Always the Same Map

I had a job years ago working with passports and other legal documents of that nature (for a gov agency creating a new legal document in a similar vein to passports. No, I won’t elaborate further). I found out after being there a year that Micronesians (had to google that one!) could legally enter the US and stay for some significant time with only their country’s passport and they were also eligible for a driver’s license in the US without a visa. Just their passport. It was a surprise to me since Mexicans who crossed the border daily (drivers and such) had to jump through rings like sonic to get things like a commercial driver’s license (and then keeping current/renewed).

All I learned at that job was how cruel and arbitrary the US immigration system is/was. The state would regularly, daily, fuck people over for no fault of their own. Workers had discretion to an extent but with the not-veiled threat of termination and possible prosecution if you broke laws/rules. Like accepting the wrong documents or damaged documents like birth certificates that were wrinkled to shit. You were supposed to tell the (often) overworked, impoverished people to simply contact their state of birth’s health department, pay whatever BS fee is associated, and just come back. Never mind they don’t have the money nor do they get time off to run around to ten state and federal locations all sending them to the next… the best and simultaneous worst part of that job was I actually cared about the people on a human level and made real efforts to fix what I knew I could. Of course this made my numbers “bad” and I was yelled at by other agencies for simply emailing them like “hey, trying to get this for this person. It’s just an error in the system. Please fix.” I would often level with people when the BS was stacking up against them. Of course this also got me talked to a few times. That job had a union and management was too lazy to bother writing anyone up plus I know they liked having me there as the guy who would deal with the weird, fucked up shit cases, so nothing ever really happened beyond telling me to juke my numbers and play the game as best I could.

The sheer powerless I felt day to day like I was in a sinking boat bucketing out water only half as fast as it flooded in. I quit after burning out. My immediate supervisor nearly cried and said, real quote, “no. You can’t quit!” when I told her my next day would be my last with a resignation letter. Another human dam broken. The water streams in just a little faster, unnoticed by anyone except the individual drowning at the moment.

Hell of an off topic tangent there.