The United States renewed a warning Monday that it would defend the Philippines in case of an armed attack under a 1951 treaty, after Chinese ships blocked and collided with two Filipino vessels off a contested shoal in the South China Sea.
Philippine diplomats summoned a Chinese Embassy official in Manila on Monday for a strongly worded protest following Sunday’s collisions off Second Thomas Shoal. No injuries were reported but the encounters damaged a Philippine coast guard ship and a wooden-hulled supply boat operated by navy personnel, officials said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called an emergency meeting with the defense secretary and other top military and security officials to discuss the latest hostilities in the disputed waters. The Philippines and other neighbors of China have resisted Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims over virtually the entire South China Sea, and some, like Manila, have sought U.S. military support as incidents multiply.
“Soft Allies” is annoyingly relevant here. My girlfriend is an officer in the Philippine Air Force. She was denied a U.S. tourism visa twice to come visit me. In the meantime, half of her unit was just sent to Hawaii for a multi month joint training exercise. So she can’t come here to travel and try American food with me or go to Disney World or whatever, but at any point she could be sent to a military base here for defense purposes.
That’s very frustrating, but a military training appointment is much different than a holiday trip
They are different, yes. One could make the case that if you’re willing to give your life fighting to defend a foreign ally’s country they should celebrate you and welcome you to visit their country as well
I think it’s totally sensible to give military members of allied nations permanent visas for the US, for exactly why you say.
No… that’s not realistic.
There are visa requirements and exclusions for reasons. Being an enlisted soldier in a foreign army can’t, and shouldn’t, make you automatically exempt from them, simply because that country is an ally.
You’re assuming that something about being a soldier makes you above the law, or precludes them from having any quality that a foreign county would feel makes them ineligible for visa entry.
I’m not saying that America’s immigration system isn’t flawed, or that this one guys GF isn’t getting a raw deal. Just that you don’t know the details of this case, and you definitely shouldn’t assume that every soldier in a foreign military is someone who should automatically be granted visa entry simply because their country may have some sort of military alliance with your country.
Yeah I don’t think in any way she should automatically be granted a permanent visa. It’s just frustrating because she checks all the boxes they are looking for.
She’s never committed a crime, has plenty of money to fund her trip here, owns property in the Phillipines, has elderly parents, siblings, pets, she cares for back home that rely on her. She’s demonstrated strong ties to her home nation with those things and her decade long service in the military. So she clearly has intention to come visit here and then go back home before her tourism visa expires.
When they deny you, you just get a sheet of paper with like 50 possible reasons you could have been denied without saying which one(s) it is, and there’s no appeal process, you just have to schedule another appointment, pay the US gov hundreds of dollars to apply again, and then wait another 9 months for an appointment to open up.
Dude that’s so frustrating, that sucks. Is the wait for an interview for a visitor visa to the US still like 9 months?
I was in a similar situation for a while. It sucks.
I’m not sure at this point. I’ve been to the Phillipines to visit her a few times, and we’re not planning on going the tourist visa route again. We are planning a trip to Japan early next year, and I’ll propose to her there. From that point we’ll begin the K1 visa process