Mr. & Mrs. Passports. Visas. Computer: ho-hum. Yaddie yaddie? Yaddie
\nyaddie yaddie. Yaddie? Yaddie Yaddie. Bang Bang Bang Bang. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It’s another day at the office, this time behind the glass at San
\nFrancisco International Airport. Flights come in, flight go out. In comes
\na Mexicana Airlines flight filled with US citizens, Green Card holders and
\nthe occasional Mexican visiting relatives. Routine stuff.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Until ho megirl walks up and gives me a Guatemalan passport. Now, I look at
\nthis passport and think to myself “what the hell is a Guatemalan doing on
\na Mexicana flight?” I mean, Taca I understand, but Mexicana? So she’s got
\nmy curiosity peaked, which is rarely a good sign. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nShe’s approximately mid-fifties and doesn’t look like a candidate for the
\nundocumented worker pool. She says she wants to visit her sisters for two
\nweeks. The passport’s valid and is legit for all I can tell (Guatemala
\nisn’t too big on document security). The visa is valid and appears to be
\nlegit. The computer’s got nothing interesting on her. I ask for her
\ntickets and they makes sense: Guatemala City – Mexico City (two hour
\nlayover) – San Francisco. The dates jive with her story so I guess she’s
\ngot to get here somehow. Bang Bang Bang.<\/p>\n
Up walks homeboy in a blue suit and green tie, looking like he just walked
\nout of a swing music video. …with a Guatemalan passport. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Are you
\nwith her?” <\/p>\n
“No.” Bullshit.<\/p>\n
I turn around and the lady’s gone, but homeboy is still here and he’s
\nmine. The computer’s got nothing interesting, but he’s going to secondary
\nanyway. The passport looks good (but, again, it’s Guatemalan). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n“Do you have another passport?” <\/p>\n
\n“No.” <\/p>\n
\n“Is this your first passport?” <\/p>\n
\n“Yes.”<\/p>\n
\nThere’s only one visa, a multiple-use good for ten years. But the visa’s
\nold and has only been used once. The embassies don’t generally issue
\neither ten year visas or multiple-use visas the first time around, you
\nhave to earn them with good behavior. I don’t have the smoking gun
\nyet.<\/p>\n
See it’s not enough to convey curiosity, I have to give the folks in
\nsecondary enough material that they become suspicious. I want them to
\nthrow his bags around and look at his documents under microscopes and
\nstrange lights.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I ask for his tickets and he gives me a set with a familiar itinerary. The
\nsame one as the previous passenger.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“Did you know that lady?”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n“No.”<\/p>\n
\n“Why do you have her tickets?”<\/p>\n
\n“We bought them at the same place.”<\/p>\n
\n“You have tickets in her name because you bought them at the same
\nstore?”<\/p>\n
\n“Yes.”<\/p>\n
\n“But you don’t know her?”<\/p>\n
\n“No.”<\/p>\n
\nHe get’s the “are you joking or do you actually expect me to believe that
\ncrap” look.<\/p>\n
“Go to Secondary.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Turns out he had perviously entered the U.S. on a single-use visa (no
\nexpired) but had it chemically altered so he could re-enter. It’s kinda a
\nstupid thing to do because he could have gotten a legit one if he’d asked.
\nI’ve been getting congratulations on the catch for three days now.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mr. & Mrs. Passports. Visas. Computer: ho-hum. Yaddie yaddie? Yaddie yaddie yaddie. Yaddie? Yaddie Yaddie. Bang Bang Bang Bang. It’s another day at the office, this time behind the glass at San Francisco International Airport. Flights come in, flight go out. In comes a Mexicana Airlines flight filled with US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[20,37,23],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-line","tag-immigration","tag-mexico","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}