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 Travel & Outdoors | April 2007 
Thousands of Mexicans Wait Patiently for US Visa
 Chris Hawley - The Arizona Republic
| | Every day, 1,800 to 2,400 people quietly assemble here to ask for legal entry into the United States, making Mexico City the State Department's busiest visa office in the world, according to the embassy. |
Mexico City -The huddled masses gather well before dawn, hands jammed into pockets and jackets pulled tight against the morning chill outside the U.S. Embassy.
They wear dresses and suits and well-polished shoes. They carry folders bulging with life histories. They check and recheck their visa applications, preparing for their interviews with consular officers.
If the 21st century has an Ellis Island, it is here, on a patch of street between the marble walls of the embassy and a restaurant named, appropriately enough, the Manhattan Deli. Every day, 1,800 to 2,400 people quietly assemble here to ask for legal entry into the United States, making Mexico City the State Department's busiest visa office in the world, according to the embassy. And the crush could get even worse under immigration-reform proposals floated recently in Washington.
"The American Dream - this is it," Juan Cano of Mexico City said as he waited in the street for his daughter, who was seeking a work visa.
The dream, however, comes at the end of a grueling application process that probably drives some Mexicans to cross the border illegally out of frustration, many applicants say.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. embassies and consulates around the world have become the front line in efforts to secure the U.S. border. Digital photos and fingerprint technology have turned foreign service officers into sleuths as they sift through documents and databases to weed out terrorists, criminals and people who may decide to overstay their visas and become illegal immigrants.
Nowhere is the workload higher than in Mexico, which shares a 1,900-mile border with the United States. Officials are bracing for an avalanche of new work: About 2 million "border crossing cards" issued in 1998 are about to begin expiring next year.
Ticket to the U.S.
A man with a bullhorn paced the sidewalk outside the embassy, talking applicants through the visa application as security guards herded them into neat rows. Vendors sold ballpoint pens, cups of coffee and churro pastries.
Unlike Americans, who can enter Mexico simply by showing a passport, birth certificate, or driver's license, Mexicans need a pre-approved visa to enter the United States. These come in two forms: a piece of paper pasted into a passport, or a plastic border crossing card, which is issued to Mexicans who need to cross frequently.
Last year, the State Department's 10 offices in Mexico issued 941,581 visas, more than twice as many as in any other country. Nearly 80 percent were temporary-visitor visas, issued to people who want to take a business trip, visit family, see the sights. They are good for 10 years.
Temporary workers accounted for an additional 13 percent of visas. Those visas must be renewed more frequently.
Getting a visa can take months. First, applicants request an interview by calling a 1-900 telephone line ($1.50 a minute) or filling out an online form ($10).
The wait for interviews is longest for first-time applicants and ranges from two weeks to three months. As of Thursday, the wait was 19 days in Mexico City and 58 days in Monterrey, but only a few days along the border.
To be granted a visitor's visa, the most common type, applicants must prove they will return to Mexico. So applicants come armed with documents: bank statements, home deeds, car titles, pay stubs - anything to prove they have no intention of staying in the United States.
Getting a work visa is even trickier: Applicants must have a job offer and be sponsored by an employer, and the number of visas allowed annually for unskilled laborers is usually used up within a few months.
Detective work
The young consular officer studied the elderly woman standing on the other side of a bulletproof-glass window. She was asking for a tourist visa to visit family in the United States. With a crinkly, nervous smile, she looked like someone's doting grandmother.
A little too doting, according to the computer in front of her interviewer.
The screen showed a mug shot taken in 2004. An accompanying note said the woman had been deported from the United States for trying to bring her three grandchildren across the border with phony U.S. birth certificates.
A few windows over, a screen full of mug shots stood between another applicant and a visa. He had been caught three days in a row in 2002 while trying to cross the border illegally. Minutes later, another interviewer's computer red-flagged a fugitive wanted in the United States on theft charges.
Since August 2003, officials have been required to interview almost all visa applicants, whereas before they could waive many interviews. Computerized fingerprint checks were required in 2004.
In Mexico City's visa office, a one-story, aluminum-sided building behind the embassy, applicants are fingerprinted twice and photographed before their interviews.
A computer system lets the 23 interviewers tap information from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Border Patrol, the FBI and other sources.
As long as a person has a clean record and a valid reason to go to the United States, the criteria for getting a visa is simple, said Tony Edson, deputy assistant secretary of State for visa services: Applicants must prove they have enough ties to Mexico that they will return when their stay is up.
But whether someone is likely to go AWOL is a subjective decision, and interviewers often get it wrong.
A study by the Pew Hispanic Center in May estimated that as many as 45 percent of illegal immigrants in the United States entered with visas, then overstayed them.
Thumbs up, thumbs down
Mario Martínez was stunned. A high-ranking city official in the tourist town of Taxco, he had been invited to address a group of Mexican expatriates in the United States.
Then, he was turned down for a visitor's visa.
"I don't understand it," he said in a telephone interview after returning home. "I have a good job, I have a good reason to go there. There was no explanation."
Meanwhile, Gustavo Palacio, a hardware-store worker from Maravatio, was jubilant. In January, he had been turned down for a visa to visit his sick brother in Chicago. This time, he asked for an emergency humanitarian visa and was approved.
Consular officials said they could not comment on individual cases because of privacy concerns.
Visa officials in Mexico are now gearing up for a crush of applicants. About 2 million border crossing cards, issued en masse when fingerprints and photos were first required in 1998, expire next year.
In Mexico City, the embassy plans to renovate the visa building and add consular offices to handle the workload.
The lines could get even longer if U.S. lawmakers decide to include a so-called touchback requirement as part of an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. Under the most hard-line proposals, about 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States would have to return to their home countries and reapply for entry at embassies and consulates.
"That would shut down the embassies. There's no way they could handle it," said Crystal Williams, deputy director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Given the difficulty of getting a visa under the current system, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans don't even bother trying the legal route. From 2000 to 2005, the number of illegal Mexican immigrants increased by 1.5 million, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates. During the same period, the number of immigrant visas issued to Mexicans dropped by 47 percent.
"Most of the people who go to work illegally are people who don't have an education, who don't have opportunities here in their country," Mario Otero of Zimapán said as he waited for his daughter to emerge from the visa office.
"So they say, 'Why should I travel all the way to Mexico City, why should I invest $200 or $300 . . . when they're probably going to reject me? I might as well just go.' "
Getting a US Visa
azcentral.com
The process for a typical Mexico City resident:
1. Applicant requests a visa interview by phone or online, at a cost of $10. The wait for an interview varies from two weeks to three months. (As of April 3, the wait was one month.)
2. Once an interview is scheduled, applicant pays a non-refundable $100 feeApplicant gathers documents showing roots in Mexico and likelihood to return: bank statements, investment records, property deeds, etc.
3. On day of interview, applicant waits in line outside U.S. Embassy. Inside, applicant passes through metal detector. Fingerprints and photographs are taken. Foreign service officer tries to determine if applicant is likely to return to Mexico, then approves or denies the visa.
4. Applicant pays another $100 fee (only applicable for some non-tourist visas). Visa is valid for 10 years.
U.S. visas entitle the bearer only to request entry. An immigration officer at the border or airport determines how long each person can stay and can reject a traveler outright. There are no appeals.
Cost to request visa interview: $1.50 a minute plus tax, if calling the 1-900 reservation telephone line. $10 if applying by Internet.
Application fee: $100, non-refundable even if the visa is denied.
Fingerprint fee: $85, only if needed to verify applicant's identity.
Wait for interview: Three days to three months, depending on the visa office and time of year.
Time spent in visa office: One to four hours. Actual interview is usually five to 10 minutes.
Time to receive visa after approval: Four weeks on average.
Additional fees apply for applicants seeking work visas or student visas.
Sources: U.S. Embassy, Mexico City
Visa rejections
With a job that is half detective work, half gut feeling, interviewers in embassies and consulates have come under intense pressure since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when all 19 hijackers had legal visas issued at U.S. embassies and consulates.
• The number of temporary visas issued by the United States plunged from 7.58 million in 2001 to 5.77 million in 2002. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa took the biggest hits, but the number of visas issued to Mexicans also dropped 29 percent.
• Across Mexico, 30.9 percent of applicants for visitors visas were rejected in 2006.
• In Pakistan, 31.3 percent of applicants were denied U.S. visas.
• In Syria, a country that is listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. government, there was a visa rejection rate of 36.7 percent.
Source: U.S. State Department |
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