Blue Light Special

This past Friday I went to an Immigration Support Center to have my biometrics taken for my immigration proceeding. Now, the words “biometrics”, and “Immigration Support Center” sound pretty sophisticated, don’t they. Exactly the kind of important sounding bureaucratic mumbo jumbo you would expect from a government agency, right? I understand that most people in the United States are American citizens, and therefore have never dealt with Immigration. So I’m going to clear up a few misconceptions about the system.

Biometrics is just a fancy name for fingerprints and photographs. And frankly, I was a little disappointed. When most people think fingerprints they have this image of a guy in a dark room with one incandescent light bulb hanging from a cord sticking your fingers into a black stamp ink pad and smashing them onto a piece of paper. Unfortunately, it’s nothing like that. They swab your fingers with a little alcohol, then roll them across a little scanner like the one at the supermarket. That’s it. I have to say, it takes all the apprehension and intimidation out of the whole process. I don’t know if that was the intended effect, but it’s a bit of a let down. Where’s the fun in treating people like criminals if you’re not going to intimidating them throughout the process?

The most amusing part of the morning however was arriving at the Immigration Support Center. Right off the top I suspected something was amiss when the letter directed me to appear at the support center in Hammond, Indiana. Can anything good come out of Hammond? Let me save you from hours of racking your brain for an answer – no. But I digress. I pull up to the address listed in the letter, but there is nothing there but a long abandoned K-Mart, across the street from a recently torn-down Burger King. At first I thought there must be some mistake, that I had suddenly developed dyslexia and read the numbers backward. So I decided to circle the block and see if I’d missed a turn somewhere. But as I pulled around behind the old abandoned K-Mart, there, in the far corner of the parking lot was a sign hung over covered aluminum storefront window, which read “Immigration Support Center.” Right there, next to the license branch, part of the old abandoned K-Mart. At that point it all began to make sense. Every immigrant going through the process has to come to this god-forsaken office in the middle of somewhere nobody wants to be. If they all think that this place is representative of the rest of America, maybe they’ll think twice about filing that application.

In all seriousness, why are immigration services located in the back of an abandoned K-Mart? I know times are a little tight with the budget and all, but is it possible that some of the money earmarked for studies about monkey droppings and bridges to nowhere be redirected toward presenting a decent image of this country to people who respect it enough to do things the right way? Maybe what we should do instead of closing K-Marts all over the country, we should simply turn the entire immigration process over to them. K-Mart. Your one-stop immigration shop. Visas in aisle four, passports in aisle six. Oh, and don’t forget our Blue Light Specials. The first twenty-five non-citizens to the flashing blue light receive free permanent resident status, complete with green card (which, oddly enough, is an unsettling shade of pink). Maybe we could get Martha Stewart to redesign all the forms and ship then complete with hand-sewn leather carrying cases.

Immigration – both legal and illegal - is big business these days. And it’s really sad that the face this country has chosen to show to the world is that of triple layer fencing, unmanned drones and the National Guard with automatic weapons trained on the border. As someone who has spent the last twelve years plodding through the system I’m the last person who wants to see others skirt the law and cut in line ahead of me. But there has to be another way for this country to accomplish its goals without turning the country into a fortress and treating human beings like cattle. And somewhere along the way, is it too much to ask that we create some decent facilities in which to welcome (or reject, depending on our mood) those wanting to be part of what we have to offer. Anyone who’s been across the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit has seen the difference between the Canadian Customs building and the U.S. Customs hut. It’s not because Canada has more money – believe me, they don’t. They just seem to give a damn.