The Little Black Room: Vignettes of Fleeting Life
At 7:40 a.m. on August 22, 2016, my UA889 flight landed safely at SFO. There were slightly more people than usual at immigration, but processing was fast, and soon it was my turn. Seeing that I held an AP card (Advance Parole, commonly called a re-entry permit), the CBP officer quickly had me give fingerprints and take a photo, then sent me to the Second Office—commonly known as the little black room—to obtain the so-called Advance Parole stamp.
The little black room was packed with a dark mass of people. There were two old ladies in wheelchairs, a married couple, a father with a child, a mother with a child, and mostly students on F1 visas. This was my second time in the little black room (the first was on CA985), and I wasn’t nervous anymore. Besides, I had nothing to hide—it was just a matter of getting a stamp. So I casually handed my passport, AP card, entry form, and everything else to the officer in one pile, then sat to one side and waited.
The efficiency of the little black room was truly outrageous—it suddenly occurred to me that Zootopia should really have satirized this department instead of the DMV. Several officers were chatting and laughing there, perfectly at ease, without spending even a little time on the backlog of cases.
At this point a couple was called in, and an elderly woman in a wheelchair who had come with them also tried to stand and go in, but the officer motioned that she needn’t—she could keep sitting and waiting. Right after that, a woman’s name was called and she went into the inner room. Neither group emerged for a long time. The atmosphere in the room began to feel oppressive, and a young couple turned red with tension. One woman, who had probably waited a long while, timidly raised her hand and asked when her case would be handled, since she still had a connecting flight to Los Angeles. The officer glanced at her documents and said arrogantly: “Your flight is still a long way off, don’t worry; if you miss it, we’ll put you on the next one.” The previously quiet hall now grew restless; people began whispering to those beside them and exchanging information. A woman’s phone rang—probably whoever was picking her up had grown anxious. She took out her phone and was about to answer when an officer immediately barked, “No cellphone!” And so the just-restless hall fell into dead silence again.
Then an officer who looked Indian came out of the inner room and called a name. A man in the hall with a Chinese face stood up and stepped forward. The officer said sternly, “You’re on an L1 visa—why didn’t you bring your 797?” The man protested, “My lawyer said that after the first use I didn’t need to carry it.” The officer sneered, “Do you want to listen to your lawyer or to me? I ask, you answer. Do you or do you not have your 797 with you?” The man said, “No. But my lawyer…” The officer cut him off again: “Listen to me—I ask, you answer! Read this passage!” With that, he pointed to a passage on the visa and made the man read it. The man read too softly for me to hear. Later I looked at my own L1 visa and saw, prominently printed: MUST PRESENT APPROVED I-797 OR I-129S AT POE. So it looked like this man had been done in by his company’s idiotic lawyer. After the man finished reading, the officer waved his hand: “Go sit over there. We’ll call you if we need you.”
Just as I was lamenting this man’s misfortune, a young man who looked European (I guessed under twenty) and had been lying in a corner was called in. A few minutes later, he was brought out by three police officers with his hands bound behind his back: two officers supported him, and the other carried all his luggage. I didn’t know what this kid had done to warrant such a drastic deportation. Was he a thief? Or was it simply deportation? Which raised the question: does deporting someone have to be done in such a humiliating way?
The people left in the hall immediately grew restless again. At that moment everyone felt like a lamb awaiting slaughter, waiting anxiously to be sentenced.
Then one of the elderly women in a wheelchair was called up. She had her left and right index fingers fingerprinted, her photo taken, and was released. The people around her quietly asked what had happened, and she spread her hands and said, “I don’t know either.” The other elderly woman in a wheelchair watched her go out with envy in her eyes and sighed—at that moment her son and daughter-in-law (or daughter and son-in-law) were inside the little black room undergoing further investigation.
The woman who had been called in at the beginning was finally “released.” She carried her luggage, clutched her passport and entry form in one hand, and wore that particular joy of someone who has survived a disaster—a joy on the verge of tears.
People kept entering one after another; there were few empty seats left in the Second Office hall. Most of the newly arrived poor souls were F1 students, along with single fathers or mothers traveling with children. I remembered my wife had specifically mentioned that there seemed to be a recent rule: when one parent travels in or out of the country with a child, written authorization from the other parent is required. I didn’t know whether these people had been sent here because they lacked the other parent’s authorization, or whether—even if you have authorization (just as I had my AP card)—they still want to give you a hard time and make you come in to soak up the atmosphere. I hoped it wasn’t the latter.
While I was lost in these random thoughts, the officer finally called my name. I checked my watch: forty-five minutes had passed since I entered the hall. The officer saw my AP card and his tone seemed a bit gentler. He asked for my driver’s license and my U.S. phone number, then asked what I had gone back to China for. I said, “Business trip.” He pressed further, asking what the business trip was for. I had thought about this question while sitting there bored, and I felt the best answer for me was: “We’re expanding our market in China, so I’m building a team there.” That way he wouldn’t start speculating about American job security. After I answered, he motioned for me to go back and sit down while he conducted an inspection. Taking all my materials, he disappeared into the inner room and did not come out again.
More people kept coming in. One conspicuous group was a large Muslim family. The head of the family was a man in a wheelchair; behind him followed his young and beautiful wife in a headscarf, and then three children: two boys and a girl, all fairly grown. The wife did not look old enough to be the mother of those three children. She gestured for the children to sit in three consecutive seats, then found another empty seat for herself.
Time passed minute by minute, and the officer handling my case was nowhere to be seen. By now my wife and child had probably been waiting at the arrivals exit for over an hour, and I couldn’t even send them a message to let them know I was all right.
At this point the mother and child sitting next to me were called up. From their conversation I realized that this “mother” was not the mother at all, but the child’s aunt, who had come this time to bring the child back to see his father. The officer asked the child’s height and weight, and the careless aunt was unable to answer (though if someone asked me how tall and heavy my little Bao was in feet and pounds, I too would have been hard-pressed). The officer estimated three feet, forty pounds. Then he interrogated her with several more questions and even pointed to a name and asked the child, “Is this your father?” The poor child was already utterly rattled and nodded mechanically. Later the aunt was taken into the inner room for further questioning, leaving the child sitting outside. After a long while, the child was called in too, luggage and all.
The officer handling my case finally came out. But instead of calling my name, he chatted and laughed with another officer for ages. I wanted to get up and ask, but feared doing more harm than good, so I held myself back. At last he returned to the computer with my materials and began typing something. Seeing me staring at him eagerly, he called me forward. “Our system is really slow, really slow,” he complained. “That’s Microsoft,” I said, glancing at the Dell computer. He laughed. “Not always, but today. You’re almost done.” Hearing that, I finally let out a breath. “How frequent are you going to China in future?” he continued. I said, “Probably once a quarter.” He looked at me and said, “You’d better go with your green card. Otherwise you have to suffer this each time.”
And so, an hour and a half later, I finally finished getting the so-called Advance Parole stamp.
My checked luggage was waiting for me on the floor.
My wife and daughter were waiting for me at the exit.
“Daddy, I missed you so much!” my daughter said as she threw herself at me, wrapping around me like an octopus, leaving me no chance to give my wife a big hug first.
After spending twelve hours crossing the entire Pacific, in just an hour and a half, I felt for the first time what it means to be so near yet so far.
