GUWonder

That means nothing about being more endurably blacklisted or about the haraSSSSment screening being related to a secondary customs search. The vast majority of times -- we are talking something above 98% of the time when it comes to US citizens who were selected for LON secondary on US-bound flights -- the flag screening at LON is unrelated to the CBP flagging on arrival in the US.

That in and of itself suggests nothing of that sort to me, and I know the formal arrangements for London-US travels way too well.

What is sort of suggestive is that the OP claims to be Muslim, but then it's only sort of suggestive to me only if the OP is amongst a huge proportion of Muslims who happen to have a first and last name that matches at least a million other individuals and wasn't a US passport user. The LON flagging that hits "Muslim-named" passengers (bound for the US on US-bound flights operated by US airlines) more frequently than other passengers on the same flights is mostly independent of being flagged for CBP secondary -- even when it comes to passengers who happen to have been hit by a secondary of one sort on one side of a LON-US flight and hit by a secondary of another sort for the the other of the flight.

Unless the OP has the same thing hit for the next two or three TATL trips or ends up with TSA haraSSSSment for more than 6-8 weeks, I would suggest that the OP has little to nothing to worry about over the matter. Most people in the OP's situation end up not having a recurrence of being selected for both types of secondary searches.

GUWonder

I doubt it will affect your ability to get GE unless you have a criminal record, have some history of customs/immigration non-compliance, or have somehow been put on some very special blacklists. If you apply and get conditionally approved, you're probably in the clear.

The issue with being "Muslim" is that a huge proportion of the various blacklists consist of "Muslim names" that lack a lot of other identifying details while lots of "Muslim names" are very common. I recall something like ten "Muslim" first and last name sets accounting for something like at least 30 million people. Use a massive blacklist that uses rather common names without having a lot of other PII, and some systems default to flagging a lot of people with "Muslim names". Given American Muslims with at least one foreign born parent or grandparent tend to be wealthier and better educated than the average American, I expect that American Muslims travel on TATL flights at a higher frequency than many other demographic groups and thus end up being hit more often in part due to that and in part due to the name commonality issues. That said, this doesn't in and of itself suggest being hit with secondaries on both sides is a common result; nor does it suggest that it is something to worry about.

Apply for GE, and if you get a conditional approval, you're probably in the clear.

Don't waste your time with DHS TRIP at this point.

Buy a refundable ticket on a US airline for a domestic US flight on the same carrier you flew from LON to the US; do online check-in. If you get your boarding pass to print out online, then you are almost certainly ok or going to be ok. [Don't forget to call up to cancel the check-in before flight, and remember to get a refund.]

FateSucks

Pretty sure the OP was profiled:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...bdc_story.html


The DHS and federal investigators can get away from it despite us being a melting pot!


Chicago and New York are especially horrible with this regard to anyone with dark hair or Mediterranean appearance (like me). And I am not even Muslim nor Middle Eastern.

I never got frisked or went through extra security but I have been watched closely by airport staff at both ORD and JFK when boarding my flight because they cannot figure out what am I even with my Spanish name and went through pre check that one time at JFK.

jphripjah

Non-Muslims and Caucasians are selected for SSSS security and secondary inspection all the time, without a stated reason. The mere fact that it happens to a Muslim, standing alone, shouldn't give rise to a conclusion that it must be profiling.

ou81two

There's a price to security sometimes unfortunately. I don't recall hearing of any Buddhists trying to bomb airplanes.

GUWonder

The chances of a perceived "Muslim" being flagged down by airport security screeners and/or by DHS (if/when different) are higher than for perceived "non-Muslims". And there really is no getting around the fact that innocent Muslim Americans flying London-US flights have a much higher rate of being selected for secondary screening at say Heathrow than perceived "non-Muslim" Caucasian Brits on the same flight. While being "white" and "non-Muslim" is no absolute immunity from haraSSSSment flags hitting at LON, it's some protection in that there are lower chances of being flagged.

cestmoi123

If Muslims should be subject to extra screening because they're more likely to commit terrorist acts than the population at large (even though a microscopic portion actually do), then we should be imposing extra screening on US soldiers and veterans, given their higher propensity to commit terrorist acts than the population at large (even though a microscopic percentage actually do).

GUWonder

If you don't recall, then you should get more familiar with history. Buddhist terrorists, state actors and otherwise, still exist too. It's no good reason to harass innocent Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or whatever.

FliesWay2Much

Yep -- You can blame mom & dad for permanently earning you points on the SPOTNik checklist. "Illegal alien" is right up there with cash and drugs as a constant threat to commercial aviation.

ss2000

Well, the flight was with British Airways and I don't plan on using them for a while. I do have about 6 more trips planned with AA in the upcoming few weeks including this weekend. Hopefully that issue is resolved.

To be honest, I would rather it be one time profiling than some other issue such as permanently being on a list.

Anyways, thanks for all the replies!

LETTERBOY

OP saying that could very well have made the CBP process more thorough than it was. And if the CBP officer had given the answer you propose, it still isn't terribly substantive.

Boggie Dog

Not trying to sound naive but what does a Muslim look like?

Harriet067

Hi. You are far from alone. Yes you are on a "list". This is happening to a lot of US citizens, including myself and my wife. HOWEVER, this is what you need to do. Homeland Security is aware that they are "listing" a lot of people for no valid reason other than somehow falling into some broad category. They have started a programme called Dept. of Homeland Security DHS Traveler redress Inquiry Program (DHS TRIP). Google it on the DHS website. It lists a lot of "Did the following happen to you?" situations like yours. You fill out a form and submit it together with your passport copy to DHS. They take 30 business days to "investigate" your situation. They DO NOT tell you if you were on a list and DO NOT tell you if they did anything about it. However, they do check you out and then advise you that any "errors" have been corrected. Bottom line is that they investigate you, figure out you are not a problem (I assume), and then you should not have this problem again. For anyone to whom this has happened or anything like being taken aside or being told there is a problem before issuing your bording pass, you should definitely bite the bullet and file the complaint with DHS and go through the process. You DO NOT want this to happen a year from now when you are in some oddball airport and have a problem then. Better to get it taken care of now. Good luck

GUWonder

DHS TRIP is certainly not what I would suggest doing at this point.

Not trying to sound naive, was your use of the Spanish word for "snow" a Freudian slip? "Oh, Snow White, where is your knight in shining armor?" "Oh, fair Snow White, they are working in DHS wanted-and-approved positions, inside or outside of government, all to protect you from those with the dark forces ."

Or is the above post's question some kind of attempt to support bigotry against a religious group on the basis of members of that religious group having various ethnic backgrounds (most of which are non-European ethnic backgrounds)?

Male or female? With or without clothes? By looking at or hearing a name? By the way someone speaks or even writes? Connect enough dots -- even just some physical or electronic ones -- and some people can figure out from some looks that a person may be of Muslim heritage and can have a rather low or high false positive rate in making such ethno-religious determinations.

Racist profiling is used to target Muslims. Whether or not the racist profiling against Muslims results in increased or decreased false positive or false negative matching of religious and/or ethnic identities against an individual or collection of individuals, it's still racist profiling in the same sense that anti-semitic profiling is a form of both racist and religious bigotry since anti-semitism is racism.

If the USG is free to harass law-abiding people on the basis of religious affiliation, that is but a backdoors way of having the state play favor with religions and create state-backed religion(s) and state-opposed religion(s). Last I checked, the US was founded in opposition to governmental religious gimmickry of this sort. See the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution.

All this said, some people have the OP's kind of experience even when not the target of ethnic and/or religious bigotry/racist profiling.

Most American Muslim passengers flying London-US routes don't have all of that kind of experience as mentioned by the OP -- although if they travel enough, eventually the double whammy hits even as that doesn't become routine for the individuals.

Boggie Dog

Excuse the misspell, certainly wasn't my intention. I don't know if you are speaking tongue in cheek or actually taking me to task for my question.

If not tongue in cheek I certainly don't appreciate any suggestion that I was acting in a bigoted manner.