Anticipating Customer Requirements

Most folks who require a consular service of any kind, really don’t do it often enough to get good at it.

So it's a good idea to give as much detailed guidance as they can stand, and to be able to call upon vast depths of patience when they have to change their minds, start over, or sort of flail when it comes to completing government forms of any sort.

We get paid to be good at this stuff, they don't. 

re: "State Department: America’s Increasingly Irrelevant Concierge"

Peter Van Buren at We Meant Well ("How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People") leveled a criticism of the Department of State (which reminds me of Amb. Bolton's joke about the UN*).

Money quote(s):

"A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released July 16 shows that overall more than one fourth of all State Department Foreign Service positions are either unfilled or are filled with below-grade employees. What should be staggering news pointing out a crisis in government is in fact barely worth a media mention in that State’s lack of personnel is silently tracking its increasing irrelevance to the United States, sliding into the role of America’s Concierge abroad."

&

"At the senior levels, the alleged leaders of America’s diplomacy, the number is 36 percent vacant or filled with “stretch” assignments, people of lower rank and experience pressed into service. At the crucial midranks, the number is 26 percent. Entry level jobs are at 28 percent, though it is unclear how some of those can be filled with stretch assignments since they are already at the bottom."

CAA had always assumed that the midranks (or midgrades) were where the shortages were the worst, and that the Senior Foreign Service was relatively flush.

I stand corrected.

"In fact though, it is much worse. Within State’s Foreign Service ranks, there exists the Consular Bureau and everyone else. Consular stands quite separate from the other Foreign Service Officers in that Consular employees have very specific worker bee jobs processing passports and visas and are not involved in the “traditional” diplomatic tasks we know and love such as maintaining inter-government relations, writing reports, negotiating treaties, rebuilding Afghanistan and all that. Many of these jobs are filled because they have to be, cash cow that issuing visas is for increasingly foreign tourism dependent third world America. That means broken down by function, it is likely that there are even larger gaps in vacancies in traditional diplomatic roles than even the sad percentages suggest."

The Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is unusual within the Department of State for several reasons.

First, CA is the only functional bureau with effective control of the assignments of an entire "cone" (or "career track" in current parlance) within the Foreign Service.

(A quick primer: The Foreign Service comprises FS generalist officers who are commissioned officers of the U.S. Foreign Service as well as a number of cadres of Foreign Service Specialists who have specific skill sets such as couriers, diplomatic security special agents, physicians, nurses, engineers, office managers, &tc. Within the generalist corps, there are five "cones" or "career tracks" by which each FSO is designated: Political, Economic, Management, Public Diplomacy, and Consular.)

So CA controls which FSOs get those FS jobs, domestic and overseas, which are designated as being Consular. Most of those will go to FSO whose "cone" is Consular, but some will go to FSOs seeking to work outside their own "cone" for whatever reason. Since every FSO spends at least a year (usually more like 2-3) doing consular work during their first two overseas assignments, it's not like they're coming to it cold even if it's not their official career track.

There isn't any other bureau within State which manages to do this for any of the remaining four career tracks, no matter what that bureau's name or responsibilities would suggest.

Second, is money. Mr. Van Buren's suggestion that consular work is a "cash cow" is not without merit. Some years ago a deal was struck whereby much of the money collected in consular fees (such as passport and visa fees) would stay with the Department of State rather than going directly to the Treasury Department's general revenue coffers.

By law, visa and other consular fees are adjusted on a regular basis to reflect the actual costs of providing those services, to the best of State's ability to account for them. But that includes a lot of salaries and other costs that would otherwise have to be included in budget requests and congressional appropriations. Maintaining the Department's ability to keep bringing in those dollars is not an insignificant issue.

"GAO says in its report that “Although the State Department is attempting to compensate by hiring retirees and placing current civil service employees in Foreign Service jobs, it ‘lacks a strategy to fill those gaps.’”

(State has 10,490 Civil Service employees and was only able to convert four employees to the Foreign Service. That’s a 0.03813 percent conversion rate to help bridge the gap, so much for that idea. Want another perspective? Here’s why some Civil Servants might pass on the chance to become FSOs.)."

Linking to The Skeptical Bureaucrat is always a good idea. More web logs should follow suit.

"State’s somnolent response to what should be a crisis call (anyone wish to speculate on what the response might be to a report that the military is understaffed by 36 percent at the senior levels?) tells the tale. It really doesn’t matter, and even State itself knows.

What vibrant it-really-matters institution could persist with staffing gaps over time as gaping as State’s? Seriously friends, if your organization can continue to mumble along with over one out of four slots un/underfilled, that kinda shows that you don’t matter much."

To put this into a more longterm perspective, staffing gaps this significant, if not larger, have existed since at least the end of the Cold War and the Clinton Administration, which bade us all to do more with less. The "Peace Dividend" as it was called.

As I heard K.T. McFarland say on the radio one morning, "you don't do more with less, you do less with less."

State had to come up with the staffing for all those new embassies within the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the Former Soviet Union (FSU). And they had to do it without adding a single new position.

State not only didn't add a single new position, for some years it failed to even hire enough new FSOs to make up for attrition.

So it attrited.

In some years, the Department didn't even administer the Foreign Service Written Examination (FSWE) since it had so many qualified candidates already sitting on their Register, waiting for "The Call."

That started to turn around when Colin Powell was secstate and he got Congress to provide funding for the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI). The DRI was supposed to hire above attrition, to make up for the years of not-particularly-benign neglect.

It was also intended to establish sufficient numbers of FSO above the number of positions needed to be filled that FSOs would be able to complete necessary training (like learning foreign languages) to do their jobs when they got there, without leaving the job positions vacant for too long.

This is known as a "training float."

Of course, 9/11 and the personnel staffing needs of wartime wiped out all that progress, and of the Diplomacy 2.0 follow-on to the DRI.

We're now in "Diplomacy 3.o" and there's no sign that we're all that closer to solving the problem.

"The most obvious sign of State’s irrelevance is the militarization of foreign policy. There really are more military band members than State Department Foreign Service Officers. The whole of the Foreign Service is smaller than the complement aboard one aircraft carrier. Despite the role that foreign affairs has always played in America’s drunken intercourse abroad, the State Department remains a very small part of the pageant. The Transportation Security Administration has about 58,000 employees; the State Department has about 22,000. The Department of Defense (DOD) has nearly 450,000 employees stationed overseas, with 2.5 million more in the US.

At the same time, Congress continues to hack away at State’s budget. The most recent round of bloodletting saw State lose some $8 billion while DOD gained another $5 billion. The found fiver at DOD will hardly be noticed in their overall budget of $671 billion. The $8 billion loss from State’s total of $47 billion will further cripple the organization. The pattern is familiar and has dogged State-DOD throughout the war of terror years. No more taxi vouchers and office supplies for you! What you do get for your money is the militarization of foreign policy." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"(T)he combatant commands are already the putative epicenters for security, diplomatic, humanitarian and commercial affairs in their regions. Local leaders receive them as powerful heads of state, with motorcades, honor guards and ceremonial feats. Their radiance obscures everything in its midst, including the authority of US ambassadors."

Combatant commanders (who used to be called "commanders-in-chief" until a stop was put to it; there can be only one CINC, after all) have a lot more money, people, and other resources than any single U.S. ambassador is likely, ever, to have on tap.

That matters.

Officially, a U.S. ambassador is the personal representative of the president and, in the country to which he (or she) is accredited ranks as the equivalent of a four-star general (or admiral).

Of course, the combatant commanders, who are four-star generals (and admirals) have that rank no matter where they may go.

"The increasing role of the military in America’s foreign relations sidelines State. The most likely American for a foreigner to encounter in most parts of the world now, for better or worse, carries a weapon and drives a tank."

That's why he's called the "strategic corporal."

"Lop off a quarter or so of the Foreign Service for Consular work, which hums by more or less independent of the rest of the State Department.

That leaves for the understaffed Department of State pretty much only the role of concierge. America’s VIPs and wanna be VIPs need their hands held, their security arranged, their motorcades organized and their Congressional visits’ hotels and receptions handled, all tasks that falls squarely on the Department of State and its embassies abroad. “Supporting” CODELS (Congressional Delegations’ visits to foreign lands) is a right of passage for State Department employees, and every Foreign Service Officer has his/her war stories to tell."

Consular work is one of the State Department's core missions, looking after the interests of our U.S. citizens abroad. So it's not something one needs to be apologizing after.

And CAA could tell you about the gang of drunken congressmen who poured off of their VIP flight..... but he won't.

_____

* Amb. Bolton's joke: "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference"

7/18

"some ideas on where the line is"

Newly-hired FSO McKeatings of All Aboard the Crazy Bus ("a just-joined Foreign Service family working through a new career and taking care of our family of five plus pets") answered my question of last week (Q: "Anybody know which number A-100 class this is?". A: "We are, for now, the 'Cheerful Members of the 168th' ".) and posed another:

"I started a blog and then we had our first ISSO briefing that more or less told us to stop it and then a briefing by the AS for PD who told us to use social media. Can you help a fellow CONS officer with some ideas on where the line is?"

This question has come up a few times before.

But in addition to re-heating the same old hash, I figured it was time for something of an update:

"Since that advice dates from JANUARY 2, 2009, here're a few thoughts for the new decade.

1. Obviously, the new administration came (and I still have my job). So far, so good.

2. Social media is definitely something you need to be comfortable using as an FSO these days. When you get to post, if your embassy doesn't already have a web page and a Facebook page (relatively few posts now, I think), get one started.

(Interjection: I shouldn't have to say this, but I will. One does not simply walk into starting a blog or web page for your post. The wheel having already been invented, there are policies and procedures in place for this already so don't go off half-cocked. Impetuousness is not one of the cardinal virtues of a diplomat.)

3. Consular officers should be especially proactive in terms of using social media such as Facebook to maximize information saturation and message dissemination when it comes to things in the consular bailiwick, whether they be things like Travel Warnings/Advisories or changes to your operating hours or holiday schedules for consular services and contact information.

Most of that stuff goes through a clearance process in-house so there shouldn't be any issues about using social media to push it out to your readers/visitors.

3. For reasons of safety/security, don't publicize your own travel/movements or those of family members or staff. I shouldn't _have_ to say that, but I will anyway.

Afterwords, put up all the (tasteful) pictures and such that you like.

Of course, if you're trying to advertise, for instance, a public event like an Amcit town hall meeting or something, then you're going to announce that; but that's the exception to the rule.

4. Use common sense. Drunken party pictures of yourself, other diplomats, &tc., don't exactly cover the Foreign Service with glory. While these things can happen (and pictures can get taken) don't be the knucklehead who puts them on their blog.

5. Keep using common sense. Writing embarrassing things about your country-of-assignment might not be helpful in terms to enabling you to accomplish your job in that country.

I'm not telling you to lie, and I'm certainly not telling you not to "tell it like it is" about the "facts on the ground" when it comes to your reporting cables back to D.C. In fact, reporting cables are _exactly_ where that stuff should be written. It's what they/we pay you to do, in fact.

6. Use some more common sense. Never discuss ongoing classified or sensitive matters within your cognizance. Declassification dates exist for a reason.

Best of luck in your new careers, 168th!"

Vaya con Dios!

re: "FCO Consular Work: Helping Yourself"

Charles Crawford at Blogoir (" A digital hybrid of blog and memoir presented on a daily basis, or not.") had kind words for a speech by UK Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Money quote(s):

"Here is what appears to be the first-ever speech by a UK Foreign Secretary (maybe the first-ever speech by any Foreign Minister) on consular work. And v effective it is too.

I have written here about some aspects of consular work under Labour, not least the appalling Three Ps which Ambassadors were ordered to emote at every opportunity"

He had written:

"If more than a handful of British citizens look to have been involved in a 'serious incident' (Note: defined at a very low level, eg a motorway car pile-up with say five deaths) the Ambassador personally is expected to drop everything (CAP reform, Climate Change, Terrorism) and go straight to the scene."

Seems more like public relations than anything actually useful; and doesn't exactly send the message that the regular consular staff are to be trusted, would it?

"Is not there something wrong here? Namely a complete loss of proportion?

Hundreds of thousands of British people travel in different parts of the world every day. Just by the forces of Bad Luck a tiny number will hit trouble, of whom a small proportion alas will get killed or injured.

Of those, a proportion will have suffered because they themselves messed up in one way or the other (not least ignoring FCO warnings).

Of these, some of them or their relatives will rush to whinge to the media about the FCO support they received, merely to assuage their own incompetence or guilt.

That's how it is."

Lots of folks run into misadventure or plain bad luck overseas. Just like they do at home, in fact. I used to tell visitors to a certain tropical holiday destination that they were no more in danger (or out of it) than they were at home, but the hazards took different forms than they were used to, so to take due care.

"(T)he effort and sheer ingenuity devoted to consular work by the FCO are in fact world class. Imaginative use of IT is combined with smart organisation at HQ and at posts to deliver a service going far beyond what most other countries aim for, let alone deliver. Labour did a lot to boost the whole operation following mixed experiences in dealing with the ghastly Bali Bombing.

As always countries share consular responsibilities on an ad hoc basis. Here the Foreign Secretary tells the European Union not to mission creep its way into this policy/operational area, although one might ask quite why this stern warning makes sense: if we coordinate so many other areas of policy work with EU partners, why not this one?

For us consular services will always remain a national responsibility. Within the European Union, there is no role for EU institutions in defining the consular assistance that Member States should provide to their citizens, or in providing frontline consular assistance. These are matters for which national governments are accountable to their Parliaments and we will oppose EU competence creep in this area."

CAA's experience with British (and Canadian) consular folks has been uniformly positive. They share the same attitude that U.S. consular officials have about their primary mission of looking after our overseas citizens.

"(H)e adds some knockabout examples of the exotic expectations which some people have about what service HMG might reasonably offer. My own best example as Resident Clerk was someone calling the FCO from Texas in the middle of the night UK-time to ask about the rules for importing pets into the UK.

However, he might have been firmer on the subject of people who rush to the media to make high-profile complaints which the media lovingly endorse. Yes. some complaints will be justified, although they need to be set against the many letters of praise and gratitude. But others will be ridiculous and annoying, frothing up private unreasonableness to make a stupid selfish noise.

It also needs to be remembered that sometimes consular officials go far beyond any normal call of duty. Back in Belgrade in the early 1980s an Embassy officer had to deal with a terrible road accident involving a British family. Somehow the victim survived in a Yugoslav hospital, but the Embassy colleague kindly housed the distressed spouse for a couple of weeks as treatment continued until the injured person could be shipped back to UK."

Just to be clear, CAA's experience with consular training was that under no circumstances were we to take our "customers" into our own homes, for reasons of liability if no other.

More usually, consular officials will have good relationships with local hotels or shelters where something can be worked out for our citizen's particular circumstances. And I would take every opportunity to laud certain "corporate good citizens" for their support of American citizens in need.

"(N)ote in this speech a new and very welcome adjective, all the more welcome for being so wildly unexpected - courageous:

We need courageous people, who will travel to disaster areas, comfort the victims of violent crime and comb hospitals and morgues when our nationals are injured or killed overseas.

Blimey. Whatever next?"

Hmmm. "(C)ourageous." We don't usually think about it in those terms, but it's true to a certain extent. We just do what we think our duties require, and hope it's enough. That being said, whenever CAA has to visit a morgue when about his consular business, there's a certain amount of mental loin-girding that takes place beforehand.

4/4

re: "No mother-in-law evictions for consular officials"

Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("an obsessive compulsive observer, diplomatic watcher, and opinionator who monitors the goings on at ‘Foggy-Bottom’ (i.e. the State Department) and the “worldwide available” universe from Albania to Zimbabwe") relayed a blast of reality from our neighbors to the north.

Money quote(s):

"The Canadian Minister of State of Foreign Affairs recently issued areminder to Canadians traveling overseas on the importance of careful planning for safe travel and what consular officials can and cannot do"

Reminders of this sort can't possibly be disseminated often (or widely) enough.

"An excellent reminder, not at all different from what American consular officials can and cannot do for Americans overseas."

In bizarro-world, the embassy would send consular officers out to place mints on the pillows of all our expatriat fellow-citizens, would have aircraft carrier task forces (like in Jurassic Park!) on speed-dial, helicopters in our motor pool, and enough U.S. Marines without otherwise gainful employment to send them out for, er, domestic conflict resolution.

The essentials (of what the Canadian consular officials can do or not do):

"“Consular Officials CAN:

Provide advice and information for medical services.
Contact relatives or friends when you need serious help.
Provide sources of information for local laws and customs.
Replace lost or stolen passports.

“Consular Officials CANNOT:

Ask your mother-in-law to leave your house.
Purchase tickets for a musical or entertainment event.
Settle disputes between you and your partner."

It's not that consular officials don't love dogs; we do. It's just that we're not actually an international concierge service.

1/3

re: "What the Immigration Debate Needs Is -- More Discrimination"

Dafydd at Big Lizards ("Please enjoy the blog while you wait with breathless breath and baited hook for the rest of this fershlugginer web site.") had a reasonable enough suggestion.

Money quote(s):

"I mean that quite literally: We need to discriminate between different classes of illegal alien.

Patterico has for some time pushed -- desultorily, to be sure -- a welcome policy suggestion; he calls on the feds to "deport the criminals first."

No, he's not saying that, since all illegal aliens are by definition "criminal," we should deport them all immediately; by contrast, Patterico says that there already is a subgroup, within the larger group of illegal aliens, comprising those illegals who commit crimes apart from the crime of being here illegally (and its associated crimes of document fraud and such)... and that we should focus first on deporting those who come to this country in order to live a criminal livestyle.." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

This idea has much to commend it; such as The Principle of Low-Hanging Fruit.

Which is to say that criminals, being that class of people prone to commit criminal acts, are more prone (than the merely law-abiding) to come to the attention of law enforcement, whereupon their illegal alien status can come to light and be addressed by our immigration enforcement apparatus.

(So midnight raids and the sorts of police-state actions that alarm the citizenry are unnecessary to implement this kind of program.)

"It makes a lot of sense, and it's a perfect example of discrimination: Patterico discriminates between illegals who want to try to fit into and contribute to American society, and illegals who see America as a vast piggy bank to be looted, abused, and despoiled." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

This also serves as an exemplar of both The Principle of Low-Hanging Fruit and The Principle of Self-Defense, plus The Principle of Practicality. While more-or-less law-abiding (leaving aside their immigration violations) illegal immigrants aren't to be encouraged, it's just good sense to prioritize or, as Dafydd says, discriminate between the two classes of illegal aliens.

"I hereby initiate my own program that I believe complements Patterico's pontification noted above. He says, "deport the criminals first;" I say, legalize the most innocent first.

Who are the most innocent of all illegal aliens? Those who were brought here as little children, too young even to understand what a national border is or what it means to cross without permission, let alone mature enough to consent in an informed way to illegal entry. Such innocents need a name, so let us call them "unwitting aliens," UA -- they illegally entered the U.S. without their own consent or even knowledge.

(Do you want to call it amnesty? I don't mind; I don't even care. Does anybody deserve amnesty more than a person who never even committed the crime of which he stands convicted, since he was a little kid when it happened?)

There are a great many such UAs, in raw numbers; and for nearly all of them, the United States is literally the only country they have ever known. They grew up here, went to school here, made friends and enemies here; they are completely assimilated into American society; they think of themselves as Americans; they have no recollection of having lived in Mexico or Argentina or El Salvador; and likely in quite a lot of cases, they don't even speak Spanish or Portuguese. Their parents may have falsely told them all their lives that they were born in the United States; they may even have shown the UAs a false American birth certificate.

Should we really tell these kids that they don't deserve in-state tuition, even if they have lived in one American state all their conscious life, because they're criminals? Do we want these young men and women to be forever barred from living legally in the only home they remember, the only country to which they feel loyalty, unable to establish residency anywhere in that country because of something their parents did when the UAs were still infants? Do we for God's sake want to deport these very American "illegals?" Deport them to where -- a country they cannot even remember, whose citizens speak a language the unwitting aliens might not even know?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Dafydd raises several excellent points as well as asking some (possibly) rhetorical questions along the way. I'll address them in damnall order:

1. "Who are the most innocent of all illegal aliens? Those who were brought here as little children, too young even to understand what a national border is or what it means to cross without permission, let alone mature enough to consent in an informed way to illegal entry."

Question asked and answered, with enough justification that he makes it stick. The consular officer in me wants to ask though, how old? Where are we going to draw the line, specifically, because if implemented, some person on our side is actually going to need guidance and a legal basis and authority to make a hard and permanent decision that's going to have a decisive impact on another person's entire life.

2. "Such innocents need a name, so let us call them "unwitting aliens," UA -- they illegally entered the U.S. without their own consent or even knowledge.".

The use of the term "unwitting" appeals to former counterintelligence professional who lurks just below CAA's surface, since "witting" and "unwitting" are CI terms of art having very long standing.

3. "Do you want to call it amnesty? I don't mind; I don't even care. Does anybody deserve amnesty more than a person who never even committed the crime of which he stands convicted, since he was a little kid when it happened?"

In consular work, unlawful presence by a minor (under age 18) doesn't count in terms of constituting a visa ineligibility. That is, if someone walks up to the visa interview window at a U.S. consular section and applies for a U.S. visa, none of their unlawful presence (if any) prior to their 18th birthday counts as an automatic visa ineligibility. Unlawful presence that counts begins acruing on their 18th birthday, and an automatic visa ineligibility doesn't trigger until six months of unlawful presence are achieved.

Now, the fact that someone lived in the U.S. illegally as a minor and, presumably, may have strong ties in the U.S. (and, presumably, correspondingly weak ties in their county of citizenship) are certainly factors that a consular officer has to (and will) consider in terms of evaluating that former illegal alien minor in terms of their being a likely visa overstay. And that will get them a visa refusal under INA Sec. 214b.

But it's not automatic; it's based on the interviewing (and adjudicating) officer's best judgment considering the totality of the visa applicant's circumstances. So it can go either way. CAA has encountered more than one of these situations himself and made visa decisions each way.

Frankly, CAA has tended to be favorably impressed by young persons who, upon reaching age 18 as illegal aliens in the U.S., made sure to leave the U.S. before acquiring six months of unlawful presence as an adult. They took the trouble to learn the law and, as legal adults, comply with it.

(As a general rule, consular officers are inclined to view positively those instances where someone takes the trouble to comply with our sometimes opaque or arbitrary immigration law. That sort of law-abiding behavior is to be encouraged.)

This also can cut the other way; encountering those sorts of responsible acts by former illegal aliens has made CAA much less patient and understanding when he encounters someone who didn't hie themselves out of the U.S. before reaching the age of 18 and six months, but stuck around until they themselves ran into trouble and found themselves deported.

4. "There are a great many such UAs, in raw numbers; and for nearly all of them, the United States is literally the only country they have ever known. They grew up here, went to school here, made friends and enemies here; they are completely assimilated into American society; they think of themselves as Americans"

This the part that pulls your heartstrings, assuming you still have them. And most consular officers still do.

(CAA must be excepted from those ranks since he has no personal feelings on any subject. Okay, that's a lie.)

They say that most FSOs come into the Foreign Service with a fairly (politically) liberal outlook, and that after doing their first consular assignment, particularly visa work, they're still liberals, but not when it comes to illegal immigration.

(They are always saying things.)

I don't know if that's wholly true, but I do think that nobody joins the Foreign Service because they hate foreigners, because they're xenophobic and don't like other countries. Since we're all volunteers in this profession, we're a group self-selected to be at least interested in foreign countries, and at least respectful of other cultures and peoples.

Of course, a year or so of having people lie to you, bold-faced and un-embarrassed, every single day of visa work can tend to wear on one; plus, working on the implementation side of U.S. immigration law does at least produce someone who's become educated about the issues and implications of illegal immigration.

My second point (and I do have one) is about the nature and essence of citizenship.

Citizenship is like unto love and marriage; everyone thinks they know what they are but definitions are hard to pin down and there's a broad spectrum of them.

Consular officers have to implement the laws and regulations as they're written (and not as they would have written them themselves). That means we don't have discretion about facts and rules; our only areas of discretion are in areas where we are required to exercise judgment, as in when making adjudications.

So if the 14th Amendment and the relevant portions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) lay out the definitions of U.S. citizenship in lawyerly and orderly fashion, then those are the criteria we have to use. And we don't have discretion in terms of extending the privileges of citizenship (and I'm talking specifically about the right to reside within U.S. territory) to people who feel American.

That being said, I think that our Founding Fathers, the Framers, and even our congressional legislators today understand that citizenship, if it means anything at all beyond residential permission or preferences, involves a personal attachment beneath purely legalism. This goes under the heading of allegiance, which is a personal attachment or feeling that goes beyond the simply rational and enters the realm of the mystical and spiritual.

So forgive me if I don't get too upset about establishing a "path to citizenship" for persons who grew up in the same country I did and love it just like I do. Rules (and laws) aren't written to be broken, but some laws were just written to be amended.

Which brings be to this:

5. "Should we really tell these kids that they don't deserve in-state tuition, even if they have lived in one American state all their conscious life, because they're criminals? Do we want these young men and women to be forever barred from living legally in the only home they remember, the only country to which they feel loyalty, unable to establish residency anywhere in that country because of something their parents did when the UAs were still infants? Do we for God's sake want to deport these very American "illegals?""

Minor children can't be criminals because they're minors, unless a court says otherwise. This is where Dafydd goes a bit off the beam; illegal alien children don't generally get charged tuition until they're old enough (i.e., no longer children or "kids") to attend tertiary institutions such as universities or community colleges.

As I discussed in my "3." above, once illegal alien children reach age 18 they're legal adults (at least for purposes of this discussion) and thus responsible for their own actions and immigration violations.

That being said, the topic of in-state tuition for illegal aliens is muddied by the competing notions of resident status within states and that of legal (or illegal) residence in the U.S. as a whole. These are separate concepts, and under our federal system each state gets to decide not only who qualifies for "residence" within that state but who qualifies for "in-state" tuition for that state's public (i.e., state-funded) universities.

States are free to decide that persons who are unlawfully in the U.S. but physically residing in their state deserve (or don't deserve) to receive the benefit of reduced university or college tuition, presumably since they pay taxes in the state in which they physically reside. But there may be a political cost to individual politicians in those states (such as governors or legislators) who chose to take that stance.

(They knew the job was dangerous when they took it.)

"Most American family courts, in the case of divorce, will take the ages of the children into consideration when determining custody; when a child is deemed old enough to make an informed decision, he can decide whether to live with the father, the mother, or under some joint custody plan. Certainly any adult child (over the age of eighteen) can freely decide whether to live with one of his parents or move into his own place.

I call for the same sort of program for unwitting aliens as we have for the children of divorce: If a UA's parents are discovered and ordered deported, and if the UA is deemed old enough to give informed consent, he should be allowed to freely choose which country he will live in; and we should grant him permanent residency in the United States, if that's what he chooses.

That doesn't mean his parents get to stay as well; if they're subject to deportation, they're still subject to deportation. The UA can be raised by a legally resident relative, or in the extreme case, can be made a ward of the court and sent either to a foster home or adopted out. But any good parent should want the best for his child, correct?

If a UA comes to the authorities' attention by some other means -- say by applying for university and claiming, in all innocence, the in-state tuition of the local state university -- then the same applies: He is told that he is an unwitting alien and that he must choose.

In either case, once obtaining permanent residency, he is eligible to work towards citizenship, just as would be any other legal permanent resident.

(If such a law is passed, and a reasonable period of time elapses -- time for people to understand the system -- then UAs who don't apply for residency but instead take criminal steps to conceal their alien nationality should lose their UA status; they are no longer "unwitting;" they have become co-conspirators with their parents.)" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

It's a thought. What do you think?.

10/2

re: "Perry Bills Feds for Illegal Immigration"

Patterico at Patterico's Pontifications ("Harangues that Just Make Sense") seconded Gov. Perry's question.

Money quote(s):

"From California’a Prop. 187 to Arizona’s more recent laws, the federal government is forever fighting state laws that regulate illegal immigration, arguing that controlling immigration is a purely federal responsibility.

So when the federal government fails to discharge that responsibility, why should the financial consequences of that failure fall on the border states?"

CAA is just a poor (but honest) consular officer.

Like many in that line of work, considering the many hours of my life devoted to implementing the Department of State's side of the legal immigration (and non-immigration) equation, I find it absolutely maddening when read about how some on the other side of that equation just throw up their hands and simply fail to carry out their professional responsibilities with regards to immigration.

Is the oath-of-office sworn by these federal employees in any way demonstrably different from the one FSOs swear?

8/27

re: "Ten Things You Should Know About the State Department and USAID"

Thomas R. Nides, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, at DipNote ("U.S. Department of State Official Blog") had a good piece about things you likely don't know.

Money quote(s):

"Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates used to say that the Department of Defense has as many people in military bands as the State Department has in the Foreign Service."

The other sound bite factoid is that the DoD has more lawyers than the State Department has diplomats. I've never seen anyone even attempt to dispute either statement.

"2. We support American citizens abroad. In the past eight months, we provided emergency assistance to, or helped coordinate travel to safe locations for, American citizens in Japan, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Cote d'Ivoire in the wake of natural disasters or civil unrest. Last year, we assisted in 11,000 international adoptions and worked on over 1,100 new child abduction cases -- resulting in the return of 485 American children."

I was going to follow this up with an excerpt from the State Department's "mission statement" that presents consular activities such as protecting-Americans-abroad as one of the core missions of the Department, but all I can currently find is some blather from the Bureau of Resource Management about "Shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere."

Huh? (Which is to say: OFFS! WTF?)

(Okay: where did the real mission statement go? I've seen it before.... )

At least CA still has a real mission statement:

"The mission of the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is to protect the lives and interests of American citizens abroad and to strengthen the security of United States borders through the vigilant adjudication of visas and passports. CA contributes significantly to the USG goal of promoting international exchange and understanding. Our vision is to help American citizens engage the world. The Bureau issues the travel documents that allow Americans to travel the globe and lawful immigrants and visitors to travel to America and provides essential cycle of life services to American citizens overseas."

D/S Nides continued:

"9. We help Americans see the world. In 2010, we issued 14 million passports for Americans to travel abroad. We facilitate the lawful travel of students, tourists and business people, including issuing more than 700,000 visas for foreign students to study in the U.S. last year. And, if a storm could disrupt your vacation plans or if you could get sick from drinking the water, we alert you through our travel warnings."

Yeah. Stuff like that. Facilitate legitimate travel. Provide accurate and timely travel information and cautions. Get some.

"10. We are the face of America overseas. Our diplomats, development experts, and the programs they implement are the source of American leadership around the world. They are the embodiments of our American values abroad. They are a force for good in the world."

Development experts.... Sadly, D/S Nides' statement continues the conflation and assimilation of State and USAID. CAA remains wholly unconvinced that this is all that great a good idea.

That being said, U.S. diplomats serving at our far-flung embassies, consulate, and other missions abroad are often the first, if not the only, representatives of either/both the U.S. government or the American people who most non-Americans abroad will ever encounter in person.

And our powers should only be used for good.

D/S Nides concluded:

"All of this (and more) costs the American taxpayer about one percent of the overall federal budget. That is a small investment that yields a large return by advancing our national security, promoting our economic interests, and reaffirming our country's exceptional role in the world."

It's a truism (or "truthism") that most American citizens have a vast overestimation of just how much of the federal budget goes to either diplomacy or to foreign aid. Even when you throw in what the DoD spends or military aid, it's still a drop in the eye dropper compared to the rest of the "discretionary spending" and "entitlements."

(Oh, and this presumes that there is a budget, something which has not been true for several years now.)

8/26

DIMEFILS

I put the "C" (for "Consular") in DIMEFILS.

re: "Consular Diplomacy"

Japansen at White Waters & Black ("Adventures in Diplomacy aka Life in the Foreign Service") shared some reflections on consular work as diplomacy.

Money quote(s):

"Working in the consular section isn’t the stereotypical image of diplomacy. Many times the work is characterized as drudgery, stamping 100s of visas in a mill in some backwater. Truth is, it’s pretty interesting work, or at least it can be depending on the post."

Much of Foreign Service life hinges upon just this phrase: "depending on the post." It's an awfully big world out there; working and living conditions may vary hugely from one diplomatic assignment to the next.

Japansen correctly labels the "stamplng 100s of visas in a mill in some backwater" image of consular work as stereotypical. To beat this drum just-one-more-time, if all you're doing is "stamping" then you're doing it wrong.

"You have to stay on your toes and think on your feet as you only have a few minutes to figure out if someone is a legitimate candidate, qualified for the visa, or if they aren’t.

But beyond the basic work of adjudicating visas, it is easy to overlook the real diplomatic work that goes on at the window. For a lot of people in the host country, the consular officer is the only American they’ve ever met and their first real interaction with our country. It is important to treat people with dignity, especially when they don’t qualify for a visa."

Japensen is correct, but leaves out an important factor. While each visa applicant must legitimately qualify for a particular category or type of visa, that same applicant must have no visa ineligibilities. This is not a mistake on Japansen's part, more just an angle of perspective; one can certainly think of "has no visa ineligibilities" as being one of the qualifications of a legitimate visa candidate.

That being said, simple politeness and courtesy can go a long way in consular diplomacy. In many places, the average person is simply un-used to interactions with government officials who are polite, courteous, and efficient. That by itself makes a powerful first impression for someone who has never met an American government official before.

"While I see between 40 and 60 people a day, they only see one American and its important that they leave with a good impression that they had my full attention, concern, and consideration."

Forty to sixty non-immigrant visa applicants is a moderately light workload and certainly not in the "visa mill" range of 100+.

This allows a bit more time and consideration per each applicant, which can cut to either their advantage or disadvantage.

"Some countries are part of the visa waiver program and they don’t have to apply for simple visitors visas; they get one automatically at the border when they enter. Japan is like this, for example. You can just show up and get in for 90 days (and the same goes for the Japanese coming to America. But there’s only a handful of countries in this program and it only applies for basic tourist visas; everyone else has to come to the embassy and apply."

Travelers from visa waiver countries have to complete an online form called ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) in advance of their travel. And while this used to be fee-less, it's now seen as a cash cow for the travel advertising industry.

(I kid you not. Visa waiver travelers are being fleeced in order to pay for advertisements to encourage tourism to the U.S.)

"I take a lot of pride in being able to professionally and politely explain to people who don’t qualify for for visas why they have been denied. It’s important that they feel that they were treated fairly and with respect. It’s common sense and common courtesy, really, and I don’t mean to make it out to be more than it is."

This is an important skill. Saying "no" in a firm manner which does not insult or inflame the visa applicant while making it clear that the decision is final.

Explaining how to do this always reminds me of the definition of "Irish Diplomacy;" to wit:

"the ability to tell a man to go to hell so that he looks forward to making the trip."

"It might be my only time working in a consular section (every new Foreign Service officer does it for one of their first two tours; Consular officers do it as their mainstay) and I’m getting the most out of it. I get to meet a lot of people, get to grant a lot of joy and happiness, and have to be considerate when that joy and happiness isn’t forthcoming. You hear a lot of stories too, some of which are pretty amusing. And fundamentally, it’s important work."

8/24

Seasons Greetings

It's Winter. Officially it began this week with the Winter Soltice and Winterset.

Psychically, the holiday season itself seems to begin sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving (holidays themselves, IIRC) with the appearance of Christmas decorations in shopping centers and drugstores.

_____

I'd like to take a moment to wish all of my colleagues and comrades, in uniform and out, military and diplomatic, American and allied, around the world and around the Beltway, a very Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah (as your own consciences guide you).

If Yule or Festivus (or even Kwanza) is your thing, likewise get on with it and have a great one.

(If none of those works for you, well, enjoy some officially-authorized time off anyway.)

_____

As I trawl (not troll) my way around the diplo- and mil-blogospheres, I notice from time to time CAA's presence on more than a few blog rolls and links lists. Like anyone, I appreciate the recognition and hope I will remain (or become?) worthy of it.

I've even noticed CAA's presence on the blog rolls of those who are not yet (but here's hoping!) FSOs. It is to those of you aspiring FSO candidates that I address the following:

First, don't give up. There's no penalty for multiple attempts at passing the various obstacles, er, examinations, which must be overcome in the hiring process. Just do some basic research about how the process works and be realistic about some of the factors, completely out of your control, which may have great influence on whether one is hired (or not) during any given year.

Second, as I alluded above, do your homework. The Department goes to admirable lengths to make lots of information about FS careers and about the hiring process itself on the various career webpages at www.state.gov. An educated applicant is our best candidate.

Third, be realistic about the career. It's not just a job, not just something to put on the resume to fill in the blank between graduate school and whatever you see as your next rung on the career ladder. While it's flattering to know that so many see having been an FSO as quite a feather in their professional cap, it's also a little bit insulting. Old school FSOs know that this is not just a job, it's a profession in which we take quite a bit of old-fashioned pride, it's a vocation to which we are called in service.

Having said that, it's not for everyone, and not necessarily forever. People change, people's goals change, and there's no shame in moving on to something else after a period of honorable service. If nothing else, you can always help to beef up the Foreign Service's eternally slender domestic constituency.

To go along with that, understand (as most of you do, I hope) that when they say "worldwide availability" they're not kidding. Only a slender few (and you know who you are) manage to get on the London-Paris-Rome-Brussels-Berlin-Vienna circuit as a career path. The great majority of us will labor on at hardship posts around the world, at risk to health (and life and limb), under-serving our children's education, and enjoy our occasional First World or Washington, D.C. assignments as a bit of a treat.

_____

People sometimes ask if I enjoy my work, if it's fun, if it's rewarding, &tc. Yes, but usually not all of those things at the same time.

The most enjoyable and fun things aren't actually the most professionally rewarding parts of the job. The travel opportunities have been unmatched, working for State has gotten me to faraway places to see things that you'd pretty much have to be a National Geographic photographer otherwise. I've met people and even made friends in other cultures, in other languages, that the average tourism traveler never could.

The flip side of that is, all that geographic access and personal contact have very practical applications when an American tourist or expatriat runs into difficulties abroad. When I worked (as hundreds of State Dept. staff and thousands of military personnel did) on the 2006 Lebanon evacuation, not that much of it was fun, although it was the most professional rewarding work I'd done up to that point.

Later on, as I performed American Citizen Services (ACS) work in the Third World, I visited Americans injured in traffic accidents in the hospital, assisted victims of sexual assault get immediate medical care, identified deceased Americans at local morgues, and made next-of-kin death notifications. None of those things are fun. Some of them can be downright traumatic, for all involved. But all of those things were, and are, professionally rewarding in a way that's hard to explain.

Consular officers performing those sorts of tasks are doing necessary, even crucial tasks, on behalf of victims' loved ones back in the U.S., things that have to be done and often done quickly. The family, spouses, or next-of-kin are thousands of miles away or otherwise unavailable, perhaps even victims themselves. So you step up for your countrymen and countrywomen on whose behalf you serve abroad.

That's what I mean by professionally rewarding.

In many cases, a consular officer can't make things better, things are bad and that can't be changed. But where a consular officer earns his (or her) pay on those occasions is by seizing the chance to keep things from getting any worse. And sometimes that's the best that can be done.