You’ve got to be kidding. Five — no, six — years you’ve been living in Turkey, and here you are at the main foreign police office, the Emniyet, in Fatih. You’re standing in a queue with Syrian refugees, waiting to get a residency permit.

Unbelievable.

It shouldn’t have been this way. You are employed, married, a long-term resident. It’s not like you arrived yesterday, and you are not fleeing a war zone. Normally, you just have to renew your residency, so you go to the local Emniyet in your neighborhood. There it’s much easier, much less crowded. You’re in and out in about 10 minutes, a half hour at the most.

But because of a technicality involving your school, your last permit was not approved, and you had to start all over again, apply for a fresh new visa. Which explains why you are here in Fatih, standing with a bunch of Syrian refugees, and you’ve been here two hours already.

Anyone who wants to get a closer look at immigration issues need look no further than the Emniyet in Fatih. It’s a big, imposing building on a long boulevard not all that far from the city’s historic mosques and Grand Bazaar.

A long line of people wait to get past the airport-style security. You take off your coat, belt, empty your pockets, put everything through an X-ray machine, and have your passport and appointment paper ready. Without an appointment, of course, they won’t even let you inside.

Even my driver, Orhan, wasn’t allowed past.

“But I’m his friend, his translator,” Orhan protested. It was true. Although my Turkish is passable in most normal situations, I’m less confident when dealing with bureaucracy. You’re always nervous about some left-field, technical question that you won’t be able to understand. Bureaucrats: They’ve got their own language, trust me.

But no, the security shake their heads firmly. He was not allowed. Nobody is allowed to go in except the applicants. Orhan wishes me luck, and points the way. The office is on the third floor. “Call me when you’re ready to go,” he says.

Upstairs you present your appointment paper, and are assigned a number: Room D, desk 27, number 12. Ah, so you are No. 12 in line at that desk. That’s not so bad actually. You could be No. 212, right? Well, you’re lucky. It’s Friday, so that helps.

You scan around until you find a door with the letter “D” above it. The door is closed, and a number of people are crowded around it. They all have appointments, too. They’re speaking a mixture of Arabic, Turkish, rudimentary English, and even Russian.

Everyone is trying very hard to be civil, clutching their paperwork, scanning each other distrustfully., on guard against anyone jumping. There is a tangible hostility, too, between the applicants and the Emniyet staff.

“Move back from the door! Back!” shouts a uniformed security officer, as he passes. He goes into Room D, shutting the door behind him. Momentarily, he returns, and leaves the door open, but repeats his order that we leave space at the entrance.

You peer hopefully into the office, spotting Desk 27. It almost glows like a holy shrine. There’s an Asian-looking woman and her husband sitting there, while a well-groomed Turkish young man at a computer processes their applications. That’s your guy: keep your eye on him, follow him where ever he goes.

There are others working at Desk 25, 26 and 28. Desks, 29, 30 and 31 are empty. Where are the other workers? Out for a long lunch? On holiday? There should be seven people handling applications, but instead there are only four. Maybe there have been budget cuts, or maybe they have problems filling the positions. After all, would you want to work here? Dealing with stressed-out, huddled masses of immigrants day in and day out?

I had experience with this before, when I lived in Prague. We used to have to start queuing outside the foreign police office at midnight, and stand or sit all through the night until the office opened at 8 a.m. In those days, most of the immigrants were Russian, Ukrainian and Vietnamese, and there could be lots of fighting over places in line, and the Russians would often organize a mafia-like system, bullying the Vietnamese especially into paying them for a place in the queue. I almost got beaten up by three Russian guys for refusing to follow their “orders,” and was saved from an ass beating only because a Czech policeman just happened to be cruising past and saw what was happening.

Fortunately, here in Istanbul, there doesn’t seem to be any of that. The people are left to organize themselves, true, but we manage to avoid coming to blows.

“What number do you have?” A young Syrian man from Hams asks. I show him. He has Desk 28, the one next to mine, so we’re not in direct competition. We can afford to be friendly. Two young Syrian women have my desk, and are numbers 10 and 11, respectively.

“Where are you from?” the Syrian man asks.

“America,” I say.

“America?” He seems almost incredulous. “Why are you here?” he asks. In Turkey, he means. You can see from his expression that if he were me, he would be in America.

“Well, my wife is Turkish. We live here.”

“Oh, I see.” Still, he thinks I ought to have my head examined.

Nearby, another woman is sending a text message in English, I can’t help but notice.

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“Germany,” she says. “You?”

“The States.”

We talk for awhile, about the long wait, etc. She’s at Desk 28, number 12.

“This must really suck for you,” I said. “I mean, in Germany things are supposedly so much better organized.”

“Not really,” the German girl says.

“Oh, I guess these days it must be chaotic. I mean, how many Syrian refugees have you got in Germany nowadays?”

“Over a million.”

“Wow. And they have more than 2 million here in Turkey. And they all want to go to Germany.”

“Sure, and why not?” the German girl says. “We’re a rich country, and we’ve got no problems there — except for a few Neo-Nazis.”

The German girl is waved in by the official working at Desk 28. She rushes off and plants herself in the coveted seat. I couldn’t help but notice that she’d jumped in front of the young Syrian guy (Desk 28, No. 11), but she didn’t do it on purpose — I mean, the official did wave her over.

“It’s not a problem,” the young Syrian guy says, noticing it, too. But he does make a point of going in and standing right near the desk, so as to be sure to get the next spot.

But just then, the uniformed security return. They order him and the rest of us back outside, and they shut the door. One of the Syrian women defiantly pushes the door open again. They leave it open this time, as long as we stay back from the entrance.

Each interview, or processing, takes about 20 minutes. But it feels like forever, especially when you see all the other people waiting. At Desk 27, where I’ve kept my eyes glued, the Asian couple finally leaves. The two Syrian girls, Nos. 10 and and 11, go in. Their applications take a half hour. I wish I could give all these people names, but seriously — nobody has time for names. We’re not here to be friends: we’re here to get our damn papers stamped, with as little hassle as possible, and to get that residency permit in our hands.

While we’re waiting, I find myself thinking about Donald Trump and his Big, Beautiful Wall. I really wished Trump could be here and stand in this line. Maybe he could see what it was really like, to be an immigrant. And my story was nothing, at least compared to these Syrian refugees standing not two feet away. I mean, I was an immigrant by choice, at least.

It occurred to me that this big, ugly building — and immigration offices around the world — are nothing more, and nothing less, than thinly disguised Dream Factories. Hopes, aspirations for a better life, refuge from hardships: all of these things are processed here, and are forged through the shitty business of stamps, papers, long lines, boredom, frustration and stress. Oh, and not for free, of course.

By the time I finally get called, it’s nearly four o’clock. Friday afternoon, and the promise of the weekend hovers for everyone, including the Emniyet workers. The place has started to empty out a little bit, and people can see light at the end of the tunnel (touch wood).

My official takes all my papers and looks them over: The application form, proof of health insurance, address, marriage papers, a bank statement, four biometric photographs, etc. Everything is in order (Thank God! Nothing worse than being told you need some extra document — they’re always coming up with new ones — and having to leave after waiting for so long, get the necessary paper and come back).

He puts all my stuff in a pink folder, and instructs me to go downstairs to the cashier’s desk, pay the necessary application fees, then come back.

I rush downstairs to the first floor and find the cashier’s desks. You need to take a number. What? A number, just to pay? Come on!

But the machine has been turned off.

“They turn it off at 3:30,” an Iranian man says. He speaks perfect English and is sympathetic. He picks up an old, used number from the floor. “Here, try this.” He goes over to the cashier and, in perfect Turkish (sharp guy, this one), cooks up this story that I was there earlier but had not heard my number called.

The cashier isn’t buying it, though. He’s probably heard that one a million times.

“Monday! Come back Monday!” He says, waving his hand dismissively.

“Well, thanks for trying anyway,” I say to the Iranian man who tried to help.

“No problem,” he says. “It’s a really terrible system. They’re all just joking around, most of the time. The whole system could be a lot more efficient than it is.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Well, again, thanks for trying.”

“Sure, good luck!”

Outside, I call Orhan and he comes to pick me up. We head off into the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic. I’ve got a class back at the school at 6 o’clock, and it is now half past four.

“Did you get it?” Orhan asks.

“Nah — have to come back on Monday.”

“Shit!” Orhan is disgusted. “If they had let me come in with you, you would’ve gotten it.” He is convinced he could have found a way to get me through the queue quicker. He knows the ins and outs of the system, etc. Maybe, but I don’t see how — not unless you know somebody.

Orhan dropped me off at the metro bus, and I took it back across the Bosphorus to the Asian side, then got a taxi to the school. It was five thirty, and I had just enough time to grab something to eat before the lesson.

In total, the trip to the Emniyet had cost more than five hours of my day — all of it unpaid, of course (unless you factor in that I’m on salary). And I’d come away empty handed. I would have to get up very early on Monday, go all the way back to Fatih, (hopefully) get the residency permit, then go to work until 9 in the evening.

Well, I’m sure it works out the same for all the others. Maybe they had it much worse.

Anyway, as I said, anyone who wants to have a better understanding of immigration issues should try being an immigrant themselves. And unless you have been, whether in America, Turkey, or anywhere, you can never really understand it, let alone shape immigrant policy. It’s not Big Beautiful Walls that are needed, Mr. Trump. Think about Room D, where only half the desks were open. If all of them had been open, I and the others would have been in and out, and perfectly legal (and screened) much faster.

We need Better, Beautiful Service. After all, we are paying for it — that is, if the cashier will allow us.

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James Tressler, a former Lost Coast resident, is a writer and teacher living in Istanbul.