Opinion: Crisis at the Border

The surge in Central American children crossing the US-Mexico border over the last nine months has been all over the news, and has revealed some of the best—and worst—of this country. Surely, the increase in the number of children crossing the border has overwhelmed the US Border Patrol, who are far more used to arresting adults running from them than children running toward them, and are, moreover, entirely unequipped to care for and house these children. In many instances, these children have fled horrific gang violence and crushing poverty, and have come to the US in search of parents that they have not seen for most of their lives. This difficult situation has exposed the fault lines in American politics and given opportunities for people across the political spectrum to show their true colors.

The surge of new arrivals has provided fodder for Republican criticisms of President Obama as an “Amnesty President.” The president’s meager administrative measures to provide relief to the undocumented are blamed for fueling rumors that children will get a “permiso” if they can make it to the other side of the Rio Grande. (Calling Obama the “Amnesty President” is, of course, baseless posturing given the hard cold facts that many more people have been deported under the Obama administration than during any of his predecessors’ administrations, notwithstanding recent reports that deportations have actually decreased 20% in the last year compared to the year before).

Read more

Scottish Independence and Immigration

In Scotland's independence referendum this Thursday, a vote yes to secede from the United Kingdom will raise serious questions about Scottish currency, finance, where to base Britain’s fleet of nuclear submarines, the status of Scottish members of UK parliament, BBC television availability (not to mention UK flag design and what to call the rest of Britain) as well as, of course, immigration. 

The Scottish Government says that their "differing demographic and migration needs mean that the current UK immigration system has not supported Scotland’s migration priorities." If independent, the government would be enabled to "develop and operate a controlled, transparent and efficient immigration system that best meets Scotland’s needs and supports our future growth." Two initial issues the Scottish Government would address: a post-study work visa and lowering the current financial maintenance thresholds.

In general, what a yes vote for independence would mean:

  • The Scottish borders would remain open to all EU nationals, as it would be an EU member.
  • A Scottish Asylum Agency would be established to oversee applications.
  • Dungavel Detention Centre in Lanarkshire would be closed and dawn raids would be ended.
  • British citizens resident in Scotland would be Scottish citizens.
  • Citizenship by descent would be available to those whose parent or grandparent qualifies for Scottish citizenship.
  • Dual citizenship with the UK would be permitted.
  • UK passports would be recognised until...expiry.

Yes Scotland points out that all proposed changes would ultimately depend on who was elected in the Scottish Government.

The vote looks to be very close, and the immigrant vote in Scotland may turn out to be crucial. As both the pro-independence and pro-unity supporters campaign hard in these last days, the Queen said Sunday that voters should "'think very carefully about the future.'" James McAvoy doesn't want to divulge which way he will vote because of "career preservation." Sean Connery is for independence since a yes vote will allow "Scotland to develop and enrich its culture" and "compete with the best." Irish-American Stephen Colbert also says yes. Which way will the vote go? Perhaps this cloud has an answer.

UPDATE: The cloud was wrong. Scotland voted no on independence from the United Kingdom.

Charles Simic on American Identity

"Chicago was like a coffee-table edition of the Communist Manifesto, with glossy pictures of lakefront mansions and inner-city slums. On one side you had Michigan Avenue with its swanky hotels and luxury stores and, a few blocks away, the rest of the city wrapped up in smoke where factory workers, their faces covered with grime, waited for buses. An immigrant’s paradise, you might say. Everyone was employed. There were huge factories humming twenty-four hours a day short distances from beautiful beaches where beautiful young couples sat reading Camus and Sartre. I had Swedes, Poles, Germans, Italians, Jews, and blacks for friends, who all took turns trying to explain America to me. Chicago, where I only spent three years, gave me my first American identity."

- Charles Simic, The Paris Review

Killer Heels

Healing Fukushima (Nanohana Heels) by artist and designer Sputniko! with shoe designer Masaya Kushino. Created in response to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster,  the seeds of the flowers on the shoe are known to absorb radioactive substances …

Healing Fukushima (Nanohana Heels) by artist and designer Sputniko! with shoe designer Masaya Kushino. Created in response to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster,  the seeds of the flowers on the shoe are known to absorb radioactive substances from the soil. As one walks, these seeds in the high heel are planted into the ground.

This September's New York Fashion Week is over but high fashion lives on at Brooklyn Museum's new exhibit: Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe. What I learned at this recently-opened exhibit: high heels were first worn by aristocratic men in the sixteenth century; in both East and West high heels were worn by the powerful and wealthy to show prestige and communicate power and to signify their "life of leisure rather than labor"; Salvatore Ferragamo is recognized for inventing the wedge heel; and fashion photographer Steven Klein makes some really interesting films--in his short film, one of six inspired by high heels specifically commissioned for the exhibition, a woman in very expensive high heels walks over the chest and face of an attractive and muscled man who is lying on his back, another woman scrapes the hood of car with her stiletto, and a third uses her very beautiful heels (Manolo Blahnik's, I believe) to stomp on a motorized toy car. Featuring over 160 heels from such designers as Balenciaga, Chanel, Tom Ford, and Marc Jacobs (as well as one of my favorites, surrealistic wool "heel hat" meant to be worn on the head by Elsa Schiaparelli in collaboration with Salvador Dali), the exhibit shows the evolution of the high heel from 17th century Italian chopines made of silk, leather, and wood to Iris van Herpen's 3-D printed heel. Check out the exhibit through February 15, 2015--just follow the sound of high heels clicking on floors coming over the speaker at the exhibit's entrance.

A Site Visit? What the L?

Site visits aren’t just for H-1Bs anymore. At the June 2014 American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Annual Conference in Boston, it was announced that the typical site visits many H-1B employers have grown accustomed to are now being extended to companies who employ L visa holders. (Manny discussed the other issues covered at the conference.) We’ve already heard reports of this phenomenon from some employers and their immigration attorneys.

To give these site visits some context, in 2009 the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) substantially increased investigations of employers who file H-1B petitions. Since they had allotted funds from the $500 fee each employer pays for their new H-1B employee, they ramped up their visits to the H-1B petitioning companies in order to verify the information provided in the H-1B petitions.

Read more

State Department: Huge Fee Increase for Renunciation of US Citizenship

Effective September 12, 2014, the State Department is adjusting the processing fees for certain nonimmigrant and immigrant visa applications, special visa services, and certain citizenship services fees; most dramatically, the fee for renouncing US citizenship is increasing significantly from $450 to $2,350. The reason for these changes, as the US Embassy in London explains, is to reflect the true cost of providing the service:

The Fiscal Year 2012 Cost of Service Model update reflected that documenting a U.S. citizen’s renunciation of citizenship is extremely costly, requiring U.S. consular officers overseas to spend substantial amounts of time to accept, process, and adjudicate cases.  For example, consular officers must confirm that the potential renunciant fully understands and intends the consequences of renunciation, including losing the right to reside in the United States without documentation as an alien. This fee was first introduced in 2010 and was initially set below true cost.

Many are pointing out the huge increase in the renunciation fee coincides with the record number of Americans living abroad who are renouncing their citizenship and a five-year campaign by the Internal Revenue Service to track down tax evasion by Americans hiding money overseas, which has led to "increasingly onerous tax-filing requirements" for "many middle-income Americans living abroad who pay taxes in their host country and say they weren’t trying to dodge U.S. taxes."

On the upside: the fee for E-1, E-2, and E-3 visa applicants is decreasing from $270 to $205.

New York Fashion Week S/S 2015

Alexander Wang "nudged his active-wear aesthetic from hip to haute" resulting in "a few really lovely floor-length silk satin T-shirt dresses" while Altuzarra had a "finale of flowing handkerchief dresses with deep V-necks in impressionist flower prints, the edges trimmed in pearls, that was unexpected." Instead of a traditional runway show, Opening Ceremony had a one-act play called 100% Lost Cotton by Spike Jonze and Jonah Hill that featured the spring ready-to-wear collection while actresses Dree Hemingway and Elle Fanning "conducted an ongoing dialogue about how awful the modeling industry can be."

"I feel pressure to try to--not reinvent--but for our brand to move on, to keep it moving forward," says Vera Wang. To deal with this pressure, she likes to retreat to her private office, a “haven-slash-disco-slash-mental hospital” with orchids arranged by her Feng Shui expert and a crystal from her psychic to bring "love and peace" to her life. Meanwhile, Diane von Furstenberg, whose S/S 2015 collection made use of the black and white gingham checks trending this year, says in her memoir excerpted in Vogue: "Youth is wonderful; it’s exciting because it is the beginning of life. But it is essential to learn from the past and look into the future without resentment."

Writer and museum director Olivier Saillard talks about his show Models Never Talk, which had its world premier during fashion week. Elle captures fashion week street style. Comedian Abbi Crutchfield went to Lincoln Center in a SpongeBob suit. Vogue is live. And: shoe porn.

"Fashion week is chaos," says stylist and blogger Natalie Joos. Also: "I think Fashion week is just an excuse in general to have a party."

White Teeth

“These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started...but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers--who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally housebroken. Who would want to stay? But you have made a devil's pact...it drags you in and suddenly you are unsuitable to return, your children are unrecognizable, you belong nowhere.”

― Zadie Smith, White Teeth