Illegal

Well I am officially an illegal immigrant in the Philippines. That's right this undocumented alien overstayed her visa. It was completely accidental (and technically via Philippine law I'm a non-immigrant) and all I have to do is pay a fine (here's hoping its not much!) but I can tell you I momentarily freaked out when I found out I had overstayed my visa. I immediately felt awash with fear, worried I had to leave the country right away or might be in some sort of big trouble.

See, the Kroc Institute applied for our visas for us last semester. My visa has an expiration date that says October 27. Since I just handed over what the Kroc asked from me to get my visa I didn't read any of the fine print or consulate information, so I just took that expiration date at face value. My roommate and I recently sent our passports to Manila to get the visa renewed since it is nearing Oct 27. The person helping us renew our visas explained to me that the October 27 date is the end date for when I can keep re-entering the country without penalty or renewal. The date I should have been paying attention to is the one that they stamped my visa with when I entered the country that tired Sunday morning. All non-immigrants to the country either get stamped with a 21 day visa or, like me if you applied beforehand, a 59 day visa. My 59 day visa expired August 28. Apparently this is all explained in the fine print of my visa, which of course I paid no attention to.

I blame it on the Philippines, their laid back attitude has rubbed off on me so much that I don't even stress over fine print and now I have to pay a fine! Pre-Philippines Anna would never have let this happen! Joke lang! (Just a joke!)

In all seriousness I should have figured this out on my own, since I was just researching visa information for David!!! But again, since Kroc took care of it last semester, I just assumed I was good to go until October 27.

I'm lucky really. The Philippines doesn't have very strict immigration laws (most people are leaving the country, with 10% of its population working abroad), they like tourists and Americans. But I realized my momentary freak out was due largely to my socialization as an American. In the US I've been face to face with immigration officers and women at serious risk of deportation and applying for visas for undocumented immigrants. I know how quickly things can turn badly, sometimes at the whim of an immigration officer. Currently, our immigration system is horribly unjust, broken, and inadequate. It tears apart families, leaves undocumented child immigrants at a dead end when they can't apply for college or jobs after completing high school, often ignores the role the United States plays in promoting policies that increase "illegal" immigration flows to the United States (cf. the US's economic and military policies in Mexico that have only worsened life for the Mexican people), and does not fit a world that is quickly evolving away from the nation-state system and towards a cosmopolitan system with fluid borders.

Not only is our immigration system broken, its horribly confusing! Like I mentioned above, I knew the visa information for non-immigrants coming to the Philippines. I understood the laws. I still made a mistake. I wonder how many people in the U.S. get stuck in some deportation center with horrible conditions simply because they made a mistake. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) makes mistakes -- its widespread knowledge that they have locked up numerous U.S. citizens who just happen to also be Latino/a. I'm not so sure ICE gives "illegals" the sort of margin of error that U.S. citizens and the government continues to give to this agency.

While I wish I didn't have to pay the fine I am sort of glad I am having this experience. For just a brief moment I got a glimpse into how it feels to think that the life you have slowly and painstakingly tried to carve out for yourself in a foreign country could just vanish, that you may be put in jail, deported, separated from the connections or family you have. If I accidentally overstayed my visa in the United States and wasn't the "right color," this very much could have been my fate.

Immigration reform, a bill that for years has tried to please both sides of the aisle by offering bolstered security and changes in immigration law that allows for families to stay together and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the country, is stalled again. Reform has become a victim of Republicans and Democrats playing politics, especially in the few months before mid-terms. And along with the bill, scores of innocent and/or abused women, children and men are hurt as well.

I understand the argument from the other side -- we need to secure our borders, people need to follow the law, and we can't reward criminality. But the problem with this argument is that immigration has a face, and "illegal" immigration often springs out of structural injustices. We can reform the immigration system to address security concerns and structural injustice. And if we create a just immigration system, then we create laws that the large majority will abide by.

Please, please, please vote in November! And if you believe the immigration system needs to be reformed, vote for candidates who agree.