inevitable. We can take steps to prevent ourselves from shutting down our minds' arguments too soon. We can consciously correct for this innate tendency....

"...when making decisions, actively resist the urge to suppress the argument. instead, take the time to listen to what all the different brain areas have to say. Good decisions rarely emerge from a false consensus. Alfred P. Sloan, the chairman of General Motors during its heyday, once adjourned a board meeting soon after it began.

'Gentlemen,' Sloan said, 'I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here ... Then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.'"

Regular Guys Trying to Make a Living

2010-05-31T10:00:00.001-04:00

Outrage was triggered last week by the closure of a bakery and catering business accused of employing illegal workers in San Diego. ICE has not only indicted the owner for questionable hiring practices, but is in the process of seizing the business. The attorney involved sputtered, " "The forfeiture laws are made for crack and methamphetamine, not crème brûlée."

But which of those products would you rather keep in your evidence locker? And besides, most Americans think that meth is produced by natural-born American citizens in the survivalist sanctuaries of Idaho and Montana. Just goes to show how out of the loop one can be.

The LA Times, which reported the story, made no mention of erstwhile customers weeping on the sidewalk in front of locked doors, but it could come to this. A good French caterer is that hard to find.

At the opposite end of the country, another eatery remains closed while the proprietors try to come to grips with the definition of "marginality."

Finally, every consular and immigration officer's favorite Simpsons episode is the one in which ISN (at the time) takes away everybody's favorite Quickie Mart proprietor in chains. An outraged Marge cries, "I don't know why they're picking on Apu! He didn't do anything wrong except break the law!"

It's Not Over 'Til ...

2010-05-28T08:57:00.000-04:00

A well-known American woman was released from a foreign prison earlier this week. In a few days, some sources say, ministers will meet to decide if she must stay in her host country for the remainder of her sentence, or if she will be deported back to the US.

Guilty or innocent, freedom fighter or terrorist, she is no longer on the list of prisoners to be visited four times a year. If you Google her name and "consular" you will enjoy a veritable feast of conflicting opinions about the visits that consular officers have made to her over the years, and who in the rest of the world was impressed or not impressed by those officers' performance of their duties.

We don't do our jobs for thanks. We do our jobs because they are our jobs. We visit the guilty, the innocent, the lost, the confused, the defiant, the terrified, the truly evil all equally, and share our attention and compassion equally with them.

To all those officers over the years who visited this American, delivered her mail, and treated her as decently as they would treat any other incarcerated individual who happens to be American, and never made the newspapers - not even the local ones - and never mind whether or not she or any of them was as patient, tolerant and kind to you as you were to her, we all owe you our thanks. The headlines are already fading. Close the file. Your job is done.

Or maybe not. She now might need a passport, an OCS trust account, a repat loan, a CRBA for her child... Whatever she needs, a consular officer will provide it if possible. It won't be over until it's over.

Don't Apologize

2010-05-27T10:00:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been tempted to introduce yourself to a stranger - especially an American stranger, especially these days - by name plus euphemism rather than name plus job title that indicates federal employment? Here is a recent item that might serve as a morale booster. For more, follow the included link to the April 15 Washington Post article by E. J. Dionne.

Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, E.J.

Good Numbers

2010-05-26T09:45:00.000-04:00

If you have friends, relatives or fellow commuters who want to talk (complain, rant, rage, gripe, preach) about immigration using Fox-quality figures, you might find help in DHS's immigration statistics. Check out the cool data tables, quietly assembled over the years by individuals apparently impervious to shifting political winds. Did you know that 8,385 people obtained US permanent residency in 1820? Did anyone else? Hands? Didn't think so. Great, great stuff.

The ACS Case Any Conoff Would Love to Handle

2010-05-22T19:01:00.001-04:00

Slow, steady, patient, courteous and quiet are still productive behaviors.