When Missions Break Immigration Laws
I went home 6 weeks early from my mission and still overstayed my visa to Brazil by 33 days. I incurred a fine at the border as I was leaving the country because the mission was breaking the law. I'd had no idea that my visa had expired and hadn't been renewed until I was leaving Brazil.
To say I panicked is an understatement. I had no money. I had no access to a phone to get money. I thought I was about to be detained in Brazil until someone showed up to pay the fine for overstaying my visa.
I think the Brazilian federal police agent at the border saw the panic in my face. She told me that if I didn't pay the fine, I wouldn't be allowed to reenter the country until it was paid. Nothing bad was going to happen to me. I had been told by my mission president that I was going to receive a fine, to send a copy of it to the mission office, and that the Church would pay it. They didn't tell me that visa overstay was the reason for my fine. I went into that situation totally blind with no idea what to expect or how to respond.
I've never been back to Brazil to confirm, but I fully expect that I will owe the Brazilian government some money if I do.
Had the choice been given to me, I would've gone home when my visa expired. I loved my mission, but I'm fully aware of how difficult it was for the Church to get visas to Brazil. Disrespecting visa duration and visa overstay was part of the reason why. I would rather have obeyed Brazilian law and not been put into this position than have a visa overstay attached to my name. I was taught to be careful with the name of the Savior while I wore it on my chest every day. It wasn't mine to present poorly to anyone, so I needed to present my best self to the world as a reflection of him. And for my entire mission, that was what I tried to do. It never occurred to me to question what the people telling me that were doing with my good name.
This kind of law-breaking goes on in missions all over the world every day. What I've just described is small potatoes compared to some of what has taken place with church missions in the past with breaking immigration laws. When I found out about Venezuela, my jaw dropped. Suddenly the visa waiters I met in my mission who were headed from Brazil to Venezuela made a lot more sense.
The Church has always hesitated to take a zero tolerance stance on immigration because it's not a world they're prepared to live in. They're not prepared to live in a world where mission presidents and the missionary department cannot move people at will, with no accountability to anyone when they break the law.
If that's the kind of world they want to live in, one with open borders like that, they should own up to it and tell their own people that. They should tell the truth to their obstinate right flank how little they think of immigration laws. It might take some of the bombast out of them and make them easier to live with.
