Word: visas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...police knocked on the door of his rented Kendall town house and lured him outside by claiming that his van had been involved in a hit-and-run accident. They were suddenly joined by U.S. marshals and immigration agents, who arrested him on a charge of overstaying his tourist visa. Since Garay had implicated him just hours before, the marshals felt they had to act before the suspect caught wind of the news and fled. "It was a scam, but it worked," said Mell Hess of the U.S. Marshals Service...
Vladimir Feltsman finally got to Carnegie Hall last week. Eight years ago, Feltsman, the Moscow-born son of a prominent Jewish pop composer, was considered one of the Soviet Union's most promising young pianists. Then he applied to the authorities for an emigration visa. Suddenly his engagements were canceled, his recordings yanked off the radio. Even a private performance at Spaso House, the U.S. Ambassador's official residence in Moscow, was marred when the piano was mysteriously vandalized before the concert. Apart from a few performances, mostly on battered uprights in remote villages, Feltsman was a musical nonperson...
Meanwhile, the bureaucracy grows only more cumbersome. Nicaraguans complain about having to be screened by their local Sandinista defense committee before they can even apply for a driver's license or passport. "We need a visa to leave the country," says Maria Fernandez Bermudez, on the way to visit relatives in Costa Rica. "And then we need permission to return again. Imagine having to get a visa to return to your own country...
...surge mean that Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev intends to pay more heed to one of the human rights that the Soviet Union has long violated? Or is it merely a temporary opening of the door, mostly to troublesome refuseniks? Says Mathematician Iosif Begun, who was recently given an exit visa after a 16-year wait: "This is a hopeful time for Soviet Jews, but sometimes I'm afraid this hope has no basis...
...U.S.S.R. is home to more than 1.5 million Jews, the largest Jewish population outside of the U.S. and Israel. The State Department estimates that 400,000 of them may want to leave the country, although only 30,000 have formally requested visa applications. Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union began in earnest in 1971. But after it peaked in 1979, Moscow drastically reduced the number of emigration permits the following year, claiming that many applicants -- even those who had worked at menial jobs -- possessed "state secrets." The cutback was a response to heated Western criticism of Moscow's December...