Man. Stuff like this is why I get anxious every time we visit the States. The Snook already suffers the indignity of frequent “random” bag searches and being fingerprinted upon arrival (as all Australians do). I can just see some jerkass immigration official deciding he visits too often and throwing him in jail.
Important Note
This site features content going all the way back to 2000. The posts you’ll read reflect my views and writing style at the time. While I have gone back to clean up a few of them, I think it’s important not to sanitise too much. This site is a record of who I am and how I’ve grown. Any blog post written years ago may not reflect who I am today, nor how I would write about the same topic today.
Comments
5 responses to “Detention”
Crap, that makes the so-called non-existent racial profiling and pat down that I am subjected to each time seem like a fun time.
If they are stating 3300 people were rejected, I can only imagine what the real number is.
That is so scary. I don’t think Hans was fingerprinted, but he was “randomly” chosen for the all-but-strip search on every flight but one, I think. Poor guy.
All Aussies get photographed and fingerprinted. And if this is what we do to our allies and friends, imagine what it’s like for everyone else…
I gather so do all Brits. Gets to be a bit of a dealbreaker for those of us with no special reason (eg a web-goddess!) to enter the US.
Though, it’s easy to be unaware of how it is to enter our own countries for those who aren’t citizens. (Speaking as a UK citizen, and in terms largely of inconvenience and irritation). I feel more anxious in US airports than, say, Australian ones, however.
I stand corrected. When I told him about this article and asked, he said that he WAS fingerprinted. Don’t know where I was! But he seemed more concerned about the news of border security being able to search laptops without cause.