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Pass Port
and Green Cards
by Peary Perry |
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I
keep
thinking that sooner or later I’ll run out of things to criticize
the government about. However that does not seem to be the case as
about the time I start to work on some column article about life on
Mars or the importance of tree bark in our lives, along comes some
news blurb out of the blue that I can really sink my teeth into.
If you’ll recall several months ago, the good old United States government
advised us that we could not leave or reenter the country until we
had a valid passport. Obviously they had miscalculated on the number
of people who did not have a valid passport.
You may have witnessed this for yourself; there was a mad rush for
passport photos at your local post office with long lines waiting
to submit their applications. There were stories in the newspapers
about couples trying to leave the country to get married in Italy
or somewhere and they were afraid they weren’t going to be able to
hold the wedding as they had planned.
The response was overwhelming and the government was forced to back
down. The rules were suspended and to be honest I have no idea what
the current rules say or mean. I cannot figure out what documents
you have to have to leave the country and then be able to return.
If you want to look them up for yourself, have at it, the website
is: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2223.html. Put a _
between the cbpmc and the 2223, it would not allow me to do so on
my computer. The government must put it in there to confuse us. I
can’t understand what they are saying; it looks to me as if you only
need a passport if you are traveling by air to the Caribbean area,
but not if you are going to the Middle East and back. Look for yourself
and let me know what you think, it’s confusing to me exactly what
they want or how we can comply. One more thing, just what is a passport
card anyway?
Well,
that leads me into my next foray into the mysteries of the United
States government. It seems the applications for ‘green cards’ have
overwhelmed the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service
department. They report that over 300,000 people are now waiting for
the agency to finish up reviewing their applications. Some of the
applicants have been waiting over seven years. The agency sends the
applications to the FBI to perform what is known as a ‘name check’
which has to be completed before the ‘green card’ is officially issued
to the applicant. The FBI states that it receives more than 70,000
requests each week with over half of these coming from the Immigration
Department. The FBI says it can’t handle the volume due to staffing
shortages.
So, what’s the answer? Well, the immigration service says they are
going to just go ahead and issue the cards anyway and worry about
the results later. One of their spokesmen made the statement that
if the FBI later finds out the applicant isn’t a good person or should
not be allowed into the country, then the Immigrations service can
always deport them later.
Sure, and I’m thinking the NBA is going to call me and draft me as
a forward for the Lakers just any time now. Not going to happen.
I’m certain any ‘green card’ holder intent upon creating havoc in
this country is going to sit at home and wait for the FBI or the Immigration
service to knock on his front door and gently persuade him or her
to leave the country quietly. If the government can’t find them now,
what makes them think they can find them later?
In your dreams.
You know, what bothers me is this…look at that figure I gave you a
moment ago of 70,000 new names being given to the FBI on a weekly
basis. That’s a total of 10,000 each day or 416 per hour on a twenty
four hour period. That’s 6.93 per minute that need to be checked…..now
let’s say it takes 2 minutes to check each one, then you’d need about
14 people per shift to clear this stuff out each week….14 people on
each 8 hour shift equals 42 people a day and if these work 40 hours
a week at say, $30 an hour, that comes out to about $2,620,800 a year
before benefits, and supervisors. Not a huge amount of people needed
to process some 3,640,000 applications each year. Less than a dollar
per application.
I don’t know about you, but I’d be willing to bet those mortgage brokers
who can tell you if you qualify for a loan or not in two minutes get
this many or more applications each week. I know the people who handle
approvals on our credit cards process more in an hour than the government
does in a week. Looks to me like the government should reach out and
ask some of the folks in the private sector how to handle large volumes
of applications or approvals.
But, then that would be logical and would made sense wouldn’t it?
So that won’t happen. |
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