14284: LeGrace Benson:Re: 14249: Ray: 14236: Pierre Jean:Re: 14234: Sanok: Re: 14227: Visas (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: LeGrace Benson <legrace@twcny.rr.com>

Since many people read this list, it is probably a good idea for as many as
have a response to the visa thing to state an opinion.
In my own case, I was one of those pulled aside in October to fill out a
visa application. At the time it was free.  I asked a number of questions
similar to those being raised on this list.  The young man who filled out my
visa could barely write, got my name all wrong, and had no information to
convey. If this were the US, I might be sent off to The Authorities the next
time I tried to use that visa that would not match up with my passport.  But
no matter.
The problem comes when I go to Haiti to attend a scholarly meeting or to do
some field work, both of which come out of my own pocket, since I am an
independent scholar. I also go there sometimes to teach, in which case I
would not be there long enough to register as a resident alien, but too long
for the currently proposed visa limit.  Would that mean that an additional
$100?  Like many another volunteer worker, I get room and board but no pay.
Sometimes I pay for my own round trip transportation and sometimes the
organization for which I teach pays for that.  I know their budgets. If they
pay my visa fee, that is the equavalent of a substantial number of noonday
meals for kids, or a month salary for a teacher.  If I pay it, there is that
much less for me to buy school supplies, sacks of concrete and stuff like
that.

If it were simply a matter of getting money to a government that was going
to recycle it out in projects  --like schools, like reforestation, like
water conservation, I would scrape up the money.  But  mostly (not entirely)
I see those things being done by the very folks who are going to pay the
visa fee.

On the other hand, it behooves every one of us who finds this fee at least a
nuisance and at worst an example of Haiti shooting herself iin the foot to
contact our Senators and Representative with a note urging the repeal of the
visa fee imposed on Haitians.  That is an outrage too.

LeGrace Benson