"Visa applicants are used to verbal abuse, being shoved about, being threatened with horsewhips and belt buckles and kept out in the sun or rain for hours on sluggish queues even though they arrived at the consulate at exactly the time they were told to and even though they have paid or will pay up to a hundred dollars for the torture of applying for a visa. The presumption is that the applicant is a liar, that all the documents put forward in support of the application are fakes. Occasionally you hear applicants who have been humiliated to breaking point venting their frustration on their interviewer from the direction of the cubicles, yelling like lunatics. Or you hear the terrible pleading in their voices, the readiness to endure even more humiliation, in order to meet a medical appointment or attend a daughter’s wedding or visit prospective business partners, and the sound is unbearable."