Capsule of Absurdity No. 4

On how one of the longest chains of absurdity arrived to an end. A happy one, I guess.

In this special installment of 'capsules of absurdity' I describe the story of how of I didn't travel to present a paper to the US. It is a bit long capsule, so please bear with me.

Earlier this year I coauthored a paper in an important conference in my research domain: LICS (Logic in Computer Science). The conference was held in Pittsburgh, at the end of June. My boss decided I would go to present the paper. Presenting a paper in LICS as a first year PhD student is a rare thing, as far as I understand. One of my coauthors was attending the conference too, so I wouldn't be so alone in such a top event.

Apart from the obvious academic arrangements, in order to enter into the US I needed a visa. As a Colombian, I need a visa to enter into almost every known country in the world; even to Panama, a former state of Colombia! (For some countries, indeed, even if you're passing through an airport to catch a connecting flight you might need an 'airport transit visa'.) Having to get a visa for going everywhere is perhaos the most annoying consequence of being a Colombian. Because of the fame we have, visa procedures are absurd by default, and unavoidably humiliating.

The US visa is especially tricky to get. That's a fact. Some people say it's simply luck, and I agree with them. The main reason is that too many Colombians want to go to the US, so visa applications are usually analyzed by consular officers in a matter of seconds. To give you an idea: the consular section of the US embassy at Bogotá receives around 1500 visa applications daily; it is one of the busiest consular sections in the world (third, I think). I wasn't applying at Bogotá's embassy; since I live in Bologna I had to apply at the consulate at Florence. Some friends (both Italians and Colombians) had told me the procedure was annoying and long (half a day), but that after a couple of days I'd get my visa.

So on April 30 I went to the US consulate in Florence, and applied for a 10-day visa: enough time to present the paper, attend the conference and perhaps jumping to NYC. The visa procedure consists essentially of an interview with an officer. Since I have experience on getting visas for academic reasons (UK, France, Italy) I was pretty confident. The first part of the interview went OK; I had to answer rather routine questions (why do you want to go to the US, what are you doing in Italy, who's paying for the trip). The second part of the interview was different. The officer started to read my application forms, and he was curious about my degree in computer science (yes, apart from asking you whether or not you were part of the nazi holocaust, the visa application includes a set of questions on your education). He asked:

US: Here it says you were born in Bogotá, but that you got your degree in X university in Cali. I know X university has a main campus in Bogotá. How come you didn't return to Bogotá to get your degree?

Me: (Two seconds shock.) Well, I had lived in Cali for more than 15 years, as my family moved from Bogotá to Cali when I was little, so studying in Cali made sense at the time.

The officer made an unconvinced face and started to type at a very quick pace in his computer. Afterwards, he asked:

US: Where do your parents live?

Me: In Cali.

That was the trigger for even more schizophrenic typing. He did so for about ten minutes. After the typing, I was ready to hear that everything was OK and that my visa had been approved. To my surprise, he said instead:

US: Your visa application is not approved nor refused. We need to do an additional administrative process with Washington DC regarding your case.

I was like: WTF??? The only thing I could say was:

Me: But what's wrong with my application?

US. Nothing's wrong, really. We just need to do an administrative process.

He told me I would get contacted when the procedure was completed. According to him, this takes from 2 to 4 weeks. Only then, I should send my passport: they would print and stick the visa on my passport, and mail it back to me.

I was in state of shock for the rest of the day, which included the worst lunch ever in Florence train station. All what I thought were essentially four things:

1. This is the most abourd thing that has occured to me in life.
2. Damned Cali! Mentioning Cali twice was enough for him to relate me to the Cali Cartel.
   
3. How come this guy knows my university has two campuses in Colombia?
4. They're gonna look for 'Jorge' in some database in Washington. That must be the most time consuming database query ever.

Back in Bologna nobody could believe the story, in particular those co-workers who had gotten their study visas in less than two days, in the same consulate. I will never forget the surprised face of my boss. Argh.

I had no option but to wait the 2-4 weeks for my visa. Sadly, I didn't get my visa in time and the coauthor who was attending LICS presented our paper. Of course I wrote emails to the consulate asking about my 'administrative procedure' (they have an efficient customer service I must say) . The answer was the same every time:

Your administrative process is still pending. We will contact you once your visa is ready.

Once I couldn't attend the conference I almost forgot about the whole thing. The only exception was at the end of each month, when I always remembered about my US visa application. I 'celebrated' the occassion sending the usual question to the consulate. Every single time I received the same answer:

Your administrative process is still pending. We will contact you once your visa is ready.

In October I decided to ask a more inquisitive question:

I assume my administrative process is still pending. But, what if I want to go to the US and my process is pending?

This time I got a slightly different answer:

You assume correctly: your administrative process is still pending.

The situation was the same until early November, when I received an email confirming the administrative process was completed and my visa was ready to be issued. It was funny, as I wasn't sure about the length of the visa they'll give me. Usually, one gets a visa for the exact number of days you'll stay in the US. (The longest tourist visa that the US issues is 10 years; for Colombians this duration is reduced to 5 years.) At this time, I was wondering about the following:

1. What if they give me a visa for ten days in December 08?
2. What if the visa goes exactly for the period I asked, that is, what if it expires in July 08? (A visa for travelling in the past!)
3. Would the US consulate behave as the Italian police, which issues stay permits that are already expired, so that once you get your "new" permit you have to renew it right away?

Oddly enough, due to the randomized character of the US visas for Colombians, even an expired one would be more than good for me. This is because once you're granted a visa, renewals should be easier, and because some countries take US visa as a "reference" when issuing theirs. So, for instance, if I am not wrong, having a valid US visa excempts you from needing 'airport transit' visas in the UK.

So I mailed in my passport to Florence. There'sa protocol to follow fot this: to send your passport to the consulate, you have to do it though a special courier service that acts as an intermediate between you and the consulate. It's supposed to be fast, safe and expensive. It was all of those, in the Italian style (that is, not excessively fast). The week after I sent my passport to the courier, they confirmed the passport was already in the consulate. The day after, however, I got the following email from the consulate:

If you're still interested in the visa, you need to send us your passport.

Complete panic: the consulate had lost my passport! I wrote back immediately explaining the case, and asking for confirmation on the courier's information. Long hours waiting for a reply. It finally arrived and it was something like

Oh, yes, here it is. Sorry about that.

This week I finally got my passport back. And I got a visa that is useful in the future! All I need now is a paper in a top research conference, again. Very unlikely, I am afraid.

It is very important that I actually use the visa I was granted. It turns out that, if I don't do it, the visa won't get easily renewed. Then any given consular officer could be tempted to ask someone in Washington whether or not I deserve a renewal.