Early this year, I took a trip to China, my second one this year. And to my ultimate shock, I got deported.
Yes, deported!
One clear Sunday afternoon (as the cliche goes), I boarded a flight to Shanghai, taking Cebu Pacific’s worthy competitor PAL. We arrived at 6:45 p.m. after the three-hour flight. I lined up at immigration just like anyone else. Since this was not my first trip to China, I thought that I would breeze through like my previous trips. But this time, the immigration officer started asking me a lot of questions while pointing to my visa. I regret I didn’t take my Mandarin classes seriously in high school, because I didn’t understand most of what he said. I thought he was asking when my visa was expiring and I told him it was expiring in 30 days. But he continued pointing at my visa so I presumed now that he was asking how long I was staying – the usual questions an immigration officer would ask a foreign visitor.
Then it suddenly dawned on me that there WAS something wrong with my visa. The visa I had was only for one trip, and that I had already taken the trip the previous month. In other words, my visa was no longer valid. It was expiring in 30 days, but I had already used my "one trip" option.
What a birdbrain! When I was booking the flight, the travel agency asked me three times if I already had a visa, and I insisted that I already had one. It slipped my mind that it was only for one trip.
At that instant, I turned gray, or was it white? I didn’t need a mirror to know what color my face had switched to.
I wasn’t prepared to call anybody for help. It was Sunday night.
No amount of explanation whatsoever could save me from being shipped back to the Philippines that night. Not even the faxed confirmation of a meeting the following day and a reservation at the hotel. Next thing I knew, I was escorted by two immigration officials to the 7:30 p.m. PAL flight back to Manila. They were kind enough to escort me in a way that I looked more like a lost or late passenger than an illegal alien.
I felt like a zombie when I entered the plane. In the end, it was still my fault. I didn’t follow rules. The PAL flight attendants were pretty kind to me. They made me feel better by saying that getting turned away happens to many people because people don’t usually check their visas. Nothing deliberate, just a plain and simple oversight.
When I mentioned the embarrassing incident to my husband, he said, "You weren’t deported. You were merely sent back by the Home Office for further consultations." For once, lawyer-speak sounded comforting. My dad said, "It happens to the best of us, to which my husband replied, "Look at Napoleon." Napoleon was considered the greatest military ruler in the world during his time, until he got defeated in Waterloo. I thought my husband was telling me that I was such a great person who could commit mistakes. It turns out that what he meant by "Look at Napoleon" was that I finally found my Waterloo.
A few weeks after that Napoleonic experience, I was supposed to fly to the US. This time, just to make sure, I asked three people aside from the travel agency to check my visa. They all said it was a-okay. No problem. With the visa, that is.
I had another problem. The travel agent said that the I-94 form from my previous trip to the US was still stapled to my passport. The I-94 form is the form you fill up before you arrive in the US. Immigration staples the form on your passport upon your arrival and detaches the form when you leave the US I suppose it serves as proof that you did not go TNT but went home as promised.
US Immigration had forgotten to detach my I-94 form during my last trip to the US in July last year when I attended the weddings of my two sisters in Hawaii. Does this mean that my name could still be on TNT status since July 2003?
My travel agent said that I may have problems when I arrive in the US.
I told her that I was just sent back (not deported, as my lawyer husband insisted) by China a few days back, and now the US? If this happens I would surely be tagged as a terrorist and not simply a careless traveller who didn’t check her visa before she travelled.
She suggested that I bring a file of documents as proof that I really returned to the Philippines, like xeroxed copies of my passport, plus bank statements, credit card statements and plane tickets going all the way back July 2003. I brought two sets, just in case, and they were not light at all. I kept one set in my check-in luggage just in case I lost my hand-carry, and kept one set in my hand-carry in case I lost my luggage. She also said she would pray that I don’t get deported. It was THAT bad.
I arrived in the US with my heart in my mouth, ready to be detained for questioning but not that ready to be asked to take the next flight back to the Philippines. Believe it or not, I breezed through US immigration in three minutes. My gosh, I never knew that travelling is like marriage, you always expect the opposite.
Talking about carelessness, this one is for the books. One day, I received a letter from a local magazine company (thank goodness, not Summit magazines) offering the usual one-year subscription with discount and free gift. The letter was addressed to:
"Robina Gokongwei SVP
Robinsons Dept."
It was bad enough that Robinsons became a department and not a store, but the letter started with:
"Dear Ms. SVP:"
Amen!