Hi
I wonder what passport she have that time?
how social security card expire,
if she get since she cam in USA from 18 month old,:
she get social security card with limit and I wander what passport she have
that she could travel.
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2015 10:06 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] How New Immigration Laws Are Putting Some Sex
Workers At Risk
I'm posting this because of our discussion about prostitution. What is
strange about this case is that this woman was adopted internationally as a
child. She arrived here on an orphan visa and was eligible to apply for
citizenship. My question is, why didn't her parents apply for her
citizenship for her as other adoptive parents do.
Miriam
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > How New Immigration Laws Are Putting Some Sex Workers At Risk
________________________________________
How New Immigration Laws Are Putting Some Sex Workers At Risk
By Tara Burns [1] / AlterNet [2]
October 30, 2015
Sally Anne thinks of herself as a poster child for the decriminalization of
prostitution. A Southeast Asian woman in her early 40s, Sally Anne was
brought to the United States through adoption when she was 18 months old.
Bright and articulate, she speaks with the twang of someone who's spent many
years in the Southern U.S. A Bible-believing Christian with strong faith,
Sally Anne has been pushed to the underground corners of the adult industry
by what she says are negligent and misfeasant practices of the United States
Citizens and Immigration Services.
In the 1970s, when Sally Anne became a naturalized citizen, USCIS still kept
its records on microfiche. Those microfilms are now maintained according to
date and location, but Sally Anne doesn't know when or where her green card
was issued-her father was a Department of Defense civilian attached to the
Air Force and the family moved constantly. As a teenager, she had a green
card, a passport, a Social Security card, and a driver's license. She
regularly traveled internationally with her parents, graduating from a
military dependents' high school in Japan.
Sally Anne's relationship with her parents was difficult. She says she
"opted to separate from them at the first opportunity," right after
graduating from high school. She left with her birth certificate and Florida
driver's license, which she renewed regularly with no problems. She was able
to drive, hold employment, rent places to live, and get married and
divorced.
In 2005, the government passed the Real ID Act, changing the requirements
for getting and renewing state IDs. States instituted the new policy slowly
(according to Wikipedia [3] five states still haven't) and Florida didn't
get around to it until 2009. However, it wasn't until Sally Anne tried to
renew her license in 2011 that she learned she would have to produce "proof
of legal presence." The DMV wasn't unreasonable; it gave her several
extensions to come up with her green card or alien registration number. That
shouldn't have been a problem, but USCIS couldn't find her record.
It turns out all those microfiche files [4] are in storage now. In a few
known cases, there have been errors in updating the records into a modern
electronic format, giving the appearance that a person simply doesn't exist.
But Sally Anne didn't know that yet.
At the time, she still had her expired driver's license, a Social Security
card, an expired driver's license, and a military spousal ID card from her
ex-husband that was her only non-expired form of picture ID. In 2012, she
was caught driving with her expired license and it was seized. Soon after,
she was selected for a random ID scan on a military base, and they seized
that ID when they discovered she was no longer a military spouse. While in
jail on the traffic violation, Sally Anne was evicted from her apartment and
lost all of her important papers, including her Social Security card. It
turns out one needs a photo ID to get a new Social Security card, and by
then all Sally Anne had was an official card printed on paper used to
identify her within the criminal justice system. That is still her only form
of identification today.
It's "a quasi-ID," she explains. "It is-but it isn't."
With no real form of identification, Sally Anne says she "can't get a job to
save my life." Previously, she worked in strip clubs and lingerie studios,
legal arenas of the adult industry she says were "very safe, protected"
spheres. But even strip clubs require two forms of ID to work. Without an ID
or credit card, Sally Anne can't even advertise as an escort on the
Internet. Instead, she goes to resort hotels and introduces herself to new
men and then offers them massages and clothing-optional modeling.
"I don't like it," she says. "I don't like the situation it puts me in.When
we go up to the room, I say a prayer, I cross myself, I literally do. I do
it kind of in secret, but I'm like, oh my God, please let me get out of that
room alive, intact."
Before all of this, Sally Anne might have believed in the "whorarchy"-a
hierarchy of sex workers, in which those who allow the least contact for the
most money are at the top, while street workers are at the very bottom. Not
anymore, she says. "I admire [street workers]. I'm like, Lord, if you can do
that, you can do anything. You could be a CEO. It takes a lot of
determination and a lot of drive. I think people underestimate the strength
that these women have."
Although the government -meaning USCIS-can't seem to find any proof of Sally
Anne's existence, the government-meaning the police-seem to have no trouble
verifying her identity. Once, she was arrested and charged under a Georgia
statute with "masturbation for hire" (different, under Georgia law, than
prostitution) and held on pre-trial for over three months. After getting out
of jail, Sally Anne connected, through church friends, with a couple of
ministries that help sex workers, Serenity's Steps [5] and 4Sarah [6]. These
ministries are somewhat unique in that they provide services to women even
if they are unable or unwilling to leave the adult industry.
"Sally Anne is a great example of the kinds of persons that we work with,"
Leroy Lamar of Serenity's Steps explained. "This is her life and we're just
trying to figure out how we can come alongside of her and help her in that."
4Sarah procured an attorney for Sally Anne who made some requests of USCIS
to help clarify the matter, but ultimately didn't resolve it. Serenity's
Steps has started a crowdfunding campaign [7] to get Sally Anne an
immigration attorney. Lamar said his organization has helped many other sex
workers or sexually exploited women to get IDs, and has never run into a
situation like this before. Sally Anne's circumstances are so specialized,
in fact, that none of the three attorneys contacted to comment on this
article felt qualified to do so.
"I need competent legal counsel so I can...have my lawyer convince a judge
in federal court to order USCIS to bring forth what they call a production
of documents," Sally Anne explained. "In other words, there's a paper trail
that correlates to my arrival and my presence in this country. It all
started out with an orphan visa. After the orphan visa, I was issued a
permanent resident card, which is called a green card. I don't know exactly
when all of this took place, but I do know that it did take place. A judge
can use my sworn testimony under oath as a basis to force the production of
these documents."
Sex work activists have long complained about the enforcement of
heavy-handed laws aimed at rescuing sex trafficking victims and the lack of
meaningful services for sex trafficking victims or those who wish to leave
the sex industry. A Truthout special report [8] earlier this year found that
anti-trafficking NGOs in the U.S. receive well over $300,000 per sex
trafficking case each year, yet offer little to no services beyond raising
awareness.
Under federal law, sex trafficking is the use of force, fraud, coercion, or
minors in the sex industry. I asked Sally Anne if she felt like she was
being forced or coerced into sex work.
"Is somebody actively twisting my arm? Is somebody keeping me captive? Is
somebody forcing me? No, there's [no one]. It's the circumstances I've been
placed in that are forcing me to engage in survival sex work," Sally Anne
says.
"[USCIS] are the one who have created this situation," she continued. "I'm
not saying that they engineered it, I'm not saying that they're doing it on
purpose. I'm saying that this is an agency which is guilty of such extreme
negligence and misfeasance-not malfeasance, mind you, because it's not
deliberate on their part, they're just lazy, disorganized, fragmented, don't
have it together-they just have ruined my life, my life as I knew it."
Sally Anne is not the only one making this claim. Just a couple of weeks
ago, immigration attorney Greg Siskind filed for a temporary restraining
order [9] against USCIS on behalf of thousands of immigrants whose lives
were about to be ruined because of what seems to be a similar case of
negligent record-keeping [10]. People are tweeting about it with the
hashtags #visagate2015 [11] and #shameonUCIS [12], a hashtag Sally Anne also
uses.
Sally Anne says this has been a pivotal moment in her life. Her Christian
faith has strengthened, she's clarified her values and she is not content to
waste her life anymore. When she regains her legal identity she plans to
become an ambassador for foreign adoption and the decriminalization of
prostitution. Decriminalization would mean that if she were assaulted by a
client, she could go to the police and report it, just like a person with
any other job.
"A gas station clerk at the 7-Eleven, [if they were the] victim of a crime,
they have no qualms about picking up the phone and calling the police," she
says. "I could not do that, because then I'm going to be the one to get
arrested."
"As a result of everything I've been through and the situation that I've
been forced into, to be like an underground sex worker, constantly on the
down-low, constantly hiding, constantly afraid of being arrested, I am going
to work very hard to further the cause of decriminalization here in the
U.S."
Learn more about Sally Anne on her website [13] or donate [7] to her legal
fund.
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [14]
[15]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/immigration/how-new-immigration-laws-are-putting-som
e-sex-workers-risk
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/tara-burns
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act
[4] http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/085.html
[5] http://www.serenityssteps.org/
[6] http://www.4sarah.net/
[7] https://www.crowdrise.com/paperforpaperlessme/fundraiser/leroylamar
[8]
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28763-special-report-money-and-lies-in-an
ti-human-trafficking-ngos
[9]
http://blog.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2015/09/30/visa-bulletin-law-suit-update-09-
30-2015/
[10]
http://blog.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2015/10/09/one-theory-explaining-visagate/
[11]
https://twitter.com/hashtag/visagate2015?f=tweets&vertical=default&s
rc=hash
[12] https://twitter.com/hashtag/shameonuscis?src=hash
[13] https://livingpaperless.wordpress.com
[14] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on How New Immigration
Laws Are Putting Some Sex Workers At Risk
[15] http://www.alternet.org/
[16] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > How New Immigration Laws Are Putting Some Sex Workers At Risk
How New Immigration Laws Are Putting Some Sex Workers At Risk
By Tara Burns [1] / AlterNet [2]
October 30, 2015
Sally Anne thinks of herself as a poster child for the decriminalization of
prostitution. A Southeast Asian woman in her early 40s, Sally Anne was
brought to the United States through adoption when she was 18 months old.
Bright and articulate, she speaks with the twang of someone who's spent many
years in the Southern U.S. A Bible-believing Christian with strong faith,
Sally Anne has been pushed to the underground corners of the adult industry
by what she says are negligent and misfeasant practices of the United States
Citizens and Immigration Services.
In the 1970s, when Sally Anne became a naturalized citizen, USCIS still kept
its records on microfiche. Those microfilms are now maintained according to
date and location, but Sally Anne doesn't know when or where her green card
was issued-her father was a Department of Defense civilian attached to the
Air Force and the family moved constantly. As a teenager, she had a green
card, a passport, a Social Security card, and a driver's license. She
regularly traveled internationally with her parents, graduating from a
military dependents' high school in Japan.
Sally Anne's relationship with her parents was difficult. She says she
"opted to separate from them at the first opportunity," right after
graduating from high school. She left with her birth certificate and Florida
driver's license, which she renewed regularly with no problems. She was able
to drive, hold employment, rent places to live, and get married and
divorced.
In 2005, the government passed the Real ID Act, changing the requirements
for getting and renewing state IDs. States instituted the new policy slowly
(according to Wikipedia [3] five states still haven't) and Florida didn't
get around to it until 2009. However, it wasn't until Sally Anne tried to
renew her license in 2011 that she learned she would have to produce "proof
of legal presence." The DMV wasn't unreasonable; it gave her several
extensions to come up with her green card or alien registration number. That
shouldn't have been a problem, but USCIS couldn't find her record.
It turns out all those microfiche files [4] are in storage now. In a few
known cases, there have been errors in updating the records into a modern
electronic format, giving the appearance that a person simply doesn't exist.
But Sally Anne didn't know that yet.
At the time, she still had her expired driver's license, a Social Security
card, an expired driver's license, and a military spousal ID card from her
ex-husband that was her only non-expired form of picture ID. In 2012, she
was caught driving with her expired license and it was seized. Soon after,
she was selected for a random ID scan on a military base, and they seized
that ID when they discovered she was no longer a military spouse. While in
jail on the traffic violation, Sally Anne was evicted from her apartment and
lost all of her important papers, including her Social Security card. It
turns out one needs a photo ID to get a new Social Security card, and by
then all Sally Anne had was an official card printed on paper used to
identify her within the criminal justice system. That is still her only form
of identification today.
It's "a quasi-ID," she explains. "It is-but it isn't."
With no real form of identification, Sally Anne says she "can't get a job to
save my life." Previously, she worked in strip clubs and lingerie studios,
legal arenas of the adult industry she says were "very safe, protected"
spheres. But even strip clubs require two forms of ID to work. Without an ID
or credit card, Sally Anne can't even advertise as an escort on the
Internet. Instead, she goes to resort hotels and introduces herself to new
men and then offers them massages and clothing-optional modeling.
"I don't like it," she says. "I don't like the situation it puts me in.When
we go up to the room, I say a prayer, I cross myself, I literally do. I do
it kind of in secret, but I'm like, oh my God, please let me get out of that
room alive, intact."
Before all of this, Sally Anne might have believed in the "whorarchy"-a
hierarchy of sex workers, in which those who allow the least contact for the
most money are at the top, while street workers are at the very bottom. Not
anymore, she says. "I admire [street workers]. I'm like, Lord, if you can do
that, you can do anything. You could be a CEO. It takes a lot of
determination and a lot of drive. I think people underestimate the strength
that these women have."
Although the government -meaning USCIS-can't seem to find any proof of Sally
Anne's existence, the government-meaning the police-seem to have no trouble
verifying her identity. Once, she was arrested and charged under a Georgia
statute with "masturbation for hire" (different, under Georgia law, than
prostitution) and held on pre-trial for over three months. After getting out
of jail, Sally Anne connected, through church friends, with a couple of
ministries that help sex workers, Serenity's Steps [5] and 4Sarah [6]. These
ministries are somewhat unique in that they provide services to women even
if they are unable or unwilling to leave the adult industry.
"Sally Anne is a great example of the kinds of persons that we work with,"
Leroy Lamar of Serenity's Steps explained. "This is her life and we're just
trying to figure out how we can come alongside of her and help her in that."
4Sarah procured an attorney for Sally Anne who made some requests of USCIS
to help clarify the matter, but ultimately didn't resolve it. Serenity's
Steps has started a crowdfunding campaign [7] to get Sally Anne an
immigration attorney. Lamar said his organization has helped many other sex
workers or sexually exploited women to get IDs, and has never run into a
situation like this before. Sally Anne's circumstances are so specialized,
in fact, that none of the three attorneys contacted to comment on this
article felt qualified to do so.
"I need competent legal counsel so I can...have my lawyer convince a judge
in federal court to order USCIS to bring forth what they call a production
of documents," Sally Anne explained. "In other words, there's a paper trail
that correlates to my arrival and my presence in this country. It all
started out with an orphan visa. After the orphan visa, I was issued a
permanent resident card, which is called a green card. I don't know exactly
when all of this took place, but I do know that it did take place. A judge
can use my sworn testimony under oath as a basis to force the production of
these documents."
Sex work activists have long complained about the enforcement of
heavy-handed laws aimed at rescuing sex trafficking victims and the lack of
meaningful services for sex trafficking victims or those who wish to leave
the sex industry. A Truthout special report [8] earlier this year found that
anti-trafficking NGOs in the U.S. receive well over $300,000 per sex
trafficking case each year, yet offer little to no services beyond raising
awareness.
Under federal law, sex trafficking is the use of force, fraud, coercion, or
minors in the sex industry. I asked Sally Anne if she felt like she was
being forced or coerced into sex work.
"Is somebody actively twisting my arm? Is somebody keeping me captive? Is
somebody forcing me? No, there's [no one]. It's the circumstances I've been
placed in that are forcing me to engage in survival sex work," Sally Anne
says.
"[USCIS] are the one who have created this situation," she continued. "I'm
not saying that they engineered it, I'm not saying that they're doing it on
purpose. I'm saying that this is an agency which is guilty of such extreme
negligence and misfeasance-not malfeasance, mind you, because it's not
deliberate on their part, they're just lazy, disorganized, fragmented, don't
have it together-they just have ruined my life, my life as I knew it."
Sally Anne is not the only one making this claim. Just a couple of weeks
ago, immigration attorney Greg Siskind filed for a temporary restraining
order [9] against USCIS on behalf of thousands of immigrants whose lives
were about to be ruined because of what seems to be a similar case of
negligent record-keeping [10]. People are tweeting about it with the
hashtags #visagate2015 [11] and #shameonUCIS [12], a hashtag Sally Anne also
uses.
Sally Anne says this has been a pivotal moment in her life. Her Christian
faith has strengthened, she's clarified her values and she is not content to
waste her life anymore. When she regains her legal identity she plans to
become an ambassador for foreign adoption and the decriminalization of
prostitution. Decriminalization would mean that if she were assaulted by a
client, she could go to the police and report it, just like a person with
any other job.
"A gas station clerk at the 7-Eleven, [if they were the] victim of a crime,
they have no qualms about picking up the phone and calling the police," she
says. "I could not do that, because then I'm going to be the one to get
arrested."
"As a result of everything I've been through and the situation that I've
been forced into, to be like an underground sex worker, constantly on the
down-low, constantly hiding, constantly afraid of being arrested, I am going
to work very hard to further the cause of decriminalization here in the
U.S."
Learn more about Sally Anne on her website [13] or donate [7] to her legal
fund.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [14]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[15]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/immigration/how-new-immigration-laws-are-putting-som
e-sex-workers-risk
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/tara-burns
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act
[4] http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/085.html
[5] http://www.serenityssteps.org/
[6] http://www.4sarah.net/
[7] https://www.crowdrise.com/paperforpaperlessme/fundraiser/leroylamar
[8]
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28763-special-report-money-and-lies-in-an
ti-human-trafficking-ngos
[9]
http://blog.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2015/09/30/visa-bulletin-law-suit-update-09-
30-2015/
[10]
http://blog.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2015/10/09/one-theory-explaining-visagate/
[11]
https://twitter.com/hashtag/visagate2015?f=tweets&vertical=default&s
rc=hash
[12] https://twitter.com/hashtag/shameonuscis?src=hash
[13] https://livingpaperless.wordpress.com
[14] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on How New Immigration
Laws Are Putting Some Sex Workers At Risk
[15] http://www.alternet.org/
[16] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
