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Please read Editor’s note on ‘Passport pains’ before continuing.
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As a person of colour born in Sri Lanka, my identity is under constant surveillance. Every time I am at an airport and have to face an immigration officer, I feel deeply anxious. Even though my passport holds a valid visa, I could be deported back home to Sri Lanka because I am an alien in a foreign country.
The feeling of not belonging, being perceived through suspicion and being automatically ‘othered’ leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I am a threat, never a person, in their eyes.
I am constantly exposed to behavioural violence. These micro-aggressions are verbal, gestural or conveyed through a simple glance. I have experienced this at bureaucracies, embassies and airports. This is partly due to my race and partly due to my nationality.
The Henley and Partners Visa Restriction Index cites that Germans have the best passport; they can travel to 176 countries visa-free or gain visa on arrival. Australians and South Koreans can visit 170 countries visa-free or gain visa on arrival. As a point of comparison, Sri Lankans can only travel to 38 countries visa-free. These countries include Ecuador, Iran, Singapore, Kenya, Maldives and Myanmar.
So the process of obtaining a visa must be simple, right?
As a Sri Lankan, you need a visa to travel to most countries, even for a short holiday. These visa processes are extremely complex and time-consuming. The process can be compared to an Easter egg hunt that never seems to end.
I began to really notice the bureaucratic obstacles placed in front of Sri Lankans once I finished school, when a friend of mine asked me to come to England to spend the summer before she and I started university.
There are several documents Sri Lankans need to provide, as stated by the UK’s official Home Office website. I had to provide copies of my passport, passport photos and my birth certificate. On top of these I also had to provide dates of travel, details of accommodation, an estimate of the trip’s cost, evidence of home address, my parent’s documents (such as birth certificates and salary slips). Any translated documents had to include the date of translation, the translator’s name, the translator’s signature and the translator’s contact details.
My parents had been ready to provide all these documents. But, the Home Office then asked for more from, not from me but from my friend’s parents: a letter of invitation from them to me, a letter from their employers confirming employment (such as start of employment, salary slips, position and contact details) and their utility bills.
Understandably, her parents refused to pass on these confidential documents. I could not go for my holiday. So I decided to delay it for a more promising time in the future.
But it’s not just holidays. I encountered more obstacles as I sought to travel for my education.
If a Sri Lankan student tries to obtain a study visa and apply from Sri Lanka they need to plan three months ahead of their course’s date of commencement. Apart from the usual documents (passport, photos, proof of income and letter from parents if under 18), they also have to be available for a video chat that tests their genuine desire to study in the UK. Then they need to pay for the IELTS and tuberculosis test. On top of this, students need to pay £348 for the visa.
When applying from Australia for my year of study in Scotland, I had to submit the same documents but gained an exemption for the IELTs test and tuberculosis test. The UK Office Home must have concluded that if the Australian government had let me in, I could be trusted to be disease-free.
Once I lodged my application, I submitted my documents and paid for a fast-tracked visa option because I hoped to go home for Christmas. I received my documents on Christmas Eve, a day before the visa processing center closed and also the day of my flight.
I spent Christmas in Australia alone. I realised that our emotions and lives are never a point of consideration for these embassies. We are just application numbers in their systems.
Even more challenging is the Schengen visa that covers 26 European countries including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal. Europe is sealed behind closed door to people outside their “chosen countries”.
I tried to go to Europe for the summer. I had cousins in France, I had done several jobs to raise money and I could easily procure the documents from my university for a short holiday.
For a Schengen visa, I needed to submit two passport-sized photographs, copies of a passport, financial document (I collected my bank statement and my parents airmailed me a letter from Sri Lanka), a letter that described my purpose of visit, a letter from my university, invitation letter from my cousin’s, details of my cousin’s address, copy of my cousin’s passport and document they procured from their local government. I also had to pay for a confirmed airline ticket, insurance and visa fees.
My closest friend at the time accompanied me to my appointment at the embassy. I arrived thirty minutes before the time of my appointment, all the documents in correct order and safely filed. I remember feeling a deep sense of excitement.
At the entrance, a man told me I lacked a special envelope and a return address for my passport and so could not enter the consulate. He told me that this policy had been updated that morning—I had missed it because I had already been on the bus to the embassy.
My friend and I ran to the nearest post office to find the envelope. Once she and I returned, he again refused us entry; my appointment time has passed. We were five minutes late. He advised us that the best option would be to book another appointment. Of course, this meant that the date of my ticket had been nullified.
Almost instantly, my financial documents (including the ones airmailed by my parents), my university letter, visa insurance and the document my cousin had obtained from their local government had also been nullified. To book another appointment meant that I had to re-procure documents to match the changed ticket all over again and pay more money.
I proceeded to beg the man at the Sri Lankan consulate to just let me in so that I could speak to the visa officer. He stubbornly refused. Soon, another man joined him, and he screamed at me. They pushed me out of the consulate and hurled all my documents at me.
This had occurred 20 days before my 21st birthday. I have not applied for a holiday visa since.
Bureaucracies subjugate our bodies. They have their foot on our necks; their overreaching authority and malice beaming through as they hold us at their mercy. Our lives are not important. Our money has no relevance. Our emotions are never considered.
Entrance is complex. Entrance is expensive. Entrance is a big risk. We are constantly violated simply as a result of our desire to enter a country.
Many people of colour do not have the opportunity to take a year off, backpack or discover themselves Eat, Pray, Love style. As a Sri Lankan, I lack the employment mobility to access global opportunities, enhance my skills and form intercultural connections in an increasingly competitive and complex labour market.
Europeans can move and gain employment in other European countries. The British, Americans and Australians have access to employment and holiday visas in several countries. There are so many backpackers roaming around St Kilda doing just this. Why is there a limited number of people of colour doing the same?
A lot of people are oblivious to the strict visa system in place that prohibits our free movement, even for leisurely travel. I feel increasingly disconnected to people the moment they start talking about their travels. Their free movement is not something I have ever experienced.
The situation is only being exacerbated by the unshakeable xenophobia and increasing racism that has consumed our society in the last decade, especially now in this Trump-era. More and more doors have closed in the past couple of years.
Not all Sri Lankans have been subjected to the same obstacles that I have encountered. Others have in the past but since have changed their circumstances, either through immigration to another country, marriage or the accumulation of money. And these Sri Lankans—I am sick of their “not my problem” attitude that’s partly born of apathy and partly a desire to assimilate into a jet-setting, millennial identity capped off by scenic Insta-stories. #blessed. #YOLO.
We need to progress as a community together. We have achieved nothing if it does not benefit the larger community. We cannot leave others behind and click champagne glasses over Lake Como and then go skiing in the Alps. Sure, a better passport might convince the immigration official to let you in, but what about everyone else? Only collective change can transform that into acceptance.
About the author
Devana Senanayake is a Sri Lankan content specialist and multimedia journalist. She focuses on feminism, immigration, race, colonisation and marginalisation. She is interested in the celebration of diverse voices, experiences and projects run by people of colour.