To me - oddly proud member of the above mentioned category -, immigrants are poor indigent or needy people somehow entering Europe or USA to find a job or reach some relative.
In rich Western European's mind immigration is a smooth, neat process involving some lazy immigration office employees and a line of visa-endowed poor people waiting to file their requests.
The nerd or youngest will dare picture poor people sitting in front of a pc monitor in an internet point waiting for the right moment to send all documents via immigration office web portal, but this is already the farthest point our imagination is able to reach. Let's say that it comes very close to science-fiction...
The truth is completely different. Being grown in Schengen safe heaven, we completely forgot what does traveling mean for "normal" human beings. To us, the idea that we could be requested to ask for a Visa is something far from our mind and when it comes to reality usually leaves us quite upset: Who do they think am I? What is all this mess about?
Plus, we never discuss our idea of immigrant as "the poor indigent or needy person" seeking a better life far from war, starving, poverty, etc.
For exemple, we never think about USA citizens as immigrants.
Immigrants have to be poor, otherwise they're just tourist.
Therefore, as my dear friend Federica showed this morning during our coffee chat, it's difficult to accept that our country (I talk about Italy as I don't know how it works for other EU "paradises"- but to be honest I don't think is that different) can be that nasty towards foreigners seeking something else than "pizza pasta e mandolino".
I saw many Americans and Israeli colleagues of mine struggling and falling in harsh depression while dealing with Italian Immigration Office procedures. I saw them throw up their hands in despair trying to decipher baroque Italian legal language. I heard their laments after the umpteenth day off wasted in front of a office's window who never opened, or where an employee confessed his absolute ignorance of their situation (sometimes, of the procedure itself). I assisted to their slow, unavoidable transit to a kind of forced illegality.
I discovered the hard way that Europe hits immigrants because is not able to fight illegals.
Being totally unable to stop illegal clandestines - who per definition are NOT following laws and procedures -, Italian governments (all of them, no right/left difference this time) try to bare their theeth in the only way they know: tighting up general immigration laws and procedures.
The result is easy to guess: legal immigrants (students, professionals, workers or their relatives) are doomed to become illegal, sooner or later.
Standard procedure is the following (more or less, I'm not a specialist): after a long and frustrating process involving tons of forms, stamps and certificates the applicant present his/her request and receives a public statement affirming his status of... applicant. It takes months - sometimes years - for Ministry of Internal Affairs to evaluate the proposal and take a decision, therefore in the meantime the immigrant is considered a "potentially legal immigrate" waiting for formal rocognition of his final status.
Usually, after one year nothing has changed and it's time to renew both the status and the Visa. The latter cannot be renewed without prolongement of the former, and the former cannot be renewed if it's not sure that first request has been formally accepted.
This means that, at the end of the day, if your certificate is not going to be issued before expiration of both Visa and first status request you're illegally staying in the country and you have entered the overcrowded world of illegal clandestines.
At this point, the only choice these people have is the following:
- they come back home waiting for first request to be accepted and start procedure for renewing it from home not knowing exactly when they will be able to re-enter the country (requires trustwothy people eager to sacrifice loads of time and patience for you, plus money for round trip and a very tolerant office manager);
- they stay in the country and hope they'll never have to explain to the Police why Visa has expired and their permission to stay has not been renewed (requires a very flexible law enforcement system - thanks god at least we do usually have it - able to distinguish between personal guilt and system's vacuity).
No comments:
Post a Comment