The New McCarthyism

The summer languished as Lasso awaited her fate. July stretched into August, then September, with no word on her visa. She rented an apartment in Panama, throwing herself into research and work at a museum. Raden attended his mother's birthday party in Florida alone, feeling the ache of his bride's absence in a hotel room meant for two.

Back in Cleveland Heights, Lasso's garden grew unruly and choked with weeds. Thank-you notes for their wedding gifts went unwritten. Raden invested in international calling cards and e-mailed his wife pictures of her roses.

"We talk every day," he said simply. "You have to."

Still, the uncertainty was killing them. If Lasso had some idea how long the process would take — or that it would end with a plane ticket home — it might be easier. But the consulate told her nothing. "We don't know how to plan our lives now," she said.

Case was forced to cancel her fall classes, leaving a giant hole for students studying south-of-the-border history. Chairman Sadowsky's pleas for help from Senators George Voinovich, Sherrod Brown, and even Republican leader Mitch McConnell weren't having much effect. Each time they got a call from Capitol Hill, State Department officials would say only that Lasso's case was pending. So her friends and students started blitzing the media, launching letter-writing campaigns and holding meetings to rally support.

Raden suddenly found himself sweating under the glare of TV cameras, mourning the loss of his wife on the evening news.

"Who goes through this?" he asked at one point. "The only analogies I can think of are not very comforting."

By late September, the university had hired immigration lawyer Leopold to take on Lasso's case. A tense week followed in which Lasso had the strange experience of listening to her story reported on National Public Radio from her apartment in Panama. It only upset her further, since NPR in the morning was a ritual she and Raden shared.

That Sunday afternoon found Raden alone at home, cleaning and raking the leaves. In the kitchen, a measuring cup of brown liquid sat in the espresso machine. Raden had been trying to replicate a drink he calls "Café Marixa," a perfect combination of espresso and milk that only his wife could pull off.

He hadn't been to the movies since she left. He hadn't figured out where to fit his microwave or toaster oven into her kitchen. Not that it mattered, since he wasn't cooking much these days anyway.

He tried to stay upbeat, but it was tough. Just last fall, he and Lasso visited Ellis Island, New York's historic welcome center for refugees from around the world. Now that same broken system was failing him. "You guys gotta do something," he urged unseen bureaucratic gods. "You know, fix it. Because in many cases, you're hurting Americans."

The next day, as if by divine intervention, he got his wish. Lasso's sister, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois, was at the U.S. Embassy in Panama trying to get her own visa renewed. Her name had become familiar enough that officials flagged her down.

"Tell your sister that she's been cleared," they said.

And just like that, the ordeal was over. By the time Lasso picked up her visa, office workers were even laughing about it. "You don't seem too dangerous to us!" they said.

Finally free to return home, Lasso decided to stay in Panama through December to finish the research she originally planned to do next semester. Raden, however, had already made arrangements to fly down for a two-week visit.

"We'll just have a regular life together," she says. "I am delighted. I'm so happy."

But of course, everything is not fine. Lasso still has to make it past TSA agents at the airport. She still has no idea why her visa was delayed or what changed their minds. And she doesn't know when she'll be able to travel outside the country again — or how many other scholars are stuck in the same situation.

"The problem itself isn't resolved, and that's what's really frustrating," says Lyz Bly, a Ph.D. candidate and friend of Lasso.

Besides, as Maggio points out, the feds just wasted a lot of time and money pursuing an innocent professor. Who knows if, while they were investigating Lasso, some guy working on a bomb in Pakistan slipped through?

"They've got a fixed amount of dollars, and that's what's scary about all this," Maggio says.

Yet having just received a miraculous gift from the U.S. government, Lasso isn't eager to criticize. She won't say whether the experience has corrupted her view of her adopted government. It's not a subject she can ever discuss lightly.

"I'm not going to talk about that," she says. "Nothing has changed. It's the same as before."

But perhaps she doesn't need to say anything. Her friends and colleagues have already done it for her. They waited nearly three months for their friend's return and weren't willing to let the incident go — especially when they thought she wasn't coming home.

"I feel betrayed by my government," Sentilles says. "I feel like they're just starting to say, 'We don't trust anyone. Especially people who think.'"