"You have no rights"

[Lanya]

September 17, 2007
Music Scholar Barred From U.S., but No One Will Tell Her Why
By NINA BERNSTEIN
[..........................]

?Ms. Ghuman said that officers tore up her H-1B visa, which was valid through May 2008, defaced her British passport, and seemed suspicious of everything from her music cassettes to the fact that she had listed Welsh as a language she speaks. A redacted government report about the episode obtained by her lawyer under the Freedom of Information Act erroneously described her as ?Hispanic?.? [?] ?They told me I was nobody, I was nowhere and I had no rights,? she said. ?For the first time, I understood what the deprivation of liberty means.?

[....................]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/nyregion/17musicologist.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[Universe Prince]

[Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College at Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.], who wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the hope of having the visa problem resolved before the music festival, said Ms. Ghuman's case is symptomatic. "This is an example of the xenophobia, incompetence, stupidity and then bureaucratic intransigence that we are up against," he said, also citing the case of a teacher of Arabic at Bard who missed the first weeks of the spring semester this year because of visa problems. "What is at stake is America's pre-eminence as a place of scholarship."

Yep. But who cares? Our government has protected us all from a music scholar who might have taught people about Edward Elgar. Surely this proves how serious the government is about the "war on terror", right?

[Lanya]

This feels like freedom dissolving. 

[Michael Tee]

<<This feels like freedom dissolving.  >>

Unfortunately, Lanya, you ain't seen nuthin yet.

[BT]

This feels like freedom dissolving. 

Sounds more like bureaucratic ineptness.

[Universe Prince]

This feels like freedom dissolving. 

Sounds more like bureaucratic ineptness.

Perhaps, but no doubt to Nalini Ghuman it amounts to the same thing. And I find my sympathies are with her rather than the government on this one.

[BT]

And I find my sympathies are with her rather than the government on this one.

That's understandable. The victim has a name. Hard to be sympathetic to a faceless bureaucracy. 

[Universe Prince]

I'm sure the person (or persons) who deliberately or mistakenly arranged for this woman to be put on the list and kept out of the U.S. has a name (or names) too. I'm less than confident that knowing the name(s) would make me more sympathetic towards the person(s).

[BT]

Depends on why they did it. There are two sides to every story. I think you have only heard one side.

[Universe Prince]

Fair enough. But seeing as how the government, according to the article, seems unwilling to give its side, I can't say my expectations of being more understanding toward the bureaucracy are high.

[BT]

I'm sure eventaully the story will come out. I'm sure there are policies in place so that individual cases are not trumpeted through the press until all the facts are in.

Odds are as was implied a mistake was made.Perhaps she had associated with some radicals at one time or another and the linkage is what got her.

Not that far fetched a concept.

Look how Knute and Mikey have linked the Craig incident with the entire Republican Party.

[Universe Prince]

Good point.

[kimba1]

I`m more inclined to procedural blindness
if the lady did not match the paper work she get rejercted with no recourse to rectify it.
as a civil servent I `ve seen this happen alot.
she should be able to contact somebody to at least try to clear this up without incident
note it did not happen that way.

[Amianthus]

Sounds more like bureaucratic ineptness.

The same bureaucracy that some want to hand our health care responsibilities over to...

[_JS]

I did not realize that we wanted Homeland Security to run healthcare.