Open Letter to Alan Bersin
[Alan Bersin is the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection ("CBP,") a component of the Deparment of Homeland Security.]
Dear Commissioner Bersin:
In my 25+ years of practice as an immigration lawyer I've seen hundreds of tragedies and horror stories. I won't bore you with those. This is not a "heartstrings" letter. This is a letter about training, common sense...and poker.
A few days ago a group of your line officers at the U.S.-Canadian border barred a champion professional Canadian poker player from entry, even though he'd been to the U.S. many times before and has a "clean slate." The reason? Section 214(b) of the Immigration & Nationality Act. Or, put another way, your officers' misunderstanding and misapplication of 214(b).
Section 214(b) says: "Every alien ... shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the ... immigration officers, at the time of application for admission, that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status." In plain English, before you can enter the country as a tourist, or student, or poker player, you have to prove you aren't coming to the U.S. to stay.
The Canadian pro in question, Terrence Chan (a.k.a. "Unassigned,") made two trips to the border, even showing your officers documents such as property deeds and utility bills to prove he lives abroad and has no intention of taking up residence in the U.S.
Not good enough. Chan is barred. And who's the loser? Not Chan. As he explains on his blog:
"Could I try one more time, get all six months of documentation they want, hell, hire an immigration lawyer? Yeah, I could do those things. I could continue to jump through their hoops. But I have no assurances the hoops will not just be higher and farther back every time, and I have no desire to spend five hours at the border just to find out. I am a law-abiding, honest, wealthy and mobile Canadian who wanted to come for two months, rent a property, buy groceries, pay fees to a school, spend money on entertainment, and leave. For this, I get treated like a criminal. Well, no more. I'm done with the United States." [Emphasis mine.]
This is an embarrassment. Your border guards make us Americans look like fools, or worse. Now, I don't expect all your CBP agents to have your education - Harvard, Oxford, Yale Law - but a little training, please, to separate the wheat from the chaff, the terrorists from the tourists, and the champs from the chumps. Just a little more training for your border guards. That's all I ask.
Sincerely,