/travel/ireland/Being an Immigrant
Today, I was an immigrant.
In Ireland, the term mostly applies to those from a place east of Germany, south of Spain, or west of Alaska. Since people from the "old" EU countries have been able to come and go as they please for a while, they're not really seen as immigrants. Since the so-called accession countries have joined, and many countries opted to not allow them to enter for the first two years. Ireland and the UK didn't, so they've come in droves, and been perceived as immigrants.
So, here's my story for getting my visa renewed.
In any case, my work visa was due up on December 24th. I was contacted by someone at work in October, but decided to delay, since one's passport needs to be valid 3 months beyond the end of the visa. Since my passport expires in October 2007, I decided I wanted to wait until I could get a new passport, so that I could get a full-length visa, rather than one that just ran to July. But since I was going to London in late November, I needed it for that, so I couldn't get a new one yet. The Canadian Embassy's website made reference to a certain amount of flexibility in the face of urgent travel concerns. I assumed this meant they could accelerate the passport application process, but in the end it meant that they could give you papers for a temporary passport.
Since work had told me that my visa application could go in up to the last date that my current date is valid. Obviously I didn't want to leave it quite that tight, so two weeks ago after I'd gotten back from London, I started trying to take care of things. That's when I found out I couldn't in fact get a passport in time -- it takes 15 working days, which left things too tight. So then I started trying to collect everything for the application.
The person who was helping me out at work had pasted me stuff from an Irish Government webpage, but it was neither complete nor concise. Because of this, it took a few tries to get the right stuff to her: copies of my passport's information page plus entry/exit stamps, payslips (to prove I've actually been working where my visa says I have), and a form. And a copy of my GNIB (Garda National Immigration Bureau) card. I couldn't find it last week at work, nor on the weekend at home. This is where things start to go a bit crazier.
Each time you get a new visa, you have to get a new Garda (the Garda are the Irish police force, from local and national policiing to traffic and immigration. They're large, and widely perceived as moderately corrupt and highly insular and resistant to proper internal investigations) immigration card. Since last time I got one, these cards have started costing 100EUR. But I also needed it to take a photocopy to apply for my new visa.
Last time I went to get a Garda card, I took a ticket and sat around for a while, then was called up, went through some form-filling-out, then sat down again, and later someone mangled my name and I went and got the instant-printed card. Not exactly painless, but not bad either.
This time, there was a pre-ticket line. Instead of taking a number, you now stand in a line that's about 15 minutes long with one person serving it, doing a "first pass" to make sure you're there for the right reasons, with the right documentation, etc. Unfortunately, this fellow has the job of telling people they're doing the wrong thing in a byzantine system all day long, so virtually by definition his job satisfaction must suck.
But here, we need to back up. The immigration office is not a pleasant place. I find it intensely stressful -- all the little things that you might have done wrong could get blown out of proportion here. More than anyone else you hand your passport to, these people are likely to try to keep it, or give you a really hard time. It's full of people who don't want to be there, most of whom are, like me, honest people doing good things for Ireland. It's not even clear to me why all that stuff is necessary. In a free-capital world, why should my personal capital be restricted?
So, I made it to the front of the line. The guy is sitting behind a glass panel, with a little slidy-slot thing for passing papers back and forth. He's virtually inaudible through the glass; I had great sympathy for all the people there who didn't speak English first. I tried to explain my situation as he looked up my information on his computer. He was immediately irate, asking why I had waited so long to apply. I explained that my employer had told me there was no rush, and he looked exasperated. And then I want on to why I was there -- I sorta needed a new Garda card to take a copy of it to apply for a new visa, for which I would need a new Garda card in a few weeks when the application came through.
He responded tersely that, in order to get a new Garda card, I'd need a letter from my employer explaining that they had applied for a new Visa. I said that they couldn't do that until I had a Garda card that I could copy. Then he said he couldn't do anything about it until I had filed a lost-property report with my local Garda station. I said I didn't know where that was, he asked where I lived and told me where the nearest one. Off I went, a bit frustrated, but not too bad, since things seemed to be progressing.
My local Garda station is the Kevin Street station, which I now know is "a big one." I spotted it only by the large Garda van in its characteristic white and yellow that was going into the complex. There were few signs, none indicating which entrance might be the visitor's entrance. So I went in the only one I could spot, which seemed awfully unfriendly, and parked my bike -- not locked to anything, for once, given the location -- and went inside. There was a little room with no useful sign, and an inner door that someone was stepping out of. I went in the inner door, and was promptly turned around to the unlabeled waiting room. A minute later, a little wooden window-thing slid open and I explained what I was there for. The Garda asked me to sit down, and so I stood around reading the various posters about depression and racism and rights and Garda policies and driver's licence applications forms in English and Irish. After about 15 minutes, he beckoned me over, and I explained that I had lost mhy card sometime between when I last used it to get in the country after my London trip, and, well, two days ago. At first, he was fixated on the exact time and date that I last had it, but when he realized how long the window was, he seemed to relax about whether it was 9pm or 10pm that my flight had landed. Eventually, he filled out a little proof-of-report form, stamped it, and sent me on my way. My bike was still there.
So I went back to the Immigration office, waited in the pre-line line to get a ticket to get a new Garda card. Now, he seemed to remember me when I got to the front, which was nice. He asked me for the letter from my employer, and I explained that I didn't have one because they hadn't applied for a new visa yet because I couldn't give them a copy of a Garda card that I didn't have. He replied that I couldn't take a copy of a Garda card that I didn't have. At this juncture, I'd like to point out that I don't think this man was dim, but rather that all of the circumstances -- my frustration, his frustration, the system, the glass that sat between us, and the fact that I was on a bad footing because I was applying late -- conspired to make this transaction very difficult.
In any case, I said that was true, and that I'd really rather not get one now and then have to get a new one in a couple weeks. He pointed out that it would only be valid for 12 days, and that wouldn't make a lot of sense to get one now. So he sent me on my way, and said to use a copy of the lost-property report in the stead of the Garda card copy.
So off I went.
If I could wave a magic wand, here are some things I would change:
- Clear signage at the Immigration Bureau entrance, saying what things you might be there for, what you need to have to accomplish them, and where to go to get in line
- No pre-line line. I understand the desire for some kind of triaging, but taking a ticket and sitting down is an immensely more pleasant way to have that happen than standing in a line with lots of other stressed people.
- Ditch the glass. I realize it's there to protect them, but for any serious threat a wire mesh would be just as effective, and a lot less headwrecking to communicate through.
- Big signs at Garda stations, even "big well-known" ones like the Kevin St. ones, indicating the entrance. Once you get inside, it should have a sign indicating what visitors should do. There should be lost proprty forms that you can fill out, rather than waiting to have a Garda fill it out for you.
- The process should be set up to be as unarduous as possible for "honest" types. Because anyone who can effect change in the immigration process is untouched by it (since you don't get to vote nationally until you're a citizen), I don't think it gets a lot of attention other than efforts to catch the "bad" ones.
- The document that my employer sent me needs to be corrected for our particular circumstances. (I'm working to get this done), and the misperception that the deadline is the expiry of the current card needs to be dispelled.
- All of this documentation should be found on the internet when I search for Garda Immigration and click the first link. The search engine is doing the right thing, but the web page is only basically useful.
So that's a brief trip through the troubles of being an immigrant. Who loses things. At bad times. And pushes deadlines. (All of which is to say that I recognize the debacle above was somewhat of my own creation, but, err, still.)
New Albums from the Gallery
/photos/Dublin and Morocco
I posted a bunch more photos recently, from our trip to Morocco and the Sahara and a few
from around Dublin, one of which is
at left -- a shoe left on the street after a stormy Saturday.
/meta/New Server
If you're reading this, something worked.
We changed servers, from OpenHosting to RimuHosting. OpenHosting was not serving all of our needs, and was running on outdated software for virtual servers like ours (A computer that simulates being several computers, so each person perceives having a whole computer to themselves).
OpenHosting had excellent support, however they screwed up a bit at the end, not knowing why we had a port apparently open. This happened to coincide with a misconfiguration of the mailserver that made it look like we had been hacked and were sending spam (in fact, we were sending spam briefly, which really sucks, but entirely because we left the front door open, not 'cause someone snuck in the back one.)
So anyway, now we're on a shiny new server. You shouldn't notice a difference, except that the wiki is down for a bit.
