I'm annoyed with the direction things are taking with immigration (enemies, deported)
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Being profiled at airports has been going on for a long time and it’s not just in the U.S.
It is commonplace in Europe that if you look Middle-Eastern or Muslim, then you will be given greater scrutiny at checkpoints and may even be subject to an unreasonable search or detention. You may think this is unfair, but countries do what they feel they have to for security.
My primary concern is that I hope this is just an isolated incident and not the sign of a trend to unfairly treat certain groups of people, such as Latinos. My concern, of course, comes from all the anti-Mexico rhetoric coming from the Trump administration over the past year and a half. It's easy to see this evolving into a general bias against central/south america. Again, hopefully this is not the case.
But it needs to be ensured that the treatment of passengers needs to be applied equally and fairly across all passengers, without bias against any particular groups for religion, ethnicity or gender.
If they had detained her for 30 minutes or an hour, then I wouldn't have started this thread. But the length of it and the fact that by their own admission she didn't do anything wrong, there's something about this that raises a red flag to me.
I don't necessarily agree with you. There are certain countries that are known for terrorism and drugs. So, I think people coming from those countries do rate more scrutiny. However, in this case she was a U.S. citizen aside from the fact that she wasn't born here so I don't think it was necessary. The thing that puzzles me is why would she bring products here from a foreign country that are not allowed. Surely, she knew the rules.
I'm going to express my frustration and anger with the direction things are taking. We have a friend who is Colombian, this lady is a naturalized U.S. citizen, she is in her 60s and has been working her entire career at Stanford University. She travels internationally for work occasionally, and she also goes back to visit her family in Colombia once a year.
She just got back from such a visit, flying into San Francisco, and apparently had a very bad experience with immigration. They took her passports and detained her for six hours before allowing her in. I'm not sure about the details, but according to her nothing like this had ever happened to her before and apparently there was no reason for it other than to harass people coming from South America.
This morning she's back at work at Stanford. So, what was the point of immigration giving her a hard time yesterday?
I have to say I'm very disappointed. I'm not alone in thinking that we're headed in a bad direction. This isn't the U.S. we grew up with, is it? I remember growing up, and although there was a lot of racism and issues, there was also a very open-minded melting-pot mentality. We were diversified and we embraced it.
That was then. This is now.
When a US citizen re-enters the US, even a naturalized one, they present only their US passport. Why did she present more than one? Seems she caused the confusion herself.
My primary concern is that I hope this is just an isolated incident and not the sign of a trend to unfairly treat certain groups of people, such as Latinos. My concern, of course, comes from all the anti-Mexico rhetoric coming from the Trump administration over the past year and a half. It's easy to see this evolving into a general bias against central/south america. Again, hopefully this is not the case.
But it needs to be ensured that the treatment of passengers needs to be applied equally and fairly across all passengers, without bias against any particular groups for religion, ethnicity or gender.
If they had detained her for 30 minutes or an hour, then I wouldn't have started this thread. But the length of it and the fact that by their own admission she didn't do anything wrong, there's something about this that raises a red flag to me.
I agree that 6 hours is excessive and that it suggests incompetence and possibly worse but I'd start with incompetence. Still, I'd distinguish here between the red flag it raises for you in a political sense and the practical implications for your friend.
Selective screening programs will absolutely continue and be "random" only after subgroups are set up for various risk categories. At some point, computer-driven algorithms take over. The fact that she didn't do anything wrong or fit completely into some commonly-held profile of, say, a drug-smuggler is irrelevant.
Repeat trips to Colombia (even a year apart) and "food products" may have been a bad combination at SFO at that particular time. You still haven't identified the food products. Did you take a look at the Customs food regulation link? Match that language with possibly complex, unknown product ingredients with an untrained agent and the result may not be positive. Were English translations available (on the packaging)? That you wrote agents came and went and asked various odd-ball questions along the way suggests that once programmatically-triggered no one person may wanted to deal with a sign-off.
It IS to your friend's advantage to try to figure it out if only to avoid a repeat. No more food from Colombia. If this happens again (but only at that time), I'd suggest she call her Congressperson for practical assistance in getting off a list.
DD got onto the watch list because of a bad combination, although it took 8 years to make it there from an FBI file. A then-Chinese citizen having contact with a someone in the nuclear field holding a top security clearance clicked. That she was under 4 yo at the time of reportable contact (before she became a citizen) and a then-12 yo US citizen when she became un-flyable didn't matter.
Sure common-sense told Customs your 60-yo friend wasn't smuggling drugs just like my 12-yo wasn't a Chinese spy who was a threat to US aviation but it does not matter once you've been selected in. I'm not a terrorist, repeat transits thru Turkey or not.
Now I appreciate your concern that there was an underlying agenda and perhaps I'm naive here but I really don't think one would be directed against individual US citizens in that situation. Others, yes, but only those less able to defend themselves than your friend.
Last edited by EveryLady; 07-26-2018 at 01:29 PM..
No surprise. Trump's supporters see Hispanics as the new bogiemen. It's just a resurgence of the old Nativism that dates back to the 19th century and heavily fell along the Mason-Dixon line.
The reality is that the Trump supporters in the heartland in general are good, generous hard working people. In fact when they actually have to deal one-on-one with a brown person, the vast majority of the time it is with mutual respect. The crazed wingnuts that post on this forum have little resemblance to 95% of real life Trump supporters - I know because I have lived with them all my life.
What it comes down to is that the average American, not just Trump supporters, have precious few critical thinking skills these days. This is why it was so easy for a con-man like Trump to convince so many people that he was the second coming of American Greatness. It is exactly the same reason why Americans have such an enormous debt load; we have been dumbed down for decades, in preparation to be fleeced out of our last red penny.
Last edited by GearHeadDave; 07-26-2018 at 01:58 PM..
When a US citizen re-enters the US, even a naturalized one, they present only their US passport. Why did she present more than one? Seems she caused the confusion herself.
He said that Customs took both passports, seemingly at detention; I think it's fairly common for dual-passport holders to use one for entry to the former "home" country and the other on return???
But good catch on the "s." The fact that she was a dual passport holder, if that's the case, might have increased the likelihood of "selection."
Found myself thinking about this again with a slightly new slant. Funny how that happens.
I still think it unlikely that your friend was deliberately kept for 6 hours. But if say she was initially selected because of food (into a Colombia - food - possible drug selectee pool) then no one worked very hard to clear her. Sure it might not have been a fast sign-off if as I've wondered there was a need to wade thru ingredients even after the food scanned free of drug residue. (Again assuming that was an issue, of course.)
So much easier to instead ask her odd questions then take a pass.
If that's how it played out, no doubt the agents could have buckled down and figured it out but weren't willing to put the effort in until she came up against "closing time." A lot of room here for bias to creep in even if it's not exactly "deliberate." As I've mentioned earlier, it often the case that various personnel can choose to give you a hard time or alternatively work to help you out.
Imagine how inconvenient being murdered by an illegal is. I feel a bit worse for them.
Seriously? Imagine how inconvenient it is being murdered by a legal citizen.
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