The Foreign Service Journal, April 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2015 51 beleaguered government that did not want its citizens voting with their feet. Consequently, the consular section’s operations were limited to American Citizen Services, which primarily handled deaths and estates, the issuance of immigrant visas to war brides and the processing of adoptions; and performed notarial services. Bureaucratic Adaptation (aka Social Engineering) Reflecting its French colonial heritage, Vietnam’s justice system required registration in the district of residence and bearing of an identity document commonly referred to as the “Family Book.” Americanmilitary personnel did not have passports, so the govern- ment accepted what GIs referred to as “the embassy’s permission to get married”—which was actually their own sworn affidavit attesting to their identity and civil status (if previously married), notarized by the consulate. The U.S. military required its personnel who wanted tomarry to go through the whole procedure for both the Vietnamese exit visa and the U.S. immigrant visa before grant- ing permission. As one might imagine, this was a very time-consuming, arduous process involving a birth certificate, police clearances, a medical exam, etc. U.S. soldiers were on a one-year rotation, somany did not complete it. If they managed to gainmilitary permission, they then had to start the formal application process, which required renewing much of the paperwork whose limited validity had expired. If the couple did not get married in Vietnam, the fiancée as an intending immigrant was not eligible for a visitor’s (B-1/B-2) visa. However, there were no immigrant visa numbers available at this time in the category which applied to their cases. This Catch-22 situation in 1970 applied to 100 or so fiancées, and generated con- siderable congressional correspondence. One day the head of the Consular Affairs Bureau’s Visa Office called fromWashington, D.C., to order the issuance of a visitor’s visa to one of these cases, citing the interest of a very senior U.S. senator. The consul general responded that on the grounds of equity and fairness, the consulate would take that as an instruction to issue visitor’s visas to all of the fiancées in limbo.The Visa Office backed off the request, but that situation eventually led to the establishment of the “K” (fiancée) visa category. (In 1970 non-immigrant catego- ries A–J existed; as of 2015, the list goes through V.) Cultural Astigmatism Westerners’ linear, legalistic approach to life’s problems was not in alignment with a culture where the highest value and impor- tance was placed on family. The opportunity for “fraud,” as defined by consular visa regulations, was all too easy in a country where all one needed to obtain a birth certificate was finding two people who would attest that they knewwho you and your parents were without any further corroboration. This became a real headache in adoption cases. All children in Vietnamese orphanages were not necessarily orphans. The exigen- cies of a long war meant that children with one or even two parents living might be placed in the care of others temporarily. In some cases childrenmay have been placed for adoption either unwit- tingly or because the surviving parent(s) hoped to ensure a better existence for at least one of many siblings. One example highlights how one person’s “fraud” is another’s fulfillment of his or her responsibility to care for and nurture the extended family above all other considerations. Amiddle-aged U.S. contractor had satisfied all the requirements to obtain immigrant immediate relative visas for his Vietnamese wife and her 5- and 7-year-old daughters by her deceased former husband, a Vietnam- ese army officer. The momentous day for visa issuance arrived. The consular assistant pointed out a notation on the wife’s medical exam stating that “Applicant had a complete hysterectomy 10 years ago.” When confronted with this anomaly, the husband explained that the girls were his wife’s two orphaned nieces. As she consid- ered herself now their mother, he had obtained birth certificates to that effect. By some miracle, this happened during the only period in 16 months when two non-preference immigrant visas were available. This allowed the family to complete the process on slightly different terms and leave before the three exit visas expired. Many Filipinos were hired by U.S. contracting firms. After sev- eral years of working in Vietnam, they would appear at the consular section with documentation certifying their service working for the U.S. government at the Subic Bay Naval Base near Manila for 13 or 14 years. That made them eligible for the special immigrant visa available to foreign national employees of the U.S. government. Although originally intended to reward only extraordinary service, over time it has come to be viewed as a benefit by all who complete the required 15 years of service. Sadly, the Filipinos learned that their service with Pacific Archi- tects and Engineers or other U.S. contractors did not satisfy the Embassy Saigon had already become our largest post in the world.