Why I Will Never, Ever, Go Back to the United States

[avebury]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/niels-gerson-lohman/us-border-crossing_b_4098130.html

This article reminds me of an experience I had with Immigration at the end of a Caribbean Cruise in San Juan, Puerto Rico a few years ago before all the current upheaval in the Middle East.

In July of that year I finally got to go on my dream trip to Egypt and Jordan (to see Petra) on a group tour. In Sept. I was able to go on a 7 day Caribbean cruise out of San Juan. When I disembarked from the ship and went through Immigration, the guy asked (rather aggressively) "Where have you been?" Of course I am thinking a Caribbean Cruise so I start to list the island we visited. Then they guy was like No No No and he flips open my passport and start stabbing his finger at it. I look at what he is pointing at and, of course, see that he is pointing at my visa stamp for Egypt. Now I am thinking "Oh Crap, you have got to be kidding." My response was I went in July to see the pyramids, cruise the Nile, see Petra on vacation. All I could think of was is this what I am going to face every time I travel now?

[djean111]

1. Oh, years ago, in the '90s, I was working in Den Haag, and the security guards at Schiphol

pulled people out of line if they had been in the Middle East or had made trips to the U.S. and the Middle East in what they considered a short time-frame. They demanded letters from the Dutch company i was working with so they could verify my reason for being in Holland. Wanted to know why I was taking work away from a Dutch person, too, but that's another issue.

I had my passport stolen (by Europeans, judging by accents) in Tokyo (worked there too) - and every time I traveled to Japan after that, I was escorted into a room by Japanese security and asked to explain why I had a letter stapled into my new passport that explained (I assume) why I was missing an entrance stamp from a previous trip.

The U.S. is not the only country that does this sort of thing.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Face, meet boot.

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." - George Orwell

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Yeah...

my personal experience of border agents has been...much worse returning to the USA from abroad than going through passport control in any foreign country; coming back from Amsterdam to Atlanta I had to answer an aggressive questioning..."where were you, what were you doing, what do you do for a living", etc. Much more aggressive and intrusive and hostile than anything I faced elsewhere.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Long before 9/11, every time...

I left the country it was no problem.

Coming back, however...

Invariably there was the interrogation over where I had been (Europe didn't stamp passports back then) what I was doing there, and the assumption that I was up to no good. I plan on going to Europe again next year and dread the thought of airlines and security.

After 9/11, I had to go to Montreal and went through another interrogation on the way back. Now I hear there's a whole megilla on the highway before you even get to the border.

What grates most is the "Welcome home" through gritted teeth.

[IrishAyes]

5. While things definitely would be harder for me than they once were,

it should be appalling to anyone how easily I could've gotten away with all sorts of mayhem in the past if I'd been so inclined. I'm a tiny blonde, blue-eyed female who naturally 'presents soft' as the shrinks would say. One of my favorite games used to be trying to see how many places I could access where I wasn't officially allowed. I swear, when the spirit moves me I could almost make myself invisible; or failing that, use my favorite idiot grin to disarm suspicion. Add to that some later mileage and I'd still stand a better chance getting through than a younger male, especially one with a beard or pronounced accent.

I'm only telling these things to point out how fallible profiling can be. As an individual I happen to be harmless unless under immediate and serious attack, and I certainly wouldn't be talking this way in public if it were not so. It just bothers me more than a little when innocent travelers can face such assault by power mad martinets. Excuse me if I'm not explaining this very well. It just makes me so angry and disheartened.

I also don't appreciate how in any kind of crowd, if there was one white supremacist type present, he'd try to latch onto me at first sight because he stupidly assumed someone who looked like him would welcome his attention. I'm sure the same dynamic goes on today with younger folks, because human nature doesn't change.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. That's a damn shame.

I can see why anyone who travels a lot would be leery of coming here. They're so suspicious of everyone, even Americans. It's probably going to get hard for Americans to travel to other countries, too. I'm sure they don't like how they're own citizens are treated when they come here.

[brooklynite]

7. Never been bothered by inbound Immigration...

...and I have visas for Russia, Syria, Jordan and Uzbekistan in my passport.

[JCMach1]

8. The worst questioning I ever had was British border control... never had any issues

with US Immigration other than their scripted questions.

And, you have to realize my PP has stamps from all over the Middle-East and Africa including some terrorism hotbeds.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. For me entering and exiting the UK have been the most intrusive of my adult life.

My heritage bothers them, and they say so clearly. Some very comical as well as obnoxious behaviors.
The very worst were the border folks at the old East German border. They were mean to my Mom and pointed guns at me. I was 12. Always with the guns.