Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 11:44:45 -0400
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The Constitution and the Citizen
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Elspeth Kovar wrote:
>
> Steve Smith wrote:
> >
> > "Strong, Lee" wrote:
> > >
> > >         Haddad's crime is a real, nonpolitical crime that he actually
> > > committed.  The website you introduced into this discussion admits that.  It
> > > is legitimate to arrest a person on one crime that he has actually committed
> > > even if you think he is ALSO guilty of another.
> >
> > Yep.  We have a number of "crimes" that are very useful for nailing
> > people we don't like.  Overstaying a visa is one.  Given the famous
> > efficiency of the INS (see
> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A16787-2002Mar12
> > for the most famous recent example), overstaying a visa is common to the
> > point of being unavoidable.
>
> Steve, that doesn't make sense.  It translates into "Because the agency
> that is supposed to kick me out if I overstay my visa is inefficient
> overstaying my visa is unavoidable."  Run that by me again?

No, it translates into "because the agency that grants visas is
inefficient and inconsistent, overstaying a visa is often unavoidable".
Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi's student visas took a year to get
processed.

The INS seems to have a really serious communications problem, along
with everything else.  I'll lay odds the visa people never talk to the
enforcement people.

> Look, people know when their visas expire.  They know that if they stay
> in the US afterwards that they're here illegally.  The fact that there
> has, until now, been no concerted effort to track down such people
> doesn't change the fact that they're knowingly committing a crime, with
> no quotes whatsoever.

Think of what it would be like if the Departmant of Motor Vehicles was
like this.  When would you need to renew your car tags or driver's
license?

I do remember seeing somewhere that one of the changes in the
immigration law a few years ago was that people waiting for an INS
ruling on a change of visa status didn't need to leave the country.

Note -- I tried to check some of these things out at the INS Website
(http://www.ins.gov) but the part of their site that handles laws seems
to be down.  Maybe later.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."