UK "Pakistanis" Not Welcome in the US

Should a foreign government pick and choose what "kind" of people from another nation may or may not be allowed to enter a country?   Unofficially, we know that it happens all the time.  Visas are routinely refused to members of "suspect" ethnic / religious groups. Muslims (and even bearded, turbaned non-Muslims and olive skinned men) from the middle east and south Asia face much more scrutiny during travel to the rest of the world. Sri Lankan Tamils and Sikhs faced major problems in the 1980s and 90s at the height of the Tamil and Sikh separatist movements.  But most of the time the restrictions are imposed "unofficially" without the host nation coming right out and saying that a certain type of people are "unwelcome."

The US Homeland Security Office is considering making such discrimination official.  British citizens, like most western Europeans, do not require visas to enter the US. After the bombing of the London subway and subsequent terrorist plots uncovered in the UK in which young British Muslim men (mostly of Pakistani family origin) have been implicated and convicted, the US is considering imposing travel restrictions on Britons of Pakistani origin, requiring only this group among all British nationals, to have travel visas for entering the US.  But will this not be tantamount to a foreign government interfering in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation by creating a "second class" status for some of its  citizens?

Omar Khyam, the ringleader of the thwarted London bomb plot who was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday, showed the potential for disaffected young men to be lured as terrorists, a threat that British officials said they would have to contend with for a generation.

But the 25-year-old Mr. Khyam, a Briton of Pakistani descent, also personifies a larger and more immediate concern: as a British citizen, he could have entered the United States without a visa, like many of an estimated 800,000 other Britons of Pakistani origin.

American officials, citing the number of terror plots in Britain involving Britons with ties to Pakistan, expressed concern over the visa loophole. In recent months, the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, has opened talks with the government here on how to curb the access of British citizens of Pakistani origin to the United States.

At the moment, the British are resistant, fearing that restrictions on the group of Britons would incur a backlash from a population that has always sided with the Labor Party. The Americans say they are hesitant to push too hard and embarrass their staunch ally in the Iraq war, Prime Minister Tony Blair, as he prepares to step down from office.

Among the options that have been put on the table, according to British officials, was the most onerous option to Britain, that of canceling the entire visa waiver program that allows all Britons entry to the United States without a visa. Another option, politically fraught as it is, would be to single out Britons of Pakistani origin, requiring them to make visa applications for the United States.

Comments

[BongoP'o'ndit]

I dont understand how they can implement a rule of visa application for a subsection of a country's citizen. What about the third/fourth gen Pakistanis, what about those whose one parent is not of Pakistani decent - do they apply for half a visa ? Unless there is a total abolition on visa waiver, the pick and choose visa requirement is doomed to logistical failure.

Not to mention the bad blood it will further create.

[Dean C. Rowan]

Opinio Juris recently posted Peter Spiro's more complex instance of official discrimination in the employment context in Passport to Discriminate. I have read neither the court's opinion nor the treaty at issue, and the lone comment as I write questions Prof. Spiro's take, but the remarks about quotas in diplomatic hiring hold.

[Ruchira Paul]

Bongo:

You are absolutely right. It is a stupid proposition - only scoff-laws like the Bush-Cheney administration can even come up with such half-baked and illegal suggestions. It amounts to our interference in another country's internal affairs - a foreign country defining who qualifies as an authentic or reliable "citizen" of another sovereign nation. I don't think that something other than an "all or nothing" approach will work. If we set this precedent, it will set up the stage for widespread discrimination by foreign governments. For example, nations can start implementing discriminatory policies based on race, religion or whatever. Allow Russians in but not Chechens. Turks from Turkey but not Kurds. Israeli Jews, not Israeli Arabs. Indian Hindus and Sikhs but not Muslims. And who is to say why not?

Off topic, I noticed that you are pulling up stakes and relocating half a world away. Wish you all the best with the move and the new life. But remember to drop by and stay in touch. Will you continue to still post at Recurring D from Down Under?

[Sujatha]

Looks like the British officials may resist this pressure (Guardian link)

"But today the Foreign Office made it clear would resist the idea. It said it would oppose any attempt to exclude particular ethnic groups from the US visa waiver scheme that allows citizens from 27 countries, including the UK, to travel to the US without a visa for up to 90 days.

A spokesman said: "We are in close touch with the US about entry clearance, and they are aware of our view that changes to the visa waiver programme could cause economic damage to both our countries without materially enhancing the security controls over immigration."

Good for them, if they stick with this stance!

[Ruchira Paul]

Sujatha:
If the Brits stick together on principle, it will be well and good. But suppose, the US withdraws "visa waiver" privileges for ALL Britons? I would then be interested to see how many non-Muslims will be ready to throw the British Muslims to the dogs because "they" are making life difficult for everyone else.

Dean:

I too don't know the details of the Ninth Circuit Court's decision referred to in the Opinio Juris post. (BTW, the deciding opinion writer, The Honorable Alfred T. Goodwin is the aging cowboy judge with whom my daughter clerked. Quite a colorful man even in his eighties - I met him once.) My gut reaction is that foreign corporations should not be able to discriminate in the US job market, based on nationality. Consular and embassy jobs are different. But even here, if they did (or can) replace an American with a Japanese national, I don't think they are picking and choosing WHICH Americans. Whether they will replace only African Americans, Asian Americans, White Americans etc. The Homeland Security is planning to do exactly that in case of British citizens - creating a second class citizenship in ANOTHER country!

BTW, after you mentioned Kurt Vonnegut in my Sinclair Lewis post, I paid the dear departed Mr. Vonnegut a quick nostalgic visit. I re-read Cat's Cradle, the slimmest among the three Vonneguts still in my possession after all these years. I would like to quote a few relevant lines from the book here.

The following conversation takes place between the narrator and a US diplomatic couple Horlick and Claire Minton in an airplane, while they are all headed toward the island of San Lorenzo. The Mintons describe why they had fallen out of favor with Uncle Sam and suspected of communist sympathy.

' I was fired for pessimism. Communism had nothing to do with it.'

'I got him fired,' said his wife. 'The only real evidence produced against him was a letter I wrote to the New York Times from Pakistan.'

'What did it say?'

'.... there was one sentence they kept coming back to again and again in the loyalty hearing,' sighed Minton. '"Americans",' he said, quoting his wife's letter to the Times, '"are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier"."

'What was so awful about the letter?'

'The highest possible form of treason,' said Minton, 'is to say that Americans aren't loved wherever they go, whatever they do. Claire tried to make the point that American foreign policy should recognize hate rather than imagine love.'

This silly move to collectively humiliate all British Muslims is sure to engender more love. "... and so it goes."

[Dean C. Rowan]

Cat's Cradle. I'd love to reread it. And the passage you've reproduced works excellently.

[BongoP'o'ndit]

@Ruchira: Thanks for your wishes. The relocation is temporary, unless we fall in love with Australia or US proposes further measures that makes it tougher than it already is for legal people to work here. Blogging will not stop - hope to provide vignettes of life down under as well an insight into the difference between the countries.