U.S. policy

U.S. policy

Many affluent families in Indonesia are sending their sons and
daughters to the United States to study, even though scholastic
achievements are mediocre; it is just for the sake of prestige.
Not many people know that only the so-called accredited schools
are those whose level of teaching is considered up to standard.

Last year, many families, who have their sons and daughters
studying in the U.S., were shocked to learn that a girl from
Indonesia studying at a university in the U.S. and living in a
dormitory alone, was abused and killed.

A distant relative of my colleague, was so worried about her
daughter that she asked her unmarried sister to watch over her
daughter. The two sisters relieve each other after a period of
three months as the daughter's chaperone. This goes on for a
year, but recently the unmarried sister applied for the visa at
the U.S. Embassy, she was turned down for the simple reason that
she goes to and fro to the U.S. and she is therefore misusing her
visa by working. She was denied a visa, much less a stay permit.
All her protests fell on deaf ears.

Recently, when I received my newspaper, frequently a sheet of
paper is inserted inviting people of Indonesian nationality to
apply as an immigrant to the United States. This makes me wonder
about Uncle Sam's policy. On the one hand, the U.S strongly
discourage people from working in the U.S. with a tourist visa,
but on the other hand, it invites a polyglot of people to live in
the U.S., while it is common knowledge that it is not easy to
make a living in a strange country without the essential
knowledge of the language and without a special profession.
Further, the U.S. is also haunted by recession and unemployment.

A. DJUANA

Jakarta