MISSION: Impossible

This following is a summary of my visa ordeal.

On or about May 18, 2005, I, Saman Ahmadi, went to the Spanish Consulate in Houston and spoke with Official A.

I showed Official A a letter, which stated that I would be doing a six-month internship, funded by the University of Houston, in Barcelona, and inquired about the visa requirements. She said that I needed several things, including a physical exam, a police background letter and a “certificate from the Spanish Labor Authorities” stating that the activity in which I would be engaged was exempt from requiring a work permit.

I told her that I was being paid in the US in dollars. She said that it did not matter. I said I ache for you, she said your pain will end. I said become my moon, she said if it comes to pass. . . Sorry about that, I sort of broke into verses of the great Iranian poet Hafiz, but I’ve tried to keep my sense of humor in all this, and as you will see, it’s been tested up to near its limit.

According to Official A, the law had recently changed and the office that I would be working for in Spain would need to get the exemption form from the Spanish Department of Labor. As Official A explained it, my position was categorized as “Trabajadores en Practica” – something like “Work in Practice”.

I sent an email to the office Oscar Tusquets Blanca Arquitecturas stating what the Spanish Consulate required. I also emailed Ms. Trang Phan, at the University of Houston, the director of Study Abroad programs at the College of Architecture. She told me that I did not need a visa and I would just be traveling with my passport as students in previous years had done. However, Ms.Phan forwarded my note to the office in Spain, to another email address that she had for them.

A couple of days passed and I did not hear anything back, so I asked my sister, Susan, who is fluent in Spanish, to call the office the Barcelona and explain what I needed. It is important to note that there is a seven (7) hour time difference between Houston and Barcelona – Barcelona’s time being ahead of Houston’s. Susan called and was told that they had not heard of this item before, it was not required and my position was more like a student intern rather than “Trabajadores en Practica”.

I went to the Spanish Consulate in Houston and explained what the office in Spain had told my sister. Official A told me that Tusquets’ office was wrong and gave me copies of the recent law and said that it explained everything and if there were any questions, Tusquets’ office could call Official A in Houston. I faxed the copies to Spain.

A couple of more days went by and I did not hear anything. I asked Susan to call Tusquets’ office again to see if they had received the fax. Susan called and was told that the pages did not make any sense and if Official A wished, she could call them and explain what needed to be done. I also faxed the pages to my sister and she could not make heads or tails out of it either.

On or about June 3rd, 2005, I went back to Spanish Consulate in Houston and asked if Official A could call Spain and explain what needed to be done. After a few minutes of persuasion, Official A called Tusquets’ office and spoke with Ms. Amparo Sayes. Official A also gave Ms. Sayes a number at the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – who would be able to explain everything and the procedure that needed to be followed.

A couple of days went by and I did not hear anything back. I asked Susan to call Spain again and see what the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores had told Ms. Sayes. Ms. Sayes said that the number that she was given was constantly busy and I should try to take care of the matter after I arrived in Spain.

By now, I was getting just a little annoyed . . . July was approaching, my internship was supposed to start, I needed to buy a ticket, if my visa did not work out I had to start looking for a job, etc., etc.

On or about June 8, 2005, I went to the Spanish Consulate in Houston and spoke with Official A. I explained that Ms. Sayes was not able to reach the person at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I asked whether I could enter Spain and then try to resolve the issue there. She asked of my citizenship and I said that I was an American Citizen. Official A said: “With an American passport you can enter Spain without a visa and stay for 90 days. You can then settle the matter there. Good luck.”

I bought my ticket and arrived in Barcelona on July 12th – you’ve already read of my initial reaction of seeing the city, WOW! My friend Aaron met me at the airport. He is also doing an internship here but at another office. He did his final semester in Austria so he applied for his visa from there. However, his visa was not ready by July 12th and he had to go back in two weeks to pick it up in person and then entered the country with the visa in his passport. The Spanish Consulate in Austria granted him a student visa, even though he had the same paper work as I did – remember this point because it will come back toward the end of the indictment.

We looked for an apartment for a couple of days and ended up renting the vacant home of the brother of the wife of one of my cousins in a nearby suburb for a few weeks – my housing adventures in Barcelona are a whole other story to be told later.

I went to work on Monday July 18, 2005. After a few days, I asked Ms. Sayes about the visa issue and she did not know what I needed to do. One of the architects, who is originally from Germany, said that he thought I needed a letter from the office of Tusquets stating the nature of my position, which I could then take to the authorities to obtain the work permit exemption.

They wrote a letter for me, signed by the two principals of the firm, Oscar Tusquets and Carlos Diaz. Now the question became where I needed to go. I thought that I should probably go to the Ministry of Immigration first. I went to the Tourist Information office in Plaça Catalunya – they gave a map and directions.

I got off at the right metro station but took a wrong turn and walked around for about an hour before I found the Ministry of Immigration complete with a long line in front of it. I went to the information table and showed them the letter; the person directed me to the building next door. Even though there was another line there, when I showed the receptionist my letter, she motioned me to bypass the line and go up to the second floor where student visas were handled. As David Burn might say “I thought to myself” this seemed promising.

I entered the waiting area for this office, took a number and sat down. When my number was called, I walked up, and showed the person the letter. He spoke a little English and gave me a photocopy of a map to the “Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales” – the Ministry of Work and Social Affairs. I thought to myself, O.K., “Trabajadores en Practica”, “Ministerio de Trabajo” . . . this was good.

I took the metro to the Ministerio and luckily did not take any wrong turns when I got out of the station. I entered the building, showed the receptionist my letter and was told: “ultima puerta”, last door. It was about 1:00 PM, or as it is normally notated here 13:00. Government offices are open from 9:00 to about 13:00 or 14:00 daily – keep this point in mind, because it will return toward the end of the indictment. I waited in line for a few minutes, wondering if they would get to me before they closed. I got in and spoke with a lady who knew a bit of English. I showed her my letter and she asked for my passport. She flipped through it and shockingly asked me: “Where is your visa?!” Hmm…, I said, “I was told I needed an exemption from getting a work permit before I can get a visa.” She said no, that I needed a visa first. She did not know what I needed to do next but gave me her telephone number anyway for future reference.

The next day I went back to the office and explained what happened. Someone suggested that maybe I should go to the American Consulate and see if they could help me.

It was now the last week in July. As I have mentioned before, all of Spain takes its vacation during the month of August. Our office would be off the first three weeks of the month.

On or about July 28, 2005, I went to the American Consulate in Barcelona. As it turned out, it was not far from my office. But, of course, I made another wrong turn when I got out of the metro station and spent an hour before I found the Consulate – a quite beautiful villa of which one cannot take any pictures. I arrived at the Guard House and slipped my passport under the bullet-proof glass. They let me in and I walked to the main building. There, I gave the short version of the story to a lady at the desk. I also showed her the printed list from the Spanish Consulate in Houston, which indicated that I needed an exemption from getting a work permit. She was very understanding, waited until I finished and told me, “I realize that the list states that you need this exemption but this exemption form probably does not exist.” Before I could say, O.K., they are requiring something that does not exist, she said: “That’s how the system is set up”.

I said that some people have told me that all I need to do is to leave Spain near the end of three months and enter again. She said that that would be illegal. I told her that my friend had to go back to Austria and pick up his visa in person. She said that if and when I got the visa, I would probably have to the same – go back to the US and enter Spain with the visa.

I had been to three different official places, spread all over Barcelona and I was back at square one.

I thought, why not try and search for this “exemption” form on the Internet. It took about fifteen minutes before I found some other university listing instructions on what needed to be done for some kind of visa that required what seemed to be the same kind of exemption. It also included a link to the exemption form – I clicked but the link had expired.

It took a few more minutes and the help of an online Spanish-English dictionary, but I found the live link to the form on the website of the “Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores” – back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, cool. I tried to read through the one page form. It listed a bunch of categories none of which was “Trabajadores en Practica”. But it did look like the right form.

I printed it out and showed it to Ms. Sayes the next day at work, Friday, July 29, 2005 – the last day before August vacation. Ms. Sayes thought it looked liked the right form too, but she also wondered why there was no option for “Trabajadores en Practica”.

I called the Spanish Consulate in Houston and tried to talk to Official A. She was busy so I talked to Official B. I wanted to know if this was in fact the correct form so I asked whether I could email it to Official A. Official B said that I could email it but it is their policy not to answer emails because an email does not constitute a legal means of communication. And, by the way, the email address that was listed for them on the website of the Spanish Embassy in the United States was wrong – she gave me the correct address though, bless her heart.

I sent a long email to Official A, explaining what had happened to date and asking whether the attached form was the correct one. I also wrote that I realized she would not respond via email, and therefore asked whether she could send a fax with her response to Tusquets’ office since we would be closed for three weeks. I went on vacation thinking that by the time I got back, there would definitely be a response from Official A. I was wrong.

On August 22, 2005, I returned to the office and there was no fax for me. I thought to myself that maybe something was being lost in translation between me and Official A. I emailed the form to Susan and asked her to call and speak with Official A to see if I had found the correct form. My sister also wondered that while the form looked right, why it did not include an option for “Trabajadores en Practica”.

Susan either talked to Official B or Official C – in any event, at first she was not allowed to talk to Official A. Finally Official A came online and wondered why I had gone to Spain without a visa?! My sister reminded her that it was Official A that had told me that I could go and resolve the issue in person in Spain. Susan asked if the form was the correct one and Official A said yes. With regards to what option I needed to choose, Official A said, “Check the first option and write in ‘Trabajadores en Practica’ in parentheses”. This reminds me of something: for those of you old enough to have watched M*A*S*H during its first run or caught it in reruns, there is an episode in which the doctors are having a hard time getting an incubator. Finally an official (sound familiar?) from ICORE shows up and tells them that while it seems quite logical for a field hospital to have an incubator, they are not allowed one because it would be a luxury. Protesting that it is not like they are asking for a pizza oven, the official responds that they can have a pizza oven, “Just use the standard requisition form, cross out howitzer and write in ‘pizza oven'”.

So I had the right form, now the question became to whom do I submit it. While there were some colorful ideas as to where to submit the form (perhaps in triplicate), I remembered that I had the number of the lady at the Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales. I asked Ms. Sayes to see whether someone there knew what I needed to do.

Ms. Sayes called and was told that I needed a visa first before the exemption can be processed. I asked Ms. Sayes if she could call Official A and tell her what the Ministry of Work and Social Affairs said. She called Official A and was told that I needed the exemption first before my visa can be processed.

It was then that I felt the pain that the chicken and the egg must be going through for all these many years.

Official A also told Ms. Sayes that she would fax some papers that would explain everything. A couple of days went by and no fax. Meanwhile, hurricane Katrina was reeking havoc in the in the U.S., especially in New Orleans.

Ms. Sayes called Official A again – she apologized for not faxing the papers, stating that they have been very busy because of “hurricane Katrina”. . . one can only imagine how much worse the situation of the folks in New Orleans would have been had it not been for the work of the staff of the Spanish Consulate in Houston – they did a hecuva of job.

Official A again gave the number and name of a person at the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores who could explain everything. She also assured Ms. Sayes that I could take care of the matter in Spain. Ms. Sayes tried and tried and finally reached the assistant of the person at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was told that, in fact, for my type of position, I did not need an exemption – I should have been granted a visa in Houston, in May, with the letter that I had from the University of Houston.

I asked Ms. Sayes whether the person at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could give us something in writing that the Spanish Consulate in Houston would accept as authoritative – no luck.

This back and forth took us through the third week of September. Along the way, I learned the details of the Schengen Treaty – named for a town in Luxemburg where the agreement was originally signed in 1995. Basically some seventeen European nations tried to make it easy for their citizens to travel among these countries without a visa. As part of the treaty, some non-Schengen citizens, like those of the United States, can travel for six months in the Schengen countries without a visa, but can only stay in any one country a cumulative of ninety (90) days within that period – that is, once I arrived in Spain, I could leave and come back to Spain, but the total time in Spain could not exceed 90 days in a six-month period. My 90 days would be up on October 9th.

At this point I gave up and started making plans for returning to America. I wrote Ms. Phan, of the University of Houston, an email stating that I would be coming back – I found out later that the campus had closed in preparation for hurricane Rita.

Ms. Sayes asked whether I could resolve this issue when I got back to the U.S. for the benefit of future students who would be serving as interns in their office. One idea that came to my mind at that moment was that Ms. Sayes could contact the Spanish Embassy in Washington D.C. and ask, in general, what their office needed to do for American student interns – when I had called the Spanish Embassy in D.C. in May, they had refused to talk to me and referred me to the Consulate in Houston.

The person at the Spanish Embassy in Washington D.C., Official D, told Ms. Sayes the same thing as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – the letter that I had was sufficient and I should have been granted a visa in Houston, in May.

Now, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope – a Spanish official in the U.S. thought I should have gotten a visa.

Meanwhile, hurricane Rita had arrived in Houston. I thought to myself, if Official A was overwhelmed by Katrina and the Waves during its recent tour of Louisiana, she must be completely paralyzed by a storm that actaully hit Houston itself.

I called Susan, yet again, and asked whether she could call the Spanish Consulate in D.C. and see if they would process my visa – by now, I had resigned myself to the fact that I needed to return to the U.S. to the get the visa in person. I thought may be the extenuating circumstances of the hurricane and the fact that Official A was working from her own version of Spanish law, would be sufficient. But no luck – because my residence in the U.S. fell within the jurisdiction of the Spanish Consulate in Houston, there was the only place where a visa could be issued for me.

It was now Thursday, September 29, 2005. I thought, O.K., one more try; I would send Official A a fax, explaining that both the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores and the Spanish Embassy/Consulate in the D.C. were telling us the same thing – something different than Official A. I also wrote Official A that due to the time difference, the Consulate in Houston and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Spain were never open at the same time. Therefore, I asked whether Official A could call D.C., which would be open when Houston was open, and see why there was a difference of opinion between them.

On Friday, September 30, about 6:00 PM, 18:00, in Barcelona, 11:00 AM in Houston, I called Official A. I asked whether she had received my fax and she said yes. She also told me, “From the first day I told you that you need the exemption and the bottom line is that without it you can not get a visa.” I again explained that the office to which Official A referred us at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Spain said something different, and that the Consulate in D.C. agreed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I told her that my friend got his visa in Austria with the same papers, to which she responded, “The Spanish Consulate in Austria does not have the authority to grant him a visa” and that she had been working at the Consulate for “twenty seven (27) years” and “knew the law”. I told Official A, “I have seen the visa in his passport”. I said, “Can’t you call D.C. since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is closed now and see what the problem is?” She said, ” You call Washington and put us on a three-way call”. I said, “Ma’am, I am on a mobile phone and I don’t think I have that feature.”

Finally she said, “To satisfy my own sense of curiosity, I will call Washington and see why they are giving you the wrong information” – I think I heard a couple pigs squeal as they flew by.

An hour later, I called back. I asked Official A what happened – lo and behold, she said, “Yes, you can get a visa. But you know, it takes four to five weeks to process, so you need to give me all the papers as soon as possible” – at this point, I thought to myself that I needed one those barb wire thigh rings that Dan Brown’s character wears in the Da Vinci Code to keep on the straight and narrow path. She began to tell me that I needed to do it in person and how whenever they needed something at the American Consulate, their calls were never returned, etc., etc. – now frustration was showing through my voice and I said that if she wanted I could call the American Consulate for her, in response to which, she hung up – she hung up.

I called her back and said, “Fine, I will come back and apply in person”. She said that she was trying to tell me that because of the uniqueness of this situation, I could send her the papers and then pick up the visa in person. She was starting to tell me the list of the things that I needed to send her, when a voice came on the phone and said “Your credit is about to expire” – a few seconds later, my phone went dead.

It was about 7:30 PM now, but I was not worried. There was a Vodofone store – whose mobile service I have – along Diagonal, the major boulevard that was about a ten minute walk from the office, close to my metro station. I knew that they were open until 20:30, 8:30 PM, because I was there the other day when they had just closed.

I walked down the hill – those of you who know me, know that my normal walking speed is actually rather quick and I have been told quite a few times to “slow down” while walking with others around the world from Haifa, Israel to Berlin, Germany to College Station, Texas.

I got to the store and there was sign on the door in Catalan that I did not understand but one that had the time 16:30 on it – for some reason, they had closed at 4:30 PM.

That’s O.K. I walked next door to El Corte Engles – an upscale Walmart that has everything from groceries to high-end bathroom fixtures, plus vacation packages. I bought some credit for my phone and rushed outside to get a better signal.

By the way, the Spanish Consulate in Houston is also only open from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM – that is, they close at 8:00 PM Barcelona time.

I called and luckily Official A was still in the office. She told me all the items I needed to send her: four photographs, check; medical report, check; police background report, check; the exemption form . . . I told her, “Isn’t this the form for which I need a visa first?” Official A said, “Yes, when you were here in May, it was processed in Spain, now we process it here.” As they say in Persian, I let that one pass under my mustache as well.

Official A also said that I needed to send her a notarized copy of my passport. I asked, “Where do I get that?” and she said she did not know – that seemed like a minor inconvenience though. On Monday, October 3rd, 2005, I called the American Consulate and luckily they could provide a notarized copy of my passport, for ¤25.00 – about $30.00.

I got all the papers together and sent them via UPS Express Mail to the Spanish Consulate in Houston on Tuesday, October 4, 2005 – a day that shall live in infamy. It was received in on October 6, 2005. I arrived back in the U.S. on October 8, 2005. My visa was ready on October 31, 2005 – some five and a half months after my first visit to the Spanish Consulate in Houston in order to get a visa for a six-month internship. I picked it up from Official A on Friday, November 4, 2005, with not even a hint of an apology.

In the end I was granted a student visa valid for six months. I came back to Barcelona on November 8, 2005.

The funniest thing is what I found out only a couple of days ago: the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward knew exactly what I needed to do back in May but kept quite – it’d better be some book.