You are just a number

Visa bureaucracy

This might sound like fiction – but it is a true story.

Diego studies in Canada. He is a Colombian citizen. His sister Ana is studying in Germany. She wants him to spend Christmas with her, as she can’t miss classes and won’t be able to travel. So she invites her brother to Germany.

End of story? Unfortunately not.

This is how it ends up:

Ana’s visa is a limited student visa and has to be renewed soon. She has no regular income and lives from money her parents send her. To visit Germany as a non-EU citizen, you must guarantee that you can finance your own travel and living costs, and you have to take out a travel health insurance with a minimum coverage of 30,000 Euro. If you can’t prove this yourself, the person inviting you has to to be able to cover all costs, including the health insurance. But as Ana is a student, too, she can’t guarantee for this.

Luckily she has a friend, Jakob, that accepts to invite her brother. So Jakob writes a letter to the German Embassy in Canada, stating he will cover all costs of Diego’s visit.

A few days later, the Embassy writes back. A simple invitation won’t do. Jakob has to print a form from the internet, take this form to the immigration office of his city, where he will get a “real” form, signed and sealed by the immigration office. But of course he can’t just simply “go to” the office. He has to call and schedule an appointment that is given to him for the week to come.

Jakob, who is an Austrian living in Germany, goes to the appointment and takes all relevant documents with him.

The immigration officer starts filling out all required fields and checkes Jakob’s documents. Then the officer asks: “Do you have a legal residency permit?” “Well, I’m a EU-citizen. I don’t need a residency permit”, says Jakob. “Oh, yes you do. You need your certificate of freedom of movement (Freizügigkeitsbescheinigung)! You have to carry it around with you all the time! I’m sorry, sir, but without this paper I can’t issue the form that you need.”

Good enough that Jakob knows of his rights and tells the officer: “All EU citizens have the right to move and reside freely in the EU. It is not true, that I have to carry that certificate with me all the time! That’s just unnecessary bureaucracy.” So Jakob, after having to pay 25 Euro for the form, in the end got the paper he needed and sent it to the German Embassy in Canada. The form got there the day after Diego was supposed to leave.

As you can imagine, all this bureaucracy not only causes a lot of psychological stress, it is humiliating and is an attack on human dignity. These kind of stories happen every day.

Diego was able to postpone his flight. In the end, this story went out well. But there are many that don’t.

The names of persons were changed, as they want to remain anonymous.