Russians against the World

US Consulate in Mexico

Being a Russian non-immigrant in the US, I wrote this saga for others like me, so that they learn on my mistakes rather than on their own. The bottom line of the story: DO NOT go to US consulates in Mexico to change your visa status! Or else, you are likely to get screwed like myself and the other four who came along just did.
Originally, I started writing in English in order for this to be localizable by the web search engines, and, I guess, in English I will proceed…

The Pick Up

May-August
Starting a year in advance, you permanently bug your PI's/secretaries/department to process the J-1 visa paperwork for you, so that the petition for your status to be changed is received by the INS before your preceding non-immigrant status expires next spring.

September
You realize that the resistance to the bureaucracy is futile, and there is no way the J-1 paperwork can be done on time for you to remain in status within the US without the necessity to go to a US Consulate abroad.

October
The paperwork is ready at last. An all-American officer at the Office of International Affairs advises you to go to a US consulate at a Mexican border post to get your new status and visa simultaneously. You are assured that it is a safe and routine way of having it done. Especially when switching to such a ridiculous status as J-1. And you will even save the application fee that you would have paid to the INS, had you applied by mail. "What a bargain!" - you think. As you go to sleep, you imagine spacious light hallways of the consulate and bored smiling clerks anxious to help you…

November
The all-American officer at the Office of International Affairs advises you to schedule an appointment at the consulate as late as possible - just before your old status expires, so that the inspectors do not find it suspicious that you do it ahead of time. Besides, this way your new status will expire later than it would have, had you gone right away. "What a great guy this officer is." - you think. "He really cares!"

Early December
You attempt getting information on the border post nearest to your city. Turns out it is in Nuevo Laredo. You surf the web searching for any info on how to arrange an appointment at that location… No directions or guidelines. You manage to find a phone number for that consulate and call to discuss the possibility of an appointment… Operator 1: "No habla Ingles". You are switched to operators 2 … 3…. Finally an English-speaking person tells you that neither any info on the consulate is posted anywhere, nor can it be sent to you. At least she gives you info on how to schedule an appointment. The bad news is that all your dependents, including the kids, must be brought to the appointment too.

Late December
You have spent several weeks calling to the consulate and to the Appointment Scheduling Service trying to coordinate the future steps and to book a time for the appointment. Every new operator you speak to gives you information different from what the previous ones have told you. Each one of them, though, can only offer an appointment for a day sometime during the current week, thus making it impossible for you to plan the trip ahead of time. On top of that, the passport and payment info that you gave them, as well as the available appointment times, keep disappearing and reappearing in their computers as you speak.

January
You give up and schedule the appointment for whatever time they had that week, as the expiration of your status keeps coming closer. Then you find out that to be admitted into the consulate you need to pay an application fee for each attendant, which can only be done in Mexico and only in "Banamex", branches of which apparently are not located anywhere near the consulate. You realize that the appointment time scheduled is too early in the morning for you to make it to the bank first. You call back to the scheduling service requesting the appointment to be re-scheduled for later that day (as you had already booked the hotels and transportation for your trip). Good that you called, as accidentally you find out that your first appointment was for some reason scheduled in Guadalajara instead of Nuevo Laredo. No appointments in Nuevo Laredo are available for reasonable times the day you want anymore. Having learned the specifics of their computers, you call back in 5 minutes and now schedule an appointment for a pretty good time the same day. Hurrah! You find out that the visa reciprocity fee at the embassy can only be paid in cash ("Forget the credit cards!") and only in $20 bills. Oh well… You ask the appointment confirmation to be mailed or faxed to you… "We cannot do it, but do not worry - you are all set". Hmm… You get the address of the consulate, and now the only thing left to do is to find out the bank location. You call the consulate and the scheduling service with this question… "We are not the Information Desk to tell you this". You call all the phone numbers for "Banamex" that you can get a hold of… " No habla Ingles". "All right, we'll just find it out at the spot" - you think.

Getting screwed

ERECTION
You and your four unlucky accomplices make it to the Mexican Border, having almost run out of gas on a gas station-free 3-hour stretch from San Antonio to Laredo. Neither the American nor the Mexican border patrol reacts to you crossing the bridge to Mexico. All right, good going! You look for a taxi to get to the consulate. A group of drivers speaking Spanish surround you and start talking with one another, apparently estimating how much you are worth. OK, whatever.
As the taxi approaches the consulate building, at first you hope that what you see is not it, as you see no American flags. You see THE LINE. A long around-the-corner line. Longer than in Moscow. Tired and hopeless faces of Mexicans. Looking at you as though you are a visitor from outer space. No white people. Armed guards shaping the line. Then you realize that THAT IS IT.
You instantly get a very bad feeling about what is coming to you, but it is too late to back out. You ask the guards for the way to the bank… " No habla Ingles". You ask people in the line… "No habla Ingles". "What are you going to do in the US if you don't habla Ingles?" - you ask yourself. At last, in sign language, someone communicates to you where the closest bank is.

You walk down the streets, feeling yourself somewhere in Siberia - you are just a bridge away from the US, yet in a completely different world that turns its unfriendly peoples' faces, mud-covered cars, and piles of rumble among run-down buildings to you. After a half-hour walk you finally make the payment at the bank, in front of which a group of heavy look/sports pant/leather jacket/golden ring/chain-wearing individuals hags out. Having followed the street survival code you learned back home years ago, you come back and follow the line.

IN

Your turn to enter the slaughterhouse has come. A guard checks the appointment list for your name. Not there. Others in your group… Not there. "Sorry, but you cannot come in without the appointment: re-schedule and come back next week". After a few minutes of arguments, the names are found. Thank god. You are still thrown out, as your appointment is at 11am, whereas it is only 10am at the time. That's Ok - you take this time to fill out applications outside, which you had thought you could have done inside...

You come back and jump the line to the entrance - luckily the guards do not send you back to the end of the line, as they do not know how to say it in English. You are processed to the "customs" - your bags and pockets are inspected. "Food - out, cell phones - out, cameras - out, pocket knifes, keys and coins - out" - you are told. OK, then, where can they be left? We do not know, leave them in the car". But the car is in the US - miles away! "Then we don't know, but you cannot take this inside". But these items are valuable! Isn't there a place to keep these things for a while around here? "No. But maybe outside, at the corner". You shuffle bags around and smuggle cell phones and other major valuables over to those of you who already managed to squeeze in (why did they even bother checking if they do not make sure that nothing goes through?..). The decoy bags are taken outside. You look for anything that looks like a depository for personal belongings "at the corner"… Nothing like that can be seen around. You feel pretty stupid, as you are hiding half of the stuff in the bushes nearby and are talking a non-English-speaking assistant of a bakery next door into keeping the other half for a couple hours.

You come back and jump the line again - looks like the guards are getting used to you doing that… You pass the customs and find out from your wife that the black-and-white photo that she brought for visa is not being accepted by the officers who form the line to go into the next room. She shows them her previous US visa in the passport bearing exactly the same photograph. "Sorry, but here it must be in color". You ask where you could get the goddamn color photo done, and are told the name of the pharmacy down the street. As the Friday's appointment time is coming to its end, you rush to the pharmacy. The manager "No habla Ingles", but it is clear enough by itself that nobody deals with passport photos in that store. You run back; your last hope being for a Polaroid owner making money outside the consulate… All in vain - burritos is the only item being sold in vicinity.

You jump the line again and furiously slam through the customs (with every next time, you are being searched progressively less enthusiastically). You find the bastard who sent you to the get the photo and ask why she sent you to that useless pharmacy and what other places could you have the stupid color photo done at. She is "sorry, but cannot help you". You finally lose your temper and break through to the guard who admits to the next room (so far the first American you see inside) with an ultimatum that you are going in with the photo you got. For some reason, unlike the Mexican officers, he has no problem with it, so onward you go.

INSIDE

As you stand in line to have your documents accepted, you finally get a minute… hour… eternity to observe the come-alongers. The clothes appear to be the only attribute of their identification. An all-jeans cowboy with crocodile leather boot tips reaching out up to his knees. A suit-and-tie-wearing "businessman" with his pants ripped on his butt and the underwear showing. A hair-losing "gigolo" proudly wearing a "New Kids on the Block" jacket (must be a knockout around here) and a huge hairbrush sticking out of his back pocket. The others: hundreds and hundreds of short representatives of the same clone that look virtually identical to one another.

Your documents are accepted and you are photographed (why can't they get the color photo they want done right here?). You are sent to your final destination line for the interview. You realize that the cashier's table in the back of the room is approached by a very small percentage of the people subsequently to their interview with an inspector. It occurs to you that all the others must be rejected. "Poor Mexicans" - you think. "Must be hard for them to find a legal route to the US. On the other hand, does not make much difference to them: if denied a visa, they will come to the US and work illegally anyway".

Your turn comes. Your fate is in the hands of a Mexican-American hybrid that is looking down on you from behind the shield. He immediately does not like the fact that you came in January, whereas your status expires only in March. You explain the time restrictions you have, which are posed by family-related factors. His look displays more and more hostility with every word you say. Finally he gets up, grabs a big book and starts looking for a reason to bust you. He goes through your paperwork - it is in perfect order. At last he exhales and tells you that you do not have enough evidence for strong ties to the home country. Proudly, you show him your mom's testament, which certifies that you inherit an apartment in Russia: something that you had never needed to show to anyone before and that you have kept just in case for an occasion like that. He stares at it for a while… Not good enough: "You need more evidence of property and bank accounts back home". You try your best making him understand that all your pre-US life you and your wife had lived with parents who are still in Russia, and thus own all your property. And that it would be awkward if you did have bank activity back there, having lived in the US for the last 7 years. Your judge puts on an unpleasant smile, tells you that you did not convince him and, before you know it, seals your passports with the rejection stamp.

Your head goes over heals, you realize that you are getting screwed along with the Mexicans, apparently because the inspector hates the idea that some gringo-like alien can get the green light, whereas his brothers and sisters do not. Your last hope is for another inspector, hopefully an American, to re-hear your case. What a mistake. The American comes in a few minutes, and there you are: looking into the eyes of a wrinkled rat that starts shaking and turning yellow, having found out that some Russian wants something else from him, while everyone else walks away unspoken. It strikes you that you are facing a natural-born informer/traffic policemen/IRS inspector holding your passport. You also realize that he feeds by tormenting people like you. He smiles to you, his eyes full of irony, and asks you what it is that you want from him. You politely and carefully explain the situation and ask him what else there is that you could have possibly had brought over in order to make him happy with your documents. "I am the one asking questions here" - he says. "Your only property evidence is your mother's testament: is she alive? Yes? Then you got NOTHING young man! When she dies, you can try your luck with this sheet of paper again. For now - buy yourself a ticket to Moscow and be gone - the specialists there will determine better what to do with you!" Speechless, you are ready to leave. Suddenly, something strikes him, and he, very proud of himself, grabs the seal and stamps a second set of rejection stamps in your passports: " You just had the second interview. Have a nice day now!"

OUT

The door shuts behind you, and you join the other four unlucky travelers. They have been trying to re-enter the building for a while. Turns out that the guard blocking the "interview room/street" border first pretended that he "habla Ingles" when they asked him if they could come out to get some fresh air, and later pretended that he "no habla Ingles" when they tried getting back in. Turns out that your friend that came along to get visas for herself and her son also got busted, even though her status had been approved by the INS. The same American fascist ruled without even looking through the documents: "You are not married? Too bad. There is no way I am giving you a visa, so that you get yourself an American husband and stay". Damn bastard. How can you explain to him that instead of preventing the person from getting into the US (which obviously is his goal), he did just the opposite: locked her in the US legally working, but fearing ever getting out and showing up at the consulate with a ruined passport?

OK, fuck it all. You realize that it is in your best interests to get back past the border while the day is still young, as none of you has a valid US visa. Chances are that the border patrol is either unaware of the law under which you can re-enter the US from Mexico within 30 hours from your departure, or will just like to have his share of fun with you… As you walk back over the bridge above Rio Grande, you see five turtles sitting on a little island in the neutral waters. These shy creatures: two small ones and three bigger ones are the symbol of you and your four fellow failures: two kids and the three parents…

The US border patrol does immediately spot you as a foreigner, despite your reluctance to be stopped and the attempt to walk right through non-inspected, which Mexicans succeed at. You get lucky at least this time: the officer knows his job and lets you in. So much for Mexico, which you will unlikely ever want to come back to. You crash on the bank of the river, open a bottle of Cognac, and let your emotions flow. Let all the police and the border patrol be watching from the bridge: you do not give a shit anymore!

The Dump

Trying to forget about what just happened to you and not to think about what is coming, you take a walk on a Riverwalk in San Antonio later that night. You see shining lights and happy faces all around you. There are lots of Mexicans walking by, but they do not look Mexican. They walk a different walk, talk a different talk and wear different clothes here. But the majority of people are yet unlike them: they are regular average Americans that look like you rather than like the Mexicans around. You are watching two of them: right in front of you. Two typical American males in their late forties. Dressed up in those Polo shirts. Probably making a hundred grand a year. Probably discussing retirement plans. Laid back, they are walking, licking their ice cream cones. And it strikes you all-of-a-sudden that you may look like them, but you will never feel quite like them, as long as you live.

January 2001