In the past couple weeks, a number of news agencies have published articles about the confiscation of U.S. passports at the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa.
أنشرت وكالات الإعلام عدة مقالات خلال الأسابيع الأخيرة في موضوع سحب جوازات السفر في السفارة الأميركية في صنعاء.
Al-Jazeera America – Yemeni-Americans cry foul over passport revocations
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
But another State Department official familiar with the issue — and who spoke on condition of anonymity — told Al Jazeera that a majority of the passport revocations in Sana’a follow a similar pattern. “Virtually all of the statements say that the individual naturalized under a false identity,” he said. “They appear to be involuntary.”
According to the official, an internal investigation determined that the statements those revocations were based on were obtained under “confrontational” circumstances, with individuals alone in an interview room with an investigative officer and an interpreter who, the official said, treated their subjects “aggressively.”
“We’re talking about an inherently coercive and intimidating environment, without any independent supervision of the interrogator and his translator,” said the official.
Washington Post – In Yemen, U.S. Embassy confiscating some passports, ACLU warns
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Official U.S. government travel advisories — warning Americans to be careful, or not to even go to, dangerous places such as Benghazi or Fallujah — are the province of the State Department, which relies on information from embassies around the world.
So it was most curious when the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations recently issued a warning about going to the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen.
DiploPundit – Revocation of U.S. passports, a growing trend?
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
So — if true that most of the revocation cases concerned naturalized Yemeni-Americans, is the US Embassy in Yemen performing passport revocations without prior action from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS)? Is this a case of a new policy? Or is this a case of a Consular Section running “wild” with “minimal supervision” an allegation made by a State Department insider to this blog?
We Meant Well – ACLU, Others, Advise Americans to Be Wary When Dealing with U.S. Embassy in Yemen
Clik here to view.
The advice in the pamphlet is sound and accurate to my reading. The basics– admit nothing, sign nothing, leave and get legal advice– apply to any interaction with our government. However, to many people traveling abroad, such advice may seem shocking. For the most part, Americans have come to believe that “their” embassy in a foreign country is a place of refuge, not another encounter with yet another form of psuedo-law enforcement. Sad to say, but times have changed and even a visit to an American embassy is now a potentially dangerous act for a citizen to undertake. Citizens are viewed as adversaries, particularly “lessor” citizens such as Hyphenated-Americans. Indeed, we can’t find one case in Sanaa that involved a Mr. or Ms. Whitebread.