News: Detained at US Immigration. So I Am Not the Only One!
One of the most popular short stories on "The Road to the Horizon", is "The Day I Got Exiled from the US". This non-fiction piece states the dry facts of my detention at Dulles Airport, and in the end of my deportation from the US. I have not been able to get a tourist visa ever since, and nowadays can only get into the US for work on my diplomatic visa. Not without being interviewed each time.
And I am not the only one (and not the only diplomat) having problems with US immigration, apparently. The BBC reports how Shahid Malik - a Muslim Member of Parliament and the UK's current International Development Minister - was detained at Dulles Airport (Washington DC). He said the same thing happened to him at JFK airport in New York last year.
The funny thing is Shahid Malik was in the US as a keynote speaker at an event organised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alongside the FBI and Muslim organisations, to talk about tackling extremism and defeating terrorism.
I am extatic the world is so much of a safier place now!
Picture courtesy IWS.
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Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order.
1 comments:
I crossed into the US by minibus from Canada to the Buffalo airport last year. It is always a treat to share the customs and immigration interrogation process with a busload of strangers. Privacy? Not here.
A distinguished gentleman on the bus turned out to be a retired Canadian military officer. He had been invited by the US Air Force to brief them on a subject he did not wish to discuss, but which was apparently important enough for them to fly him to the meeting. He showed them some paperwork confirming this.
"Are you being paid to do this work?" - No.
"Who is paying for the flight to Washington?" - The US Air Force
"Then you are being compensated. You do not have a visa to work in the US. Come with us."
We proceeded on to the airport without him.
I can't help but wonder how it is in the interest of the country to prevent or delay an expert from sharing his expertise with the US Air Force.
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