Every visa officer a law unto himself The arrest of consular officer Michael T. Sestak has left everyone wondering what changes, if any, will come to the  Thousands of people walked into the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market last week looking for a Red Dao woman from northern On July 1, she and two other embroiderers from the The next day, they presented their official invitations to a consular officer, along with their passports, which they’d just received a few days before. They seemed like shoe-ins. More than 500 artists from around the world had applied for a chance to sell goods and solicit sponsorship at the nonprofit event; only 140 were invited to participate. The market’s organizers had even chosen to print a photo of one of the Vietnamese women on 30,000 tickets. Apparently, none of this impressed the consular officer who rejected their application. “It’s just outrageous,” said Mark Rapoport, a pediatrician based in Rapoport and a group of American veterans believed the consulate had made a mistake and appealed the decision. During a fourth of July function at the embassy, Vietnam War veteran Chuck Searcy approached Ambassador David Shear. “The ambassador was sympathetic,” Searcy said. “But he said he couldn’t interfere in a visa application process.” The women were granted a second two-minute interview the following day. “They said, ‘Ta Phin is our life. This is the home of our ancestors, we cannot leave. We wouldn’t think about it’,” said Searcy, who assisted them with the process. Once again, a consular officer turned them down, concluding that they could not demonstrate sufficient family, social, and economic ties that would require them to return home. “Ties is all these people have,” Rapoport said via telephone. “They are probably the three people in A spokesperson for the embassy said he could not comment on the case due to the Privacy Act, but the law speaks for itself. Consular absolutism “A consular officer’s decision isn’t even reviewable by the Secretary of State,” said Brent Rennison, an immigration attorney in The doctrine was born, more or less, in 1894 when a man named Fong Yue Ting unsuccessfully challenged a congressional law that singled out Asians for unfavorable immigration treatment. No one has succeeded in challenging a visa rejection ever since. Last year, a federal judge tossed out Rennison’s class action lawsuit against the State Department in general and the US Consulate in Rennison’s case attempted to challenge the government’s approach to K-1 visas also known as “fiancé visas.” When an American and a foreigner get engaged, they must prove that their relationship is genuine in order for the foreign fiancé to enter the Naturally, these circumstances have yielded some pretty terrible stories. Perhaps the worst culminated in the Fall of 2011, when a The mother and child wouldn’t have even been in the city had they not been caught in the consulate’s red tape. The couple first applied for a visa in 2009 and was turned down, forcing Riggsbee to fly back to HCMC to sort the mess out. After Riggsbee’s fiancé became pregnant the consulate demanded DNA proof that Riggsbee was the father. Riggsbee has publicly claimed that employees of the consulate refused to examine it on three separate occasions. Again, the consulate can say nothing about the case due to the Privacy Act. What’s clear, however is that their infant died at the tragic age of two and-a-half months in September of 2011. In October, the couple received their K-1 visa. “There is a tenet in the law that says no man should be a law unto himself and that’s what [consular officers] are,” said Rennison, who is preparing to file another suit against the State Department. “They have absolute authority. We think that, at least as far as relatives and fiancés of US citizens are concerned, we should be able to say ‘we think you’re wrong, here’s why’.” Rennison is prepared to wait a long time. “Only the Supreme Court can change the law,” he said. “All lower courts are bound by precedent. It’s going to take four or five years to maybe get there.” Even if Rennison gets his way and the Many worry that the recent arrest of Michael T. Sestak, the former head of the non-immigrant visa department in HCMC, will throw the already cloistered consulates into a siege mentality. In May, Sestak confessed to taking millions of dollars in bribes. “I’m going to prison,” he told State Department investigators, days before he was deported. “I know it’s going to be many years, but you know what? I’d like to go with a clear conscience and be able to not worry anymore that I did something wrong.” His alleged accomplices aren’t going so quietly. Attorneys representing Hong Vo (the 27 year-old web designer who stands accused of serving as the fraud ring’s IT expert) have filed a clever motion arguing that since all of her alleged crimes were committed in Vietnam she can’t be tried in Washington DC. Meanwhile her brother Vo Tang Binh and his wife Nguyen Thuy Anh Dao remain on the lam with what investigators say is more than $5 million in ill-gotten gains. No one knows where they are and their lawyers aren’t answering questions. The consulate and embassy have likewise remained mum on the matter—noting only that they do not tolerate malfeasance and that all visa applicants are treated in accordance with the law with dignity and respect. The bitter end What, if anything, the State Department learned from the Sestak saga remains to be seen, but news that a woman named Rena Bitter will replace the outgoing Consul General in August lends some clue. Bitter has spent 20 years running some of the biggest For a while, she returned to DC and worked as a special advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Now, Bitter seems like the closest thing the State Department has to Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction: a fixer, a cleaner, the person you call when you’ve accidentally blown someone’s brains out. Right before Bradley Manning’s stolen cables hit the proverbial fan, Bitter ran the department’s During Manning’s trial, Bitter testified that the team worked 24/7 to “stay ahead of the public disclosures.” I cannot pretend to know what she will do in HCMC. I only hope that she’ll make life easier for people like the three ladies from Ta Phin and Lan, who claims he can’t hold out much longer. By Calvin Godfrey, Thanh Nien News |
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