We’d like to know who the Cowards are at USCIS? After getting deported by the US from Thailand, the family getting left behind, small children and their mother left to fend for themselves, we wonder who these faceless Nazis are?
Deported for Human Rights Activism. Deported because SOMETHING we were doing for the Akha hill tribe was SO important and upsetting the US SO bad that they had to tell the Thai government what to do.
Then as if that wasn’t good enough, they took 9 months and thousands of our dollars to issue the children passports. God forbid children should go to the US.
Then these frightened Cowards at USCIS and the US State Department had to be so concerned about one Akha woman and her four kids making it to the US that they tagged her visa application and it was held up for “Security Reasons”.
7 months later they rejected the visa based on “not enough evidence of marriage”.
Once again, at what levels of the State Department had our work soared that some Cowards at High Levels took such great interest to bash an Akha woman and her children and go over to USCIS and make a written order to hold up a lone Spousal Visa?
Pretty scary stuff when you rock a Coward’s world.
So who are these faceless Cowards? What are their names?
Where is their right to deny due process?
Now that we are in basic exile between Thailand and the US, not able to go back to Thailand, not able to go to the US. Kids out of school, no source of income, balancing carefully in third countries, just what hardship are such faceless Cowards authorized to impose?
I say, open the borders wide, let all of Mexico and south America into the US till there is no room left for every one of these faceless Cowards at USCIS and the US State Department. Authors of terror against the Akha, with no moral authority, racist against brown women and children, killers of the innocent with a Drug War. Murderers.
May they be held fully accountable for all their evil deeds.
I don’t know you Akha, but I can see that you are pretty excited about this story. Unfortunately I have no idea what you’re talking about, no idea even what USCIS is. Some of us here are a bit older and slower -could you be more specific and speak slowly and distinctly? I’d really like to know what happened, but all I can do is sit and smile at you.
Okay, I looked it up – US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Is this your family? I’m so sorry, wish I could help you somehow. It’s ironic that the church decides to abandon the idea of Limbo when the beaurocrats keep it going for so many helpless people. I have some in-laws that are Laotion, actually Minnesotan for the last 30 years; any way I could ask them to help you?
I hope you get some relief soon, and that you can take the time to tell us your entire story.
in a diary I recently wrote about him and his situation at
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/12/2/15283/9575
you can donate to support him and his family and the important work that they’re doing at
http://www.akha.org
Thank you for giving me this link. Somehow I had missed your earlier diary. I visited his website and made a donation. I’ll be keeping an eye on this website and hope you’ll continue to post about this story. I hope the coming year will see Matthew and his family in the U.S. Would letters of support to the USCIS be of any help? Sometimes a little public pressure will move stubborn people.
and find out if letters can be sent.
He’s been working on the visa for about two years now.
I think they’re screwing with him.
OK, I get some time. We’ve been working with the Akha for fifteen years in Thailand and Myanmar and Laos. A little in China.
We opposed the abuse, extrajudicial killings via the US Drug War and the removal of Akha children from their villages by American missionaries.
We were not anonymous in northern Thailand by any stretch of the imagination.
Please go to http://www.akha.org, our extensive website, and take a careful look through the News and Contents sections. We run about 6,000 hits a day.
There are around 500,000 Akha people in the four countries. But due to careful manipulation of facts the Akha are literally unheard of in the US for most people.
That is despite the fact that there are scores of US missionaries trying to force them to change their culture and religion. Taking children and young women away from the villages is their MO.
We have done repeated FOIA searches on the Akha at the CIA, DEA, DIA, etc. Repeated appeals to replies that there was never the use of the word “Akha” in their records slowly revealed there were.
Bottom line is that my wife, to whom I have been married six years, has a legal right to come to the US. We have four children with US passports.
AT US immigration there is a two month window for accepting a visa application and moving it to New Hampshire where it is processed. If there is any error in the application or unresolved matters, insufficient documentation, USCIS is supposed to inform us of that THEN.
For SEVEN months USCIS would only tell us that the visa was marked for security reasons. AT the end of that time, after a very critical article in the Keizer Times of Keizer, Oregon, USCIS said that we lacked sufficient proof of marriage. That was despite the fact that I could not go back to Thailand to get any kind of documentation. (US Embassy refused to give any information out on the deportation when I requested it before the deportation, depriving me of the right to take any protective action)and the fact that we did have witness statements to the marriage.
But the point is that they could have told us this after two months, not seven months. No one’s name was given to us, we were not told who the case officer is, there is no accountability. Even IRS people who speak with you on line must tell you their name and ID number.
There are many exceptions to various documents you need, particularly in humanitarian situations UNLESS it was the US Govt. that got you deported.
Since the deportation we have had numerous high level people in Thailand tell us that it was the US that pushed the deportation.
Too much noise and documentation about the killings, too much effort to prevent mission from taking Akha children and destroying the Akha people’s right to their own religion and culture. (here you need to see the contents link Missions and Fake Orphanages on http://www.akha.org or you may contact Tomas Ryska, t.ryska at seznam.cz who recently made a 30 TV documentary on the sexual abuse of Akha children at christian missions in Thailand.
Back to the visa. USCIS was told by someone to put a security issue on that visa.
When I was in security detention in Bangkok, a US Embassy official came and saw me and lied to me, telling me that the US government had no knowledge of the deportation. Everyone in Thailand knew about the deportation. Before it happened.
I came back into the US in 2004 at the hands of the deportation, via LA. At the LA terminal immigration officials were rude.
Custom’s officials said, “When you came in you looked over your shoulder, why?” Then they made some comment about my website http://www.akha.org which they had up on the computer screen.
What possible beef could they have about it, what was their ax to grind? I was never charged with a crime in Thailand, and was deported because of human rights activism, defending people who were being murdered. But the macho rambo folks at immigration and customs had to get into it with me? Why? Who would have alerted them to that issue unless the US, not Thailand, was the one that had the beef with me?
How many people have had their website shown to them when they came into customs, like they were waiting for you and needed to make a point?
Someone marked the visa for delay. Someone had the power to do that. Who?
There needs to be a visa review board that allows citizens of this “democracy” to challenge abuse in the system by immigration officials.
The US government at no time rendered any aid to my wife and children in Thailand over a period of 14 months.
The US Government is actively involved in policies that allow the murder of Akha people in Thailand, and the starvation of Akha people in Laos.
Our visa application is in this context.
I hope this is helpful. I know there probably still are a lot of unanswered questions.
The US Government is out of control and is not accountable to the citizens. The public must take back control of their country no matter what the cost.