Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 12:05:43 -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>

Erica VD Ginter wrote:
>
> A science writer acquintance of mine, legally in the U.S. for many years,
> almost got deported when he suddenly discovered, two weeks before it
> expired, that the legal department of his publication hadn't done squat to
> get it renewed. They had always taken care of it in the past so he
> assumed.... Well, you know what you get when you assume. It finally got
> taken care of, but his American fiancee was a basket case in the interim.
> She hadn't exactly planned on quitting her job and moving to England.
>
> And a British biology PhD working for the American Institue for Biological
> Sciences (where I used to work) almost didn't get her visa renewed once
> because her caseworker had to be convinced, with documentation and
> affadavits from all and sundry, that Oxford was a "real" university.
>
> Something tells me the INS is targeting the wrong people! Although these
> exaples are of course not the most heinous.
>
> Erica

I have never, of course, tangled with US Immigration (outside of once,
as the Customs inspector so charmingly put it, "winning a free Customs
inspection").  When I was teaching technical courses, I had a bit of a
problem with Canadian customs.  I was "supposed" to tell them that I was
"visiting friends".  I'm a very bad liar -- I said I was "here for a
business meeting".  Turns out you have to have Paperwork if you're in
Canada for any business purpose.

They asked me who I was working for.  I said "I'm an independent
contractor working for the US branch of a Canadian company, on loan to
the Ottawa branch, teaching a course for the RCMP.  *You* tell *me* who
I work for."

We got it straightened out (they decided I "worked for" the RCMP), the
Canadians being essentially civilized folks.  Only oddity was that I
needed my client's legal department to write a letter for me.  However,
they insisted on writing a separate letter for each class I taught
instead of one blanket letter for anything I might do.  Cost the company
CAN$150 extra every time I came to Canada.

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