I hope that governments, Chambers of Commerce, and tourist industries worldwide, as well as US universities and other educational institutions, will make a big stink about visa application nightmares -- if things are as exasperating in Japan as they are described by the _Asahi_ below, they must be atrocious for folks outside Japan and Western Europe:
***** U.S. makes it tough on visa applicants
The Asahi Shimbun
The U.S. government has turned what was once a relatively painless experience into a nightmare for Japanese seeking non-immigrant visas to America.
Witness the conga line in front of the Tokyo embassy, the result of a policy that went into effect Aug. 1 requiring applicants for study, exchange program or work visas to be interviewed in person at the embassy or consulates in Osaka or Naha.
While the likelihood the few perfunctory questions asked by the foreign service officers would uncover the purely theoretical Japanese terrorist is close to nil, the inconvenience for everybody else cannot be understated. . . .
Tourists are still exempt from the rigmarole, but not for long. In a move that could damage the Hawaiian tourist industry and other popular locations, the U.S. government will introduce a system in October next year under which visas would be required even for short visits if travelers do not have passports imbedded with IC chips containing biometric data.
Foreign Ministry officials say budget constraints and needed legal reforms will not allow the government to meet the U.S. deadline. If so, tourists will also be required to waste untold hours to get a visa.
Until last month, it was possible to apply for visas through the mail or through travel agents.
After traveling for hours, many applicants now face the ultimate indignity of having their applications rejected, often for what appear to be spurious reasons.
An 18-year-old student from Sapporo hoping to study at a junior college in the United States made an appointment July 29 and was told the earliest he could see an official was Wednesday. His appointment was set for 2:30 p.m. and he lined up an hour early. He finally made it to the consular window -- much like a ticket window at a movie theater -- at 3:40 p.m.
After the painful wait, the ``interview'' was over almost before it began. The U.S. official asked how long he planned to be in the United States and his future plans -- hardly an interrogation likely to ferret out even the most incompetent terrorist.
The student was unhappy with the procedure. ``I wish the interviews could be held at the consulate in Sapporo,'' he said. ``It even cost me more in air fare because this is the height of the summer holidays. I had no idea it was so hard to get a visa.''
At least his application was accepted. A 16-year-old from Tokyo's Kokubunji wasn't so lucky.
He told the U.S. official he wanted to leave high school here and finish up in America. The consular officer told him to forget it, saying his reason wasn't good enough.
``I said I planned to enroll in a university in Japan but wanted to brush up my English first,'' the dejected young man explained.
Embassy officials claimed the interviews provide an opportunity to learn about the character, background and motives of the applicants. They noted rejected applicants may take as many interviews as they wish.
Staff members at Japan Travel Bureau's Tokyo Visa Center said even before the new system, student and other visa applicants had been rejected for tiny discrepancies in their documents or called in for interviews.
An official at the Foreign Ministry's Second North America Division said: ``We have mixed feelings about this. The time and money involved in the interviews cannot be ignored. We would like U.S. officials to see if they could do something about the situation.''
Last year, around 3.62 million Japanese visited the United States. The embassy says visas were issued to about 120,000 people around the country.(IHT/Asahi: August 15,2003)
<http://www.asahi.com/english/national/K2003081500202.html> *****
The so-called "War on Terrorism" may be the death of "globalization." -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>
