Close Ties to Home Country

Nine years ago, when my sister’s visitor visa to the US was denied, I felt numb. I hadn’t seen her since 2012, the last time I had visited India. (I haven’t been back since). I lashed out at my mother. “You didn’t do it right! These things are really complicated! You should have listened to me!” I wanted to punish her. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know who to be mad at. They were just trying to visit me.

It’s always easier to blame what we know—the facts at hand. Immigrants do this all the time. We carry around an urgency; we’ve worked really hard to get here and there’s a lot to lose. If you ready yourself with everything, if you don the right armor, you can convince yourself you have some semblance of control—over a visa officer’s mood that day, the fact that he got stuck in traffic that morning, the rhetoric he’s been exposed to since 9/11 and post 11/2016. You can think you’ve got this.

I had done things “the right way.” I came here on a full scholarship to attend a prestigious liberal arts college; I’d prepared well for my visa interview. I’d committed the right amount of anxiety to it. There’s a certain amount of anxiety you’ve got to have as an immigrant—anyone who doesn’t have the right mix is just not gonna make it in this country. I’ve seen them. I’ve seen them pack up and go home. I’d scoured through sample interview questions and had my young cousins mock interview me. When I nailed that visa interview, I felt like I had earned my entry to the United States of America: the greatest country in the whole damn world. I had earned that golden ticket. I felt like my mom and sister must not have done a good enough job.

Close Ties to Home Country is about the denial of my sister’s visa, denied under Immigration Clause Section 214(b): "inability to prove close ties to home country." Under Section 214(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act: "any temporary visitor must prove Strong Family, Social & Economic Ties to their Home Country. Strong ties are powerful and irrefutable reasons that would force an applicant to return to their home country, such as:

Employment
Dependent family members
Properties
Income-generating businesses

My sister was 17 at the time. She had just graduated high school. She didn’t yet have a job, or any dependent family members, or properties, or income-generating businesses. She was just coming to visit me. It is not uncommon for immigration officials to deny the visa of one visiting family member, to give the rest of the family “a reason to go back.”

I had to make this film because I, like many other immigrants, am tired. I’m tired of the questions. I’m tired of the assumptions. I’m tired of having to explain, a hundred times over, often to the same people, often to my very best friends, why I can’t just “apply for citizenship.” While I can’t answer every question with this film (visa applications are often several hundred pages long), I’m hoping I can answer some, and that people will stop asking. The system is broken. Doing things “the right way” doesn’t matter if you’re not white.

This country was founded on immigrants. It’s a country that was stolen. Somewhere, that story got lost.

Most immigrants I know are deeply good people. We’ve got a patriotism for America that’s more complex and more expensive than you would think—we traded our own countries for this one. We love it fiercely. To tell our stories should be up to us. But we’re largely unrepresented on screen, because we’re not often given the chances to tell our stories. Who’s listening?

We try our best to blend in. We try hard not to stick out. Like good immigrants, we keep our heads down. We’ve got the anxiety.

Here is my anxiety. Here is my film.

P.S. Dogs were paid SAG-Aftra rates and had their own trailer and multiple wranglers. We run a dog-first establishment!