I was reading abt that lady in Las Vegas who’se father was denied entry and send back to Germany after 12 hours of questioning by officials.
I have also heard from a friend that a cousin of his travelling to the US last week was harassed by officials and questioned for 5 hours about “why do you want to come here?”
Is this common behavior? Its rather off putting, and I really planned to visit America this year.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
Speaking from personal experience, nothing like that's ever happened to me or my parents or my relatives. I've been to Pakistan sevearl times since 9/11, dad's been to pakistan 3-4 times a year since then..no incident to speak of whatsoever.
I think maybe these are isolated incidents, perhaps they were victims of discrimination and racist, cranky airport officials..
OR (here's a stretch) maybe they WERE guilty of something. Using a "I know someone who knows someone who knows someone" is never a good reference: we don't know the whole story and wat the circumstances were.
Now watch some ppl come in here and complain that Muslms are persecuted and can do absolutely NO wrong and that I'm western-brainwashed etc :D
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
It varies so much depending on who the person behidn the counter is.
Travelling on my british passport, I've had no problems ever, even when the guy at the counter raised an eyebrow at the army of stamps from Bahrain, the UAE and Pakistan in my passport. All he did was ask if I held a passport from any other country and then let me in (I said I didn't hold a valid passport from any other country.... which is true since my pakistani passport expired 10 years ago and I haven't renewed it).
On the other hand, an uncle of mine in the US, while driving from Canada to the US was detained for 6 hours. He has been a US citizen since 1980, he had his Irish-American catholic wife travelling with him, he was in an expensive luxury car, and he's a senior executive at the biggest company in the state he was travelling to (and lived in) - far from fitting any profile of any kind of a threat.
The questioning was getting very aggressive and eventually only ended because he's also a long-term republican party member and has friends in high places who his wife phoned for help.
Oh and he has a beard. Brown guy with a beard...
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
I was questioned for 2.5 hours, Not 5 hours, probably my questions were easier ;), The embarrassing moments came twice, first when the guy from the border security force had to pin point me in the queue and pull me out in front of the fellow passengers, and take me to a special interrogation room, and secondly when he opened his cabinet and pulled a pair of sterilized gloves :).
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
My brother in law was questioned for a couple of hours. He had his pockets emptied and wallet checked. A dua in arabic (can't remember what it was but mostprobably safar kee dua) on a piece of paper had the officer concerned and he wanted to have him translate it. Needless to say he couldnt which concerned the officer even more. He had to fax that piece of paper somewhere to have it translated for him.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
The first story (LV one) is not “so and so said”-its in the press.
( http://www.turnto23.com/news/10652347/detail.html )
As for the 2nd one, my friend has no reason to lie. He is an educated and honest guy, as is the rest of his family.
Sara I hear what your saying, isolated incidents and all, but truly being questioned for hours on end must really scare the life out of you. I mean its crazy.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
No I dont think so , being on a flight for 18 hours, with no one to talk to, I found the experience quite pleasent.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
the assholes at JFK wanted to finger print my 9 month old daughter because her name matched with or was similar to some damn terrorist.
It was really not some homeland security policy, the guy at the immigration desk was very polite and apologizd saying that we just need to go through secondary clearance and it should be quick.
The chip on the shoulder black woman who was sitting there and the seregant egghead redneck insisted that she be finger printed, until other officers got up in their face and told them they they were full of shyt and there is no precedence to fingerprint a 9 month old baby.
So, its less the law, but more about the ignorant assholes working our immigration desks especially in NYC. immigration really needs to do a better job of training and screening these folks. Majority of these guys are hard working professionals, but there are racist morons who take great pleasure in harassing people.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
Varying experiences.
Printing a 9 mo child.
Nonsense!
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
Fear leads to anger
anger leads to hate
Hate leads to suffering
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
They irritate all people. Are they humans?
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
My experience is pretty steady. No unusual interrogation. There are additional procedures done to those with Pak passport, including secondary interview. Doesn't matter whether you are the CEO of the largest company in the world or drive a Ferrari; it won't change.
Best is to remain polite and calm, answer the questions and let the immigration folks finish your case and let you go as soon as possible. Anyone trying to pull ranks, or getting offended or acting like a smartass will find the wait time increase and entry process getting lengthier.
Last time I had my immigration done in SF and travelling with my family I could visibly see how each and every immigration person was trying to work the case as quickly as they can; offered soda and snacks to the entire family (we spent about 30 minutes extra on this). They apologized to me like a zillion times during the process, and the customs guy was in so much hurry to let us out that despite seeing a huge load of luggage he merely stamped the customs form and told me "sir, you have already spent enough time at the airport after your long flight. Welcome to America!"
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
Airport officials at NY almost always seperate Pakistani men coming from Pakistan and run them through the grinder... Whether your a citizen or a foreign national is irrelevant, everyone is potential terrorist...
Its annoying and demeaning, but that life in post 9/11 America.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
These things are happening to Muslim travellers in america. They will get worse as new-cons' eye-racky invasion further gets out of hand.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
Luckily not, but I still get the jitters when travelling in/out of the US - they make you feel like a criminal even if you're not one. Makes me not want to travel to the US. The last time though, the nice man stamped an extended visa on my passport, which confused me since I didnt plan to stay longer than the expiry date. Luckily though, while I was there I decided to stay a few weeks longer so it worked out well.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
They’ll tend to ease off when they see a well educated girl like yourself who just may happen to know the right people as oppose to miss pakistani who I’m not saying is clueluess but would make a easier target for them.
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
at chicago, I am always greeted by the immigration people as “welcome home”
I generally dont like JFK and the assclowns working there because of their attitude.
while I agree that one does not need to be offended, or be a smart ass, but the immigration people need to be professional and not punks.
The experience at JFK was bad .. I needed to be cleared and my daughter needed to be cleared, the guy who took us to secondary screening put all our passpors together at the top of the queue, the rather large and power crazed black woman asked him why he was putting me in front, and he said, I just want to keep the family together and have them processed quickly as this is a prcedural issue only. She said 'what about all these other people waiting" he responded " the girl is 9 months old, the mother is a US citizen, father is a permanent resident, teh system has flagged the baby’s name, in my view they get priority"
he leaves, she picks up our file and sets it to the side, wont work on it and will not let anyone else work on it, then sergeant redneck comes by and tells us t be ready to get her finger printed, we went to teh finger print place and the gusy are like, what? this is insane, who wanted you to come here and have her finger printed, they get in the sergeant redneck’s face, kaloo bhaloo gets up and goes to talk to some of her superior, meanwhile systems go down and stay down for 2 hours..systems come back on line..we are still stuck, this other dude shows up and asks her for our folder, she says she is going to work on it, he says, have you started on this yet, she says yes, he asks, what have you done so far, she is quiet, he grabs the file, goes to a different workstation, and clars us in 20 seconds, apologizes for the delay, as we leave we see sergeant redneck yell at a long line of people who are stuck due to the systems shutdown and are asking how long it would take. He threatens some guy “do you want me to take you to a place where you can complain huh?” .. as we leave we see the guy who had brought us in from the immigration desk and he just waved at us, I waved back.
so..good and bad both at one place, the people like sergant redneck and kaloo bhaloo need to be working somewhere where they do not have to deal with human beings
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
btw the only country were I was threatened to be deported from was Pakistan :D
Re: Anti Muslim discrimination at US airports?
^
better than being sent to gitmo.