Homeboy walks off the plane from Taiwan at San Francisco International
\nAirport, waits in line and hands me his passport, I-94 and Customs
\nDeclaration. He looks like a middle-aged middle manager. I look at his
\npassport – it’s from Taiwan – and think “another business traveler for
\nnine days”. I run his name and don’t come up with anything interesting in
\nthe computer.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n“Why are you coming to the United States,” I ask.<\/p>\n
\n“I’m going on vacation.”<\/p>\n
\n“For how long will you be in the U.S.?”<\/p>\n
\n“Five months.” That a hell of a vacation.<\/p>\n
\n“Do you have family in the United States.”<\/p>\n
\n“No.” <\/p>\n
\n“When was the last time you came to the U.S.?”<\/p>\n
\n“Five months ago.” <\/p>\n
\n“Why did you come last time?”<\/p>\n
\n“I was on vacation.”<\/p>\n
\n“How long did you stay.” <\/p>\n
\n“I don’t remember exactly.” I don’t believe you. <\/p>\n
\nI give him my “don’t give me that noise” look, sigh, look down at his
\npassport and shake my head disappointedly. I flip though his passport
\nreading the stamps. Taiwan is one of those cooperative countries that
\nstamps you going out as well as going in. This makes it easy to tie exits
\nfrom one country to entries in another.
\n“All right, look: You left Taiwan on.. and entered the U.S. on… You left
\nthe U.S on… and entered Taiwan on…” I read his travel dates to him
\nfluently, flipping back and forth through the pages with enough skill to
\nimpress myself. “That a lot of vacation time. Where do you get the money.”
\nIt’s not really a question.<\/p>\n
\n“I work.”<\/p>\n
\n“You work in the United States.” <\/p>\n
\nSilence.<\/p>\n
\n“Do you know that it is a serious crime to lie to a federal officer?”<\/p>\n
\nSilence.<\/p>\n
\n“Each time you enter the U.S. you stay for five months, each time you go
\nto Taiwan you stay for five days. Do you work in the United
\nStates?”<\/p>\n
\nHe sees that the answer is implied. “Yes.”<\/p>\n
\nThank you. I sent him to Secondary as a 7A – immigrant without visa – and
\nthe notation that he had admitted as much on primary.
\n“Go to secondary, please… NEXT passenger!”<\/p>\n
Nobody said anything about it but I checked the computers later. My first
\ncatch.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Homeboy walks off the plane from Taiwan at San Francisco International Airport, waits in line and hands me his passport, I-94 and Customs Declaration. He looks like a middle-aged middle manager. I look at his passport – it’s from Taiwan – and think “another business traveler for nine days”. I […]<\/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":[20,23],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-line","tag-immigration","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","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=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}