A few days ago, US President Joe Biden announced that the United States would once again be opening up to fully vaccinated European visitors, as well as travelers from other nations that had been restricted by COVID-19 related travel restrictions.
It was an enormous victory for hundreds of binational couples and cross border families who had been separated for almost eighteen months from their loved ones. Many were frustrated at the lack of media attention on their plight, and raised awareness with the hashtag #LoveIsNotTourism—a formidable campaign that brought many of their stories into the public eye and created a support network to navigate the ever-changing rules of both love and borders that was our world.
It reminded me of the way that I’ve seen other women come together to support one another when a loved one is deported or discriminatory immigration requirements keep them from being together. I wrote about it for Newlines Magazine a few months ago, musing about how the ways that those separated by COVID restrictions were meeting in third countries mirrored the way that countries like Turkey and Malaysia provided a space for loved ones who had been separated by discriminatory visa requirements, and wondered if these more recent separations would create compassion and solidarity for people who had been separated by much longer lasting policies: Obama’s deportations, Trump’s Muslim ban, the bipartisan alliance to allow a pathway to citizenship for millions continue to gather dust.
I cannot help thinking about the way that #LoveIsNotTourism’s borders nightmare is over, while so many others live on without mention. While travel is now open for visitors who once visited the United States visa free (or with a visa that can be obtained at the border, which for anyone who has ever applied for an actual visa before, is very much not a real visa), nothing has changed for those of us with loved ones who would need visas. While numerous articles have gawked at the way that certain families were separated for eighteen months across the Atlantic Ocean, none have asked or answered the questions of whether or not visa processing has resumed as normal for those of us with loved ones who definitely cannot just show up to the United States. As it stands, citizens of only thirty-nine countries can travel to the United States without an additional visa—and thirty-one of those countries are European nations.
What about the rest of the world? The United States is still largely closed to the marginalized majority, who often navigate a maze of bureaucracy to even imagine being able to visit, paying visa fees and attending interviews where their English is tested and their motivations are interrogated. Why are certain travelers trusted while others are not? Love is not tourism, but tourism itself is a privilege relegated to a mobile few who can set off to a country of their choosing to explore without limits.
In some cases, love is too.
I wish that these articles would also mention the families that swallowed the pill of prolonged separation when comprehensive immigration reform is not taken as a national priority, or hold Biden accountable for promising to change the experience of immigrants in the United States only to violently deport Haitian asylum-seekers form the border. I wish there was more outrage at the fact that the total number of immigrants detained by ICE has increased by 70 percent under Biden’s leadership, and more inquiry into just how much his policies towards immigrants and asylum-seekers actually stray from his predecessor. I wish more people wondered why it is that resuming ordinary travel with European countries is a priority, but facilitating paths to legal immigration is not. I wish more people questioned the way the system is built, the way it so closely aligns with perceptions of race and class and how it is not a coincidence who can easily travel to the United States and who cannot. I wish more people called bullshit.
I spoke about a few of these things on French journalist Isabelle Roughol’s Borderline podcast this week (bonus points for the hints of Valley Girl accent that pop up), but this is a much bigger conversation—one that I’m hoping to explore in my book, and beyond. If you know someone who might appreciate these rants, musings and snippets—in newsletter form, and perhaps in podcast form as well—please point them towards this newsletter, and ask them to subscribe. I aim to please, and the more that I know that readers are out there, the more I’m motivated to write, so by all means, drop me a line and spread the word.